Forty far-out facts you never knew about Woodstock

Woodstock, the most famous music festival in rock 'n' roll history, took place 40 years ago on August 15-18, 1969. To celebrate, here are 40 things you didn't know about it...
1. Beatniks, hippies, flower children and rock legends gathered together not in Woodstock, but in the little town of Bethel, rural New York State.
2. The idea for the festival came from band manager Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld, a songwriter turned record company executive. They wanted to raise money to build a recording studio in Woodstock, upstate New York, a haven for artists including Bob Dylan, The Band and Van Morrison.
3. There was no suitable site in Woodstock, so organisers opted for Wallkill, 40 miles away. But residents blocked their plans, so dairy farmer Max Yasgur stepped in to offer his alfalfa field, in the neighbouring hamlet of Bethel. A deal was struck for $75,000. 

Peace and love: closed the festival with a rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner

4. Melanie Safka (remember 'I've got a brand new pair of rollerskates'?) failed to get a performer's pass and had to sing her song, Beautiful People, to the security guards to get backstage.
5. Joni Mitchell wrote the festival's eponymous song, with the lyrics 'We are stardust we are golden', from what she heard of the event from then-boyfriend Graham Nash, ex-Hollies and one quarter of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. But she never made it to Woodstock. Taking the advice of her manager, she chose to guest on the Dick Cavett Show and then watched the festival unfold on TV, tears streaming down her face.
6. Any decent flower child worth their name was there to protest against the Vietnam war abroad and racial tension at home.
7. With storm clouds approaching, the crowd was urged: 'Let's think hard to get rid of the rain.' A chant went up: 'No rain, no rain, no rain.' But it didn't stop the deluge and in three hours, five inches of rain fell and the festival became a mudfest. Joan Baez famously sang 'We shall overcome' during a full-on thunderstorm.
8. During the downpour there were fears some artists would get electrocuted. Alvin Lee, of Ten Years After, was warned of the risk as it was still raining when his turn came to go on. 'Oh come on, if I get electrocuted at Woodstock we'll sell lots of records,' he said.

Joe Cocker entertains the masses

9. The performance of The Star-Spangled Banner by that closed Woodstock was described by the rock critic from the New York Post as 'the single greatest moment of the Sixties'. Yet it was witnessed by just a fraction of the crowd. Most had gone home by the time Hendrix came on stage, at 9am on a Monday morning.
10. British artists were represented by Ten Years After, The Who, The Incredible String Band, the Keef Hartley Band, Graham Nash and Mitch Mitchell, drummer in 's band.
11. The British artist who really made his mark was Joe Cocker, whose soulful rendition of The Beatles song With A Little Help From My Friends was one of the greatest performances.
12. Thirty-two bands were listed to play, but Iron Butterfly got stuck at the airport and didn't make it because the helicopter booked to ferry them to the site didn't arrive. Organisers were, in fact, worried their hippy heavy-metal music would incite violence.
13. The Jeff Beck Group, featuring Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, were booked to play, but they split acrimoniously on the eve of their Woodstock appearance.
14. John Lennon told organisers he had wanted to be a part of Woodstock, but he was in Canada and the U.S. government had refused him an entry visa.
15. There were ten million yards of blue jeans and striped T-shirt material at Woodstock.
16. The dove perched on a guitar neck in the famous poster announcing 'Three Days of Peace and Music' is really a catbird, an American perching bird known for its catlike calls.
17. Though Bob Dylan was one of the original inspirations for the festival, and his backing group, The Band, played to the massive audience, the great man never made it, as one of his children was hospitalised over that weekend.
18. Scottish folk quartet The Incredible String Band told writer Mark Ellen about appearing on the Woodstock stage. 'It was incredibly high and three out of the four of us had vertigo. Little flimsy dresses on the girls, acoustic guitars out of tune, the drums damp from the tent, it was like playing off the Forth Bridge to this sea of people cooking beans in the mud.'
19. Eight women suffered miscarriages, while there are varying reports of babies born. John Sebastian, lead singer with Lovin' Spoonful, announced from
the stage: 'Some cat's old lady just had a baby, a kid destined to be far out!' Reports suggest a birth at a local hospital to a mother flown from the event by helicopter and another involving a woman in a car in the nine-mile traffic jam.
20. 'Hippy' is derived from 'hipster' and was used to describe beatniks who moved to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district for the Summer of Love in 1967. Yippies (the left-wing Youth International Party led by Abbie Hoffman) were sufficiently motivated by money to demand $10,000 from Woodstock's organisers to avoid any unpleasant disruption of proceedings.

A biker grabs a snooze in between acts

21. The organisers played down the numbers they anticipated, telling the authorities they expected 50,000, while selling 186,000 tickets in advance (costing six dollars for each day) and planning for 200,000. In the end 500,000 attended. Another million had to turn back because of traffic. It was originally advertised as 'A Weekend in the Country.'
22. As an unknown and unproven business concern, the organisers, Woodstock Ventures, had to pay inflated sums to get the top rockers to sign up. Jefferson Airplane were the first, paid $12,000, double their usual fee. Even hippy band The Grateful Dead demanded cash in hand before they would play, as did Janis Joplin and The Who.
23. Off-duty police officers were banned from providing security, so a New Mexico commune known as the Hog Farm were hired to form a 'Please Force.' The Hog Farmers were led by Wavy Gravy, a toothless former beatnik comic, who put on a Smokey-the-Bear suit and warned troublemakers they would be doused in fizzy water or hit with custard pies.
24. About two dozen ticket booths should have been in place to charge $24 admission, but they were never installed because of the crush of festival-goers. Attempts to get people to pay were abandoned on day one, the fences were torn down and Woodstock was declared a free event.
25. As well as forming the Please Force, The Hog Farm were in charge of catering, ordering in bushels of brown rice, buying 160,000 paper plates, forks, knives and spoons and 30,000 paper cups. They fed between 160,000-190,000 people at the Hog Farm Free Kitchen, 5,000 at a time.
26. The Food For Love concession was running low on burgers so it raised prices from 25 cents to $1. Festival-goers saw it as capitalist exploitation, against the spirit of the festival, so burnt the stand down.
27. Hearing there was a shortage of food, a Jewish community centre made sandwiches with 200 loaves of bread, 40 pounds of meat cuts and two gallons of pickles, which were distributed by nuns. 

