It was supposed to be another stop on the road for Jimi Hendrix — but a festival marred by violence and chaos would become the rock legend’s final official concert performance.
Eric Barrett, who was Hendrix’s roadie and confidant from 1968 to 1970, has written a memoir, “Experienced: On the Road with Jimi Hendrix and Beyond.” Barrett went on to spend nearly five decades working behind the scenes with other iconic artists, including Madonna, David Bowie and Aerosmith.
“We were playing on the Isle of Fehmarn, and the Hells Angels had taken over,” Barrett recalled to Fox News Digital. “There was no control. It was a scary place to be. We had two cars there waiting to get us off the island and go back to London. But the Hells Angels didn’t want us to get off the island. They wanted the boys to stay and party. And then it got violent.”
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According to Barrett’s book, hundreds of Hells Angels descended on the island and took over the venue. He wrote that many fans who had been camping out were “beaten and robbed” as festival security was chased off. Hendrix, he said, took one look at the mayhem and retreated to his room “alone, sober.” The outlaw motorcycle club had taken over.
The next day, Hendrix took the stage and was met with boos. He told the hostile audience, “I don’t give a f— if you boo, as long as you boo in key, you mothers,” before chuckling. When he was done, Hendrix told the audience, “Thank you, goodbye. Peace!”
Barrett ushered Hendrix and the band off the stage toward the waiting cars. Barrett was eager to get out. But then the bikers surrounded them.
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“I saw a Hells Angel about to hit [tour manager] Gerry Stickells over the head with this baton,” said Barrett. “I put my arm up to take the blow. I nearly passed out from the pain, but imagine if it had landed on Gerry’s skull? We managed to get inside the car. Jimi kept looking at me because he saw me take the blow. He just said to me, ‘Are you OK, Eric? Are you OK?’ He kept asking me if I was OK. That’s just the kind of man he was. And… that was the last thing he ever said to me.”
On Sept. 18, 1970, paramedics arrived at Monika Dannemann’s apartment at the Samarkand Hotel in London and found Hendrix unresponsive. He was 27.
Stickells broke the news to Barrett.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Barrett. “I remember walking around London in a fog. It was a stupid, tragic accident. He took too many of [girlfriend] Monika Dannemann’s sleeping pills. She supposedly had these incredibly powerful German tranquilizers. And she said he took nine of them. She couldn’t wake him. She called Eric Burdon of The Animals, who was a good friend of Jimi’s. He screamed at her, ‘Call the f—–g ambulance!'”
“What I’m being told was the ambulance guys … laid him on his back, and he threw up,” said Barrett. “He asphyxiated. That was the accident. The pills were the accident. Tragedy was him dying.”
In the book, Barrett wrote, “The paramedics arrived but couldn’t revive Jimi. They carried him out on a stretcher to the ambulance, assuring Monika that he was going to be all right. Either lying in bed on his back or on the way to the hospital, Jimi threw up on himself. The post-mortem concluded that Jimi had died of asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates.”
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“… I flashed back to the time I took too much Mandrax, and my girlfriend couldn’t wake me up,” he wrote. “It was easily done and could’ve happened to any of us in Jimi’s group of friends. That it happened to Jimi himself was heartbreaking. But I’ve never heard anything to make me think Jimi’s death was anything other than what it appeared.”
Barrett firmly rejected the rumors and conspiracy theories that have surrounded Hendrix’s death for decades. Among them was an allegation by former roadie James “Tappy” Wright, who wrote in his 2009 memoir, “Rock Roadie,” that Hendrix’s manager, Mike Jeffery, confessed to killing Hendrix, The Guardian reported.
Barrett strongly disputes Wright’s account and rejects any suggestion that Hendrix was murdered.
“I don’t believe for a second that Mike Jeffery was the cause of Jimi’s death,” he said. “I just don’t believe it. The circumstances don’t add up. And I was told by so many people that Tappy only wrote that to try and sell books. But I’ve never believed it. I will never believe it. I was there, and right now I’m probably the last man standing. All the lads are passing. So no, I wouldn’t believe that for a second.”
Jeffery died in a plane crash near Nantes, France, in 1973.
Dannemann died in an apparent suicide in 1996, two days after she was found guilty of contempt of court in a long-running legal dispute with Kathy Etchingham, another former girlfriend of Hendrix’s. She was 50.
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Barrett said that shortly after Hendrix’s death, he lied to reporters about Hendrix’s drug use.
“I was, what, 24 when he passed?” said Barrett. “I didn’t want to besmirch his memory. So I lied. I just wanted people to see him in a good light. But I came to realize as I got older that I didn’t have to lie. Yes, he took drugs. Did he take heroin? I’ve never seen heroin anywhere near him. I’ve worked on many backstages for almost 50 years. I know it’s a drug that has killed a lot of musicians. But I don’t believe Jimi was taking it. He smoked pot. He took a lot of LSD. He took pills. But I don’t believe he was into heroin.”
Looking back, Barrett described Hendrix as “a wild man” on stage. The musician was famous for playing the guitar behind his head and with his teeth. He would also smash guitars and amps during encores and, on occasion, set his guitar on fire. But when the shows were over and audiences had long since left, Hendrix was a “quiet, mild-mannered, polite young man.”
“He talked to everyone,” he said. “He was very charming. And he was shy. People were in awe of Jimi. And when he had his guitar around his neck, over his shoulder, he was comfortable. That was his crutch. But I also remember Paul McCartney walking towards him, and he’s gasping, ‘It’s Paul McCartney!’ He was just a shy man who didn’t know how to take the accolades of his talent.”
“I have so many memories of that wonderful man,” Barrett continued. “I remember we were all staying in Benedict Canyon and it was my birthday. We were all hanging out by the pool, and Jimi came out in no shirt, just velvet pants. He goes, ‘Eric, Eric!’ I responded, ‘Hey Jimi, what do you need?’ He smiled and went, ‘Happy birthday, man. Here’s some money. Go and buy yourself something you really want.’ He gave me $500, which was a huge amount back then.”
“I went to North Beach Leathers, a place I’d seen Jimi had bought some clothes from. I bought myself this long leather coat, spent all my money on it. It was the best gift I ever bought. When I came back, he loved it. He went, ‘Wow, that’s a coat! I wish I had seen that before you.'”
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Barrett said he carries “beautiful memories” of Hendrix. One in particular has never left him.
“I was on a plane with him after a show,” he said. “Jimi looked at me and said, ‘Eric, what do you think, will they remember me?’ I was flabbergasted. I went, ‘Will they remember you? You’re huge over here.’ But he was so insecure. ‘Are you sure, Eric? What if the kids don’t come?’ I just told him, ‘When it comes to success, you have nothing to worry about.’ That was Jimi, a gift to the Earth from the Lord. And I miss him.”