The audience stand in the rain as the show goes on

28. Sweetwater, a psychedelic rock band scheduled to open the festival, were stuck in traffic. Instead, the crowd was entertained by one of the Hog Farmers, who led them through a series of yoga exercises. Sweetwater were on fifth.
29. With the festival start-time running over an hour late, there was panic to find a performer ready. Tim Hardin, (who later died of a heroin overdose), was too stoned, so Richie Havens went on. When Havens finished his set he kept trying to leave but was told to do more encores as the next band was not ready. His song Freedom was improvised and became a worldwide hit.
30. Though the festival mood was anti-war, ironically the festival would most likely have turned to tragedy without the U.S. Army, who airlifted in food, medical teams and performers. The hippy crowd was told: 'They are with us man, they are not against us. Forty five doctors or more are here without pay because they dig what this is into.'
31. John Sebastian's performance was unexpected. Spotted visiting backstage, he was urged to appear. He admitted he had smoked a joint and taken LSD, which could explain his shambolic performance, shouting: 'Far out! Far up! Far down! Far around! You're really amazing, you're a whole city.'
32. The revolving stage was designed to minimise wait-times, turning when one act finished with the equipment in place for the next one. But it could not support the weight of so many people on the side of the stage watching the performances, and the wheels fell off. 'Grace Slick and Janis Joplin and everybody were standing on it and you can't just sweep them off with a broom,' explained one of the crew.

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Free love: Many hippies chose the naturist route at the festival

33. For those lost and confused there were two wooden signposts nailed to a tree. Chalked on one was 'Groovy Way' with arrows in opposite directions. On the other was 'Gentle Path' and underneath 'High Way' pointing to the left.
34. Nine out of ten festival-goers smoked marijuana on site and 33 were arrested on drugs charges.
35. Two people died at Woodstock  -  one man from a heroin overdose and a teenager in a sleeping bag who was killed when a tractor ran over him. The driver was never traced.
36. For the weekend of the festival it had become the third largest city in New York State. But due to lack of basic amenities, Governor Nelson Rockefeller declared it a disaster area. The health department documented 5,162 medical cases, including 797 instances of drug abuse. But Time magazine called it 'The greatest peaceful event in history.'
37. While most acts revelled in having appeared there, sitar player Ravi Shankar found it a 'terrifying experience' and said the crowd in the mud reminded him of the water buffaloes at home in India.
38. Actor and country singer Roy Rogers  -  billed as King of the Cowboys for his western movies  -  was asked to close the show, singing his trademark song, Happy Trails To You. But Rogers' manager vetoed it, and years later Rogers admitted: 'I would have been booed off stage by all those goddam hippies.'
39. There have been four attempts to recreate the festival on different sites: in 1979, 1989, 1994, and the disastrous 1999 festival, which was shut down amid riots and violence. Commemorative events are taking place across America and Europe.
40. Organisers at Woodstock Ventures were at least $1.3m in debt afterwards. It took more than a decade for backers to recoup money, through audio and recording rights.

• THE 40th anniversary edition four-DVD set of the filmWoodstock: 3 Days Of Peace And Music is out now.

Sixties spirit: Melanie Safka

I was never a hippy, festival icon Melanie insists
If the spirit of Woodstock still exists, then it is embodied in Melanie Safka. The long, flowing robes  -  a 2009 version of her Sixties ethnic gowns  -  and the welcoming hug comfort as if you're in a time warp.
When she walked on stage in front of 500,000 people at Woodstock 40 years ago, she was an unknown 19-year-old folk singer. She sang Beautiful People to the beautiful people, as the hippies of the time were called. 'I was just about as unworldly as a girl could be,' she recalls now. 'I had no experience  -  I just wanted to sing. But something clicked and by the time I came off stage, I was a celebrity. It was an unbelievable moment.'
Her dressing room was a small teepee. Hearing her cough from a neighbouring tent, Joan Baez sent her a pot of herbal tea, honey and lemon.
No one could have predicted that Melanie  -  fragile, dry-mouthed and shaking with nerves  -  would become the festival's enduring icon. She gained worldwide fame thanks to songs such as Lay Down (Candles In The Rain), about her Woodstock experience, Beautiful People, Brand New Key, which reached number one in the U.S. and number four in the UK, and a classic, emotional reworking of Mick Jagger's and Keith Richards's song Ruby Tuesday.
She is 62 now and has two daughters and two grandchildren. However, she insists she remains true to the cause of peace that Woodstock espoused. Melanie has worked for the United Nations as a peace ambassador since the Seventies.
'But I'm not a hippy, never was,' she insists. 'I don't like the word  -  it sounds so lightweight and ineffectual. What am I, then? Just me.'

• MELANIE is appearing at Memories Of Woodstock, West Midlands Showground, Shrewsbury, on Sunday.
 

Amy Winehouse, 27, found dead at her London flat after suspected 'drug overdose'

• Troubled singer had a long battle with drink and drugs
• London Ambulance Service found singer at 3.54pm but unable to revive her
• She was 'beyond help' according to Sky sources
• Autopsy could take place 'within next 24 hours'
• Comes after Winehouse was booed off stage after shambolic Serbian show

Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her home in London.
The Back To Black singer was found at the property by emergency services at 3.54pm, and it's believed Winehouse's death was due to a suspected drug overdose.
Winehouse was apparently 'beyond help' when paramedics arrived, according to Sky sources.
Sources have also claimed Winehouse's death was due to a drug overdose.

Passing: Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her home this afternoon

The scene: Amy was pronounced dead yesterday afternoon after emergency services arrived at her house in north London

Tragic: Winehouse's body is seen being removed from her home

Drama: Members of the press and local residents watch as Winehouse's body is taken to the van

WITHIN MINUTES 20M WERE TALKING TO EACH OTHER ON TWITTER ABOUT THE SINGER'S SUDDEN DEATH

Before it was announced on mainstream media the micro-blogging site was responding to the death of the singer and ‘Amy Winehouse’ quickly became one of Twitter’s 'trending' topics.

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Trending refers to whichever names or terms are the most talked about at that particular moment. These are defined by the site as ‘most breaking’ topics.
Unlike topics which are discussed for a length of time, such as the phone hacking scandal, trending topics see huge numbers of Twitter users debating subjects as they happen.
Shortly after the confirmation of her death, Winehouse was mentioned in nearly 10 per cent of all tweets worldwide. As there are 200million users this equates to 20million people communicating with one another about her death.

Two ambulance crews arrived at the scene within five minutes and a paramedic on a bicycle also attended, according to a spokeswoman.
'Sadly the patient had died,' she added.

 

More...

• A death foretold: The rapid rise and tragic fall of Amy Winehouse, the deeply flawed soul prodigy
• Outpouring of grief on Twitter over Amy Winehouse's sudden death
• Read PAUL CONNOLLY'S tribute to Amy Winehouse here

A statement from Winehouse's U.S. record label read: 'We are deeply saddened at the sudden loss of such a gifted musician, artist and performer.
'Our prayers go out to Amy's family, friends and fans at this difficult time.'
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: 'Police were called by London Ambulance Service to an address in Camden Square NW1 shortly before 16.05hrs today, Saturday 23 July, following reports of a woman found deceased.
'On arrival officers found the body of a 27-year-old female who was pronounced dead at the scene.
'Enquiries continue into the circumstances of the death. At this early stage it is being treated as unexplained.’
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said in a press conference this evening that no cause of death had yet been confirmed.
He said: 'I am aware of reports of a suspected drugs overdose, but I would like to reremphaise that no post-mortem has yet taken place and it would be inapproporaite to speculate on the cause of death.
'The death of any person is a sad time of friends and family especially for someone known nationally and internationally like Amy Winehouse. My sympathy extends not only to her family but also to her millions of fans across the world.'
A spokesman for the late singer said: 'Everyone involved with Amy is shocked and devastated.
'Our thoughts are with her family and friends. The family will issue a statement when ready.'
It has also been claimed on gossip website RadarOnline.com that Winehouse's autopsy could take place within the next 24 hours.

Last public appearance: Amy joined goddaughter Dionne Bromfield on stage during the iTunes festival on Wednesday night

Healthy: Amy was spotted out in London looking healthier earlier this month

A Scotland Yard spokesman is quoted by the website as saying: 'The postmortem has not been scheduled yet but it is unlikely to take place before tomorrow.
'In the case of a murder it can be done within hours but this is not the case so tomorrow or even Monday is more likely in these circumstances.'

Cutie pie: Amy looking adorable at the age of two

A section of the road where the singer lived remained cordoned off tonight. Journalists, local residents and fans gathered at the police tapes, while forensic officers were seen going in and out of the building.
One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she saw the singer's grief-stricken boyfriend, believed to be film director Reg Traviss, on the ground outside the house.
Two women then came 'speeding' up in a black Mercedes and walked in and out of the house crying. They said they believed the singer was at home last night.
Winehouse's father, Mitch, is understood to be returning to the UK from New York. He had been due to perform at the Blue Note jazz club in the city on Monday.

A message has been placed on the club's website, reading: 'We are very sad to report that the Mitch Winehouse performance on Monday July 25th is cancelled due to the unexpected death of his daughter, Amy Winehouse.
'Our condolences go out to Mitch and his family.' Mitch is now on his way back from New York.

Winehouse had been seen with her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield earlier this week as the teenager took to the stage at the iTunes festival.
She refused to join in for Mama Said, but did support the 14-year-old with a few dance moves before urging the crowd to buy Dionne's new album Good For The Soul.
A source said: 'Amy staggered onstage and grabbed the mic to beg the crowd to buy her protege’s new album.'
Winehouse's appearance at the concert came after she cancelled her European tour following a disastrous performance in June when she stumbled onto the stage in Belgrade and gave an incoherent performance appearing very disorientated and removed from reality.

Unconfirmed: A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said the cause of death has yet to be confirmed

Mourning: Floral tributes are left outside Amy's house as news breaks of her death

Heartfelt: One note from a local resident states how much the singer will be missed in her local community

Following the concert which saw fans enraged and the subsequent video that circulated to millions she cancelled the remaining dates of her European tour.
A statement released by the troubled singer's spokesperson at the time said that the singer would be given 'as long as it takes' to recover.
The statement read: 'Amy Winehouse is withdrawing from all scheduled performances.
'Everyone involved wishes to do everything they can to help her return to her best and she will be given as long as it takes for this to happen.'

Family: Amy with her father Mitch, to whom she was incredibly close, and her mother Janis

Shambolic: Amy was booed off stage during a shambolic performance in Belgrade in June

AMY AND BLAKE: A TROUBLED ROMANCE

Amy married Blake Fielder-Civil in Miami, Florida in 2007 but they were divorced two years later in September 2009.
From the beginning their relationship was fraught with difficulty as they struggled with addictions to crack cocaine and heroin. This led to numerous break-ups and ensuing make-ups.

Three months after they divorced speculation began to mount that they would once more marry. This was supported by the announcement on Facebook where they had both changed their relationship status to married.
But they never actually went ahead with it.
Fielder-Civil’s troubles continued and in June of this year was sentenced to 32 months in prison for burglary and possession of an imitation firearm.
Police caught the 29-year-old in a car in February with an altered number plate full of recently stolen possessions.

Winehouse had been working on her long-awaited new album, the follow-up to her 2006 breakthrough multi-million selling Back To Black, for the past three years.
The singer was born Amy Jade Winehouse on 14th September 1983 in Southgate, London.
Winehouse has had a troubled life which has included various stints in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction.
The singer is thought to have been to rehab four times.
In an interview in 2008, her mother Janis said she would be unsurprised if her daughter died before her time.
She said: 'I've known for a long time that my daughter has problems.
'But seeing it on screen rammed it home. I realise my daughter could be dead within the year. We're watching her kill herself, slowly.
'I've already come to terms with her dead. I've steeled myself to ask her what ground she wants to be buried in, which cemetery.
'Because the drugs will get her if she stays on this road.
'I look at Heath Ledger and Britney. She's on their path. It's like watching a car crash - this person throwing all these gifts away.'
In addition, there was a website set up called When Will Amy Winehouse Die?, with visitors asked to guess the date of death with the chance of winning an iPod Touch.
In an interview last October with Harper's Bazaar magazine, Amy was asked if she was happy.
She replied: 'I don't know what you mean. I've got a very nice boyfriend. He's very good to me.'
And, asked if she had any unfulfilled ambitions, Amy replied: 'Nope! If I died tomorrow, I would be a happy girl.'
As well her battles with drugs and alcohol, Winehouse also had a troubled marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil, who she divorced in summer 2009.
Fielder-Civil and Winehouse married in 2007 in Miami.
The pair's relationship - heavily documented by the media - saw them appearing in public bloodied and bruised after fights.

Former love: Amy with her ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil

Troubled: Amy battled drink and drug addictions during her short life

It is also alleged former music video producer Fielder-Civil was the one who introduced the Back to Black star to heroin and crack cocaine.
Amy's father Mitch previously spoke out about how his daughter stayed away from drugs prior to meeting her ex-husband.
In a previous interview last year he said: 'He's not entirely responsible, she's got to take a portion of the responsibility, but it's clear, it really kicked off when they got together.'
Most recently, Winehouse was romantically linked to film director Reg Traviss, who she dated for a few months last year.

Weight worries: Amy also caused concern with her shrinking frame, and looked gaunt back in 2008 (right)

And Mitch also gave the new man his seal of approval.
In an interview with STV's The Hour programme, he said: 'I'm happy she's got a new boyfriend. I'm happy that she's moving on with her life.'
He said Traviss was a 'very nice, normal bloke'. The pair split in January this year but quickly rekindled their relationship.
In March, Traviss said: 'We've been together nearly a year now and we're very happy. Amy's doing well, she's fine. She's healthy and happy.'

AMY WINEHOUSE - THE LATEST MEMBER OF THE '27 CLUB'

The singer's tragic death at the age of 27 puts her in a pantheon of famous musicians who have all died at the same age.
Amy follows now joins the notorious 27 Club, also known as Forever 27, which is a group of musicians who have all died at the age while struggling to cope with fame.

 

Club members: Kurt Cobain,, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison are among those who died at the age of 27

Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was the most recent victim and in 1994, pumped with heroin and valium, he turned a gun on himself.
Decades earlier Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Brian Jones all died at 27.
Rolling Stone Jones drowned in a swimming pool in 1969; Hendrix choked to death in 1970 after mixing wine with sleeping pills and singer Janis Joplin suffered a suspected heroin overdose the same year.
Doors star Morrison died of heart failure in 1971.

Winehouse has also caused controversy with her weight over the past few years. After hitting the music industry as a curvy role model, Winehouse then shed an astonishing amount of weight, leading to her looking gaunt in 2008.
Amy had a hugely successful musical career with the release of her debut album Frank in 2003, and the record considered her breakthrough album - Back To Black in 2006.
The singer featured on the Sunday Times Rich List earlier this year with an estimated net worth of around £6million.
During her career, Winehouse won awards including five Grammy Awards, a Q Music Award for Best Album for Back To Black and a World Music Award in 2008 for World's Best Selling Pop/Rock Female Artist.

Finding love again: Amy is believed to have been dating film director Reg Traviss at the time of her death

Success: Amy performed via video link at the Grammy Awards in 2008 after winning five awards

AMY WINEHOUSE: A LIFE CUT DOWN IN ITS PRIME

by Adrian Thrills

The tragic loss of Amy Winehouse has robbed us of a young, if fatally troubled, life cut down in its prime. It has also cheated British music of a talent, at 27, whose best years surely still lay ahead.
As a homegrown singer, she was with without question the outstanding vocalist of her generation. Without Amy, there would have been no Adele, no Duffy and no Lady Gaga. She may have been an alumni of the Brit School, but Winehouse was also a British great.
In an era of manufactured stars and precision-tooled pop puppets, she was the real deal. For all her demons - and, sadly, sometimes because of them - she cut through pop's hyperbole. Her rawness and emotional honesty harked back to an era when the best singers were more believable. For a white girl raised in the North London suburbs, she had the sweet, sure touch of an Aretha Franklin or Etta James.

Tragic loss: Amy Winehouse was a talented and much-loved singer and performer

Her talent was obvious from the off. The first time I saw her live was at the V Festival eight years ago. Tucked away at the bottom of the bill in one of the small tents, well away from the crowds gathering for headliners the Red Hot Chili Peppers, she oozed class. Dressed in a Fifties-style frock, playing a white Fender guitar, she showed nervous glimpses of a talent that would later wow the world.
I was lucky enough to interview her twice. The first time came shortly before the release of debut album Frank in 2003. Having met her in a photographic studio in Soho around lunchtime, we relocated, at Amy's insistence, to her favourite local Italian cafe, where we enjoyed a lengthy chat over a large, non alcoholic lunch. She struck me then as a witty, intelligent young girl on the cusp of womanhood.

Full of joy: Amy performing at the start of her career back in 2004

She was full of the joys of life and understandably excited about her future.
Confident in her own abilities, she was gleefully irreverent. Whereas other singers, media-trained to within an inch of their lives, were masters in the art of diplomacy, she happily sounded off with little regard of the consequences.
Unconcerned about how her words might look in print, she dismissed her peers.
Dido and Norah Jones, huge at the time, were among her targets. They were ridiculed for being bland. She was savage, too, in her criticisms of Madonna.
She was naive, yes, but immensely likeable. A glowing review ensued.
Later, shortly before the release of second album Back To Black, I came face to face with a different Amy. Noticeably more slight than when we'd met three years previously, she turned up late in a coffee bar close to her North London home, but still turned heads with her long, raven black hair and striking eye-liner.
But, while some of that earlier youthful, sparkle had gone, she still struck me as a woman who knew exactly what she wanted. Perhaps more aware of her own flaws, she even retracted what she had said three years earlier about her fellow female stars. 'When I was promoting my first album I was very defensive, so I lashed out a lot,' she said. 'But I won't be saying anything negative about other singers now. They've got their job to do. I'm just happy to be doing my own thing.' More mature in many ways, she was ready to let her music do the talking.
And Back To Black did just that. Rooted in emotional turmoil, it will go down as one of the classic British albums. Even now, in an era where female pop rules the charts in the shape of Adele, Beyoncé, Katy Perry and Gaga, nothing has come close to packing the sheer emotional punch of Back To Black. A departure from her jazzy debut, it was stark, simple and stunningly direct.

 

Singer Linda Lewis: The night I asked my boyfriend 'Do you mind if I sleep with Cat Stevens?'

From a singer who knew EVERYONE (and we mean REALLY knew), an uproariously scandalous - yet irresistibly funny - pop memoir

Taking LSD the night before the first Glastonbury festival wasn't a sensible move. It was 1971 and, in my trance-like state, I was convinced I had returned to the court of King Arthur. I danced with a tree.
The next day, one of the festival organisers ran up to me. 'You're on in 10 minutes,' he said. 'On where?' I asked, still dazed from the effects of the acid.
'On stage. It's your spot.' I'd forgotten. In blind panic, I walked through the small audience. A large man was sitting in the crowd with a pair of bongos.

An eventful life: Singer Linda Lewis reveals all about her wild exploits in the Seventies but insists she has now settled down

Can you play percussion?' I jabbered. He said he could, so I grabbed a guitar and stumbled on stage with him.
After that, I decided to start rehearsing and stick to tea before going on. My wild days, however, were only just getting going.
I was always a performer. In 1953, when I was just three years old, my mum Lily sent me to Peggy O'Farrell's School Of One Hundred Wonderful Children, a stage school just behind West Ham Football Club's ground.
Aged eight, I won a part in a film with the legendary Hollywood star Gary Cooper. My role required me to do hopscotch, which I diligently rehearsed.
Cooper wandered along, asking what I was doing. 'Hopscotch,' I said.
He drawled: 'Well, I can see the hop, but I can't see the scotch.' For me, this was the height of showbusiness wit. I was enthralled.
My mother always had ambitions for me  -  as shown on a fateful day trip to Southend, where John Lee Hooker was playing.
Aged 15 and a mad Beatles fan, I'd never heard of the great blues guitarist, but that didn't hold Mum back. We got ourselves into the nightclub and she introduced herself to Hooker.
He indulged Mum by allowing me to sing Dancing In The Street with his band. I'd developed a good voice - it runs over about five octaves - and did enough to impress one man in the club.
Ian 'Sammy' Samwell was a record producer who'd written songs for Cliff Richard and the Small Faces. Sammy took me under his wing.

'Exotic creatures': Rod Stewart and Elton John were regulars at Linda's Hampstead commune

It was my break. One minute I was in the East End, the next I was strolling down Carnaby Street with Sammy. I couldn't believe my luck.
I left home at 17 after Mum discovered I'd started sleeping with Sammy. I moved into a commune in Hampstead, London, with my lover.
I was now wearing hippie clothes: see-through dresses and men's frilly shirts with no skirt.
I'd already released one single - a flop which had only succeeded in getting me better party invitations.
Our commune was made up of three girls and a number of men, including Sammy.
Over the next few years, exotic creatures like Marc Bolan, Cat Stevens, David Bowie, Rod Stewart and Elton John dropped by.
Marc was still in his hippie phase - he was yet to metamorphose into the glam rocker beloved of screaming teenage girls - and would affect a posh, superior voice.
I later found out he was from Hackney, but that didn't stop me being besotted.
However, in the early Seventies he became involved with American singer Gloria Jone, who later gave him a son, Rolan.
Gloria played the lioness, guarding her man from adoring women.
As Marc became more famous, his ego swelled and he took too many drugs. Drugs and fame were a destructive combination.

Linda with Albert O'Sullivan, Suzi Quatro, David Essex and Alvin Stardust on TV show Supersonic in 1975

When he died in 1977 after his purple Mini smashed into a tree, we were distraught.
Gloria had been driving and was seriously injured herself, with a broken arm and jaw.
When I visited her in hospital, she couldn't speak. She had her mouth wired together and was frantically handwriting notes to visitors. She handed one to me. What I read horrified me.
She had written: 'Did you sleep with Marc?' I said: 'No.' It was the only thing I could say. Gloria could have died herself - she was still very ill.
So I told her what she wanted to hear. If she had asked me the same question 10 years later, I might have replied differently. Perhaps one day we will be able to talk about it.
In those days everyone slept with everyone. If you said no, you were considered uptight.
But I always felt guilty afterwards and I continued to go to confession. Puzzlingly, the priest was always keen to hear all the details of my partying life.
It was late at night and Sammy was in a deep sleep beside me. 'Sammy, is it OK if I sleep with Cat Stevens?'
There was no reply, so I took his silence as approval and went ahead. Cat Stevens wasn't his real name, of course - we all knew him as Steve Georgiou.
He lived with his parents in a flat above their restaurant in Shaftesbury Avenue. Cat used to sit in our front room playing the guitar. That's where he wrote his beautiful song Moonshadow.
Cat, a sensitive and caring man, used to be fun. He always liked to have a muse. His first inspiration was his girlfriend Patti D'Arbanville, for whom he wrote Lady D'Arbanville.
His second was me. We'd talk about our childhood and he wrote Old School Yard for me.
I continued with my music, too, sitting in the kitchen in Hampstead strumming my songs.

A sensitive and caring man: The singer once asked her boyfriend if minded is slept with cat Stevens, who is now known as Yusuf Islam

That's how a Warner Brothers executive, who was a dinner guest at the commune, discovered me in 1971.
My on-off romance with Cat lasted several years. I was still seeing Sammy at the time, too. It was the Seventies, after all.
But soon Cat began to change. To put it kindly, he was searching for greater meaning in life. To put it bluntly, he was becoming a pain.
We went to an Islamic wedding before he converted and adopted the name Yusuf Islam in 1977.
Cat was clearly impressed with the orderliness of the Muslim faith.
At the reception, I didn't like the way the women were sent to the kitchen, while the men smoked.
If he didn't exactly lose his sense of humour, Cat certainly mislaid it for a while.
He started laying down the law when we toured the U.S., instructing us not to smoke joints or drink.
He carried a small prayer mat with him, which we would mock lightheartedly.
Cat responded by saying: 'You are not here to have fun.'
Strange  -  that's exactly what we all thought we were there for.
When I met in 1968 there was a huge buzz about this otherworldly arrival from the U.S. Jimi came into the Bag O'Nails club in Soho, where I was playing, and sat at a table with half-a-dozen beautiful girls.
Later, he came backstage to tell me he thought the show was really cool. Jimi was small in the flesh and had no pretension about him. We had a joint together. He spoke in a whisper.
Fame didn't treat Jimi well. He had too many people giving him drugs and telling him he was brilliant.
He wanted to pretend he was a tough guy, but he wasn't. If someone took one tab of acid, he would take six.
The rock star image had become a monster, eating him up. He was like a little boy lost.
The last time I saw him was at Ronnie Scott's club in 1970. He looked really happy. A few days later he was dead.
The David Bowie I first met was not yet a glam-rock peacock, but a reserved young man who hid his shyness behind a veneer of mystery.
He loved camp imagery in those days  -  he famously posed in a dress on the cover of his album The Man Who Sold The World.
But if you see him these days, he's just a normal bloke. People have asked me whether he was actually ever gay.
Perhaps he probably tried it a few times. Everybody did in those days.
I sang background vocals on his album Aladdin Sane and attended the after-show party on his farewell tour as Ziggy Stardust in 1973.
Bianca Jagger and Bowie's wife Angie were there, snogging furiously. No one batted an eyelid.
I was more interested in helping myself to the buffet. From behind me, a gruff voice said: 'I wouldn't give up my lunch for nobody.' It was Mick Jagger, quoting a line from one of my songs, Rock A Doodle Do.
Another of our commune's visitors, the young Rod Stewart, was good fun on his own, but became pompous when he was in a group.
Rod was a bit like the Queen - he never carried money. This was understandable - in his early days as a budding singer, he'd been quite poor and had become used to cadging money for drinks.
Even after he was successful, however, he remained stingy. If you lent him cash, you rarely saw your money again.

Past lovers: Linda had a relationship with legendary guitar player and T-Rex frontman Marc Bolan (right)

When people retrieved a banknote back from Rod's wallet, they'd frame it, such was its rarity.
After he'd had a few hits, I went out with him and some mates. He was buying a round and - guess what - he found himself suddenly short. I stumped up a fiver. Rod, you still owe me.
In an emergency, the girls in the commune were ready to help in any way. When one of the musicians in the house, Robert Wyatt, discovered his girlfriend in bed with another man, he tried unsuccessfully to slash his wrists.
A little later, we women drew straws to decide which of us was going to comfort him. I was chosen.
It was supposed to be a cuddle, a life-saving cuddle. One thing led to another and I can only say that if life-saving is always as good as that, I want to volunteer for the St John Ambulance.
Halfway through this 'emergency procedure', my boyfriend Sammy walked in. He was less than pleased.
We broke up, but got back together for a while. Robert later drunkenly threw himself out of a third-floor window, an accident which confined him to a wheelchair for life. He tells me he still remembers our night together.
In the late 1970s, I moved to Los Angeles, around the time Rod Stewart split up with his then-girlfriend, Britt Ekland.
She was upset and I did my best to comfort her. I always liked Britt; she was more fun than Rod's next blonde, Alana Hamilton.
By now, Rod was fabulously wealthy and I'd had my share of chart success with Rock A Doodle Do and the Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss).
Rod and Alana always invited me to massive dinner parties at their mansion, so I asked them round to my place in return.
Not being quite in Rod's tax bracket, I wondered how I would top their extravaganzas.
Then I came up with the answer: I served them beans on toast, washed down with a few bottles of Guinness. Rod liked it, but Alana, with her airs and graces, wasn't so sure.
Meanwhile, Britt Ekland's idea of getting over Rod wasn't perhaps what everyone would have done.
She had a wild party. As the evening wore on, mountains of cocaine were served. Naked people jumped into the pool and started pairing off.
I've always had a problem putting names to faces and was sitting in a crowded room next to a tall, dark-haired bloke who seemed familiar.
I racked my memory, which by now was suffering the effects of much cocaine.
'You're in a group, aren't you?' The man did not reply. I tried valiantly to guess. Then it came to me.
'I know  -  it's Wings, isn't it? Paul McCartney's group.' Silence fell among the assembled throng.
I was the woman who had failed to recognise Keith Richards. The Rolling Stones were probably the most famous rock and roll band on the planet - but Keith just laughed.
I had my share of comforting to do that evening. You could say that I helped Britt get over her break-up in a similar manner to that I had used on Robert Wyatt.
Britt was lovely. If one woman could persuade me to transfer to the other team, it would be her.
The next morning, however, I witnessed a terrible sight. Wandering among the naked bodies in the debris of the party was Victoria, Britt's 12-year-old daughter from her marriage to Peter Sellers.
Victoria looked lost. I knew I should try to talk to her, but I couldn't. I was too embarrassed.
There are always casualties from the excesses of fame. Usually, it's the children.
Phil Lynott, of Thin Lizzy, was charming, witty and very sexy. I met him at a wedding in the mid-1970s. He was giving me the eye and I went back to his hotel room with him.
It wasn't love. I knew I was another notch on his bedpost - a role I was happy to play. Phil seemed so together and cheerful. It's hard to believe the man I met would die from a drug overdose in 1986.
Adulation and drugs seem to go hand in hand. When you come off stage, it is hard to replicate the attention you get from fans.
There's no training for this stuff. Stage school teaches you to perform, but it cannot prepare you for the stress of fame. It's hardly surprising people like Britney Spears go off the rails.
You're surrounded by people saying yes - but no one saying no.
While walking on Hampstead Heath one day, I came across a guitarist called Jim Cregan. Jim was in Cockney Rebel with Steve Harley - with whom I had a short affair.
Much later, though, Jim became my first husband. We married in 1977, a union that was to last only three years.
We were apart too much - especially after Jim joined Rod Stewart's band - and we were both unfaithful.
Around 1979, Jim and I were staying at a hotel in New Zealand when Muhammad Ali walked in.
He was just so beautiful. It might have been near the end of his boxing career, but as he came through the lobby, everyone stared at this figure of power, authority and grace.
My evening went badly. I'd got into a row with Jim at the hotel bar and stormed off.
Feeling a bit tipsy, I staggered into what I wrongly thought was my suite. That's funny - the door's open, I thought. Inside was Ali, surrounded by an entourage of stunning girls.
'Come on in, honey,' Ali said to me. I wasn't going to argue with a world champion.
I sat next to him and he started chatting me up. Not thinking what I was saying, I said: 'Gosh, your hands are so big.' I think he got the implication.
After a while, Jim came to find me and walked into the room.
Ali said: 'Who's that?' I had to be honest. 'That's my husband.' Ali answered: 'What you doing with that white honkey?'
I guess it's every man's worst dilemma. What do you do when a world heavyweight champion is flirting with your wife and insulting you?
Jim is pale, ginger and skinny. It wouldn't have been much of a match. Jim left. I did the decent thing, made my excuses to Ali and went after my husband.
Ali expected me to stay. I wish I had. Our commune was full of exotic men, dressed in flamboyant clothes. But they were pretty much all heterosexual. Then there was Elton John.
Back then, he dressed in a completely straight manner, apart from the big glasses. Of course, we all knew he was gay, but he didn't talk about it.
Years later, I was partying with Rod and Elton in LA in the late 1970s. Elton used to call Rod 'Phyllis' and Rod in turn nicknamed Elton 'Sharon'.
This was before Elton met his current partner, David Furnish. Later that night, Elton was crying and saying: 'I wish I could have children.'
I offered to have his baby. 'No need to actually do it, just put it in a bottle,' I suggested helpfully.
Oddly, Elton never took me up on the offer.
When I look back, I realise I've lived an extraordinarily rich life. Would I do it all again, given a chance? No. Would I do some of it again? Certainly.
But I can't recommend that people try drugs. They make you feel good for a time, but the pendulum always swings back the other way. The good times get shorter and the paranoia grows stronger.
I abandoned cocaine in the 1980s. Drugs destroy careers and mess up families, just as adultery does.
I can understand why artistic people get involved with drugs. You need something to take you away from the intensity of creativity, but there are other ways to do it. I get the same buzz from reading a book cover to cover these days.
Five years ago, I married Neil Warnock, head of a worldwide booking agency that looks after Dolly Parton, Status Quo and David Gilmour among others. I'm now planning to write a longer version of my memoirs.
You could say I've settled; I'm certainly grounded. I see myself, fancifully, as a kite. Neil's got the string. And these days, I think I prefer someone holding on.

• Linda Lewis's solo UK tour begins on Tuesday  -  she will also perform at Glastonbury and Guilfest. Details at www.lindalewis.co.uk

 

Hendrix family to contest £15 million song sale

Rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix

A private bidder paid $15 million for the rights to hit songs by U.S. rock guitarist

at an auction, but a company owned by the musician's family said it will sue to prove it owns the songs.

The rights, title, and interest to songs including "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," "Voodoo Child," and "Foxy Lady," were sold over the telephone in New York by the estate of Michael Frank Jeffrey, Hendrix's one-time manager.
Hendrix, who was born in Seattle, died in 1970 at the age of 27 in London, after choking on his own vomit. About 600,000 of his albums are still sold annually.
Jeffrey died in a plane crash three years later.
Fourteen charities based in the United Kingdom, including the Asthma Research Council, the British Heart Foundation and the Kings College Hospital are the beneficiaries of Jeffrey's estate.
"Whoever bought this bought themselves the right to be a litigant," Bob Merlis, a spokesman for Experience Hendrix told Reuters.
The Seattle-based company is owned by members of Hendrix's family. "It will be contested instantly," he added.
Experience Hendrix says it owns all rights to the music, and recordings of the guitarist.
The auctioneer, the auctions division of Chicago-based merchant bank Ocean Tomo, declined to comment on the ownership of rights to the songs.

 

Was Jimi Hendrix murdered by his manager? The startling details of the singer's debauched last hours

His death has always been blamed on a drugs binge. But a new book reveals startling details about the debauched last hours of   - and the extraordinary 'confession' from the man who made him a star.

Life cut short: Jimi Hendrix, performing at the Marquee Club in London in 1967, died aged 27 of what appeared to be a drug overdose and inhalation of vomit

When the ambulancemen found Jimi Hendrix, he was lying alone on the floor of a hotel room in West London.
The door was wide open and a gas fire had been left blazing. Desperate attempts were made to resuscitate him as he was being taken to the ambulance, but to no avail.

It was an ignominious end to a guitarist whose sensational stage shows were renowned for his outrageous appearance and showmanship.
He would appear in tight red trousers and flounced yellow shirt, his face framed by a halo of Afro hair.

Troubled: Hendrix wanted to break off his business relationship with manager Michael Jeffery (above)

He didn't so much play his guitar as attack it: playing it behind his back, between his legs and with his teeth. He would even perform a simulated sex act with the unfortunate instrument, before trying to set fire to it.
And if the fire wouldn't blaze, he would go down on his knees before it, coax it with voodoo gestures and spray it with volatile lighter fuel, then pick it up and smash it to bits.
But that day in 1970 when the medics were called to the hotel room of Monika Danneman, a beautiful German ice-skating instructor, it was all over.
The coroner ruled the 27-year-old had died of barbiturate intoxication and inhalation of vomit, and returned an open verdict.
Jimi had had such a brief career that most people believed he would quickly fade from memory and be remembered as just another rock casualty. How wrong they were.
Books have been written about him, musicals penned and lately even a sex tape was found apparently showing him, or someone who looked very like him, indulging in the orgies he favoured.
But now comes the most astonishing claim of all. James 'Tappy' Wright, one of the star's roadies, says in a new book, Rock Roadie, that Hendrix was murdered by manager Michael Jeffery in a fury over the star's decision to leave him.
In addition, Wright claims, the death would allow Jeffery to cash in a life insurance policy he held on the star.
Wright claims Jeffery confessed all to him during a drinking session the year after Jimi died, saying he went to the hotel with some friends that night and killed the star by stuffing sleeping pills down his throat.
They then forced several bottles of red wine down his windpipe with the result that the star drowned.
'I had to do it,' he claimed while drunk. 'Jimi was worth much more to me dead than alive. That son of a bitch was going to leave me. If I lost him, I'd lose everything.'
So how likely is this unedifying story? Sadly, we can't ask Jeffery because he died in a plane crash in 1973. Nor can we quiz Monika Danneman, who died by her own hand 13 years ago in a fume-filled Mercedes-Benz near her East Sussex cottage.
She had long been accused of knowing more about Hendrix's death than she admitted at the time.
But the new theory will intrigue Kathy Etchingham, Hendrix's first British girlfriend, who was never happy with Danneman's version of events.
Despite moving on, marrying a doctor and settling in leafy Surrey, Kathy spent three years of her life trying to establish the truth.

Searching for answers: Kathy Etchingham, with her husband Nick, has always wondered what really happened to Jimi

Certainly, Jeffery was a mysterious and threatening figure. The Sixties brought a boom in pop music - and in the earnings of bands. Many managers, seeing the rich pickings to be had, were little short of gangsters, exploiting their acts and being prepared to use violence to see off rivals.
Jeffery, who was only 5ft 6in tall, was known for his trademark camel hair coat. He spoke in a whisper and went round in dark glasses, increasing his air of menace.
It was said he had worked for British intelligence and that he could speak fluent Russian.
A former associate of Sharon Osbourne's impresario father Don Arden (who was known as 'The Al Capone of Pop'), Jeffery started his career running a club in Newcastle.
The club burned down, he collected the insurance money - as he did when Jimi died - and used it to sign up local group the Animals.
Chas Chandler, the bass player with the Animals, had spotted Hendrix in America and persuaded him he had to come to Britain with his band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

The   Experience: The singer with fellow band members Noel Redding (left) and Mitch Mitchell (right). Hendrix wanted to get the band back together despite protest from his manager

But it wasn't that simple. Hendrix would need a work permit and, as a penniless session musician, did not qualify. So Jeffery stepped in and forged some documents 'proving' that Hendrix was a big star in New York.
He was nothing of the sort at that time, but Jeffery saw his potential. He bought Hendrix a first-class air ticket and presented him with a management contract that would give Jeffery 20 per cent of all income and 2.5 per cent of royalties. The money was channelled through shell companies in the Bahamas to avoid tax.
Hendrix signed this punitive contract in Jeffery's seedy Soho office without even reading the details - never mind consulting a lawyer - and then went to buy himself a Carnaby Street wardrobe.
In truth, Jeffery was so poor he had to borrow money from his parents to fund Hendrix's gigs, so it was vitally important to his strategy that Jimi's records sold. To make sure they did, Jeffery bought hundreds of copies to boost their performance in the charts.
Jeffery also arranged for Jimi to move in with Chas Chandler in a flat near Marble Arch in London. His room, according to one who visited him, was sinister and oppressive.
Everything - sheets, curtains, carpets - was crimson. The walls were hung with Oriental paintings and shawls, and the sideboard decorated with dead flowers. 'I dig dead flowers,' Hendrix said. 'You can learn from dead things, you know.'
Hendrix recorded his first hugely successful single, Hey Joe, in London in 1966. Overnight, Jimi was acclaimed as the musician of the moment, the wild man of rock, his music lauded (and condemned) for its supposed appeal to a primitive sexual urge.
The legend grew quickly. In America, he was branded obscene; in Sweden, he was banned from 30 hotels. He was charged with drug offences in Toronto and Los Angeles. And at a Hyde Park concert he urged the audience to take all their clothes off.
Jeffery organised everything for Jimi. He took him to New York, back to Europe and then back to the States for a gruelling tour of 49 cities.
The pace was hectic and took its toll. Chas Chandler had been producing Hendrix's records, but the stress grew too great and he quit. Meanwhile, Hendrix and his 22-year-old girlfriend Kathy Etchingham moved into a flat near Claridge's next to the house where Handel wrote the Messiah.

Sixties sex siren: Kathy Etchingham was Hendrix's first British girlfriend

Both Jeffery and Hendrix were spending money as quickly as they earned it. The manager's office was repossessed because of non-payment of rent and the pair decided to spend more time in New York, where they were planning to buy Jimi's favourite nightclub in Greenwich village and turn it into their own music studio.
Jimi indulged himself by buying jewellery or squandering lavish sums on clothes for the many girls who threw themselves at him - and he was buying drugs: heroin, cocaine, hash and LSD. Both manager and star were also fending off a series of expensive lawsuits over record contracts.
While the outgoings mounted, Jimi was finding little time to write songs. So in the summer of 1969, with the Woodstock Festival looming in America, Jeffery rented an isolated country house near the festival site for Jimi to compose without distraction.
Instead, Hendrix spent his time trying to put a new American band together to replace the Jimi Hendrix Experience, a move of which Jeffery disapproved. And then Jimi disappeared to Morocco, even managing to bed Brigitte Bardot en route after meeting her at a Paris airport.
The trip changed Jimi overnight. Eerily, he had his fortune told and was warned he had less than a year to live.
He became obsessed with death and his African roots and began to worry that he shouldn't be managed by a white Englishman - Michael Jeffery.
It all culminated in a curious incident shortly after Woodstock when the troubled star went out to buy cocaine in the middle of the night.
The details remain obscure, but he was allegedly seized by kidnappers, who asked Jeffery to surrender his management contract with Hendrix if he wanted to save the singer's life.
When he got the ransom demand, Jeffery claimed, he gathered a group of thugs armed with machine-guns and confronted the kidnappers to free Hendrix.
Noel Redding, bass player in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, thought the story so improbable he always suspected the devious manager had arranged the stunt himself to discourage Jimi from leaving him.
Whatever the truth, by then both Michael Jeffery and Jimi Hendrix were behaving irrationally.
The paranoid Jeffery always kept a gun on him, while Jimi was taking so many drugs he couldn't remember how to play.

Mind altering: Hendrix performing at Woodstock, where like other concerts he was often on drugs

At one New York concert he suddenly stopped playing, grabbed the microphone and said: 'That's what happens when Earth f***s space. Never forget that.' Then he left the stage.
There were even rumours that Jeffery was feeding him LSD in an attempt to mess up his concerts, derail his new American band and recreate the old Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix now kept a Bible close to him at all times because he expected to die.
At a concert in his home town, Seattle, he was so tired he could barely keep awake.
After the gig, he persuaded three old friends to go on a maudlin tour of favourite childhood spots. In Hawaii, his mood darkened so much he threatened suicide. Back in New York, he consulted lawyers about breaking up with Jeffery.
Then, in August 1970, Hendrix took a plane to London. Kathy Etchingham saw what a state he was in when she visited his hotel room.
Though the heating was full on, Jimmy was shivering from drug withdrawal, while two naked girls romped in his suite.
He now had several sets of lawyers looking for him, some of them hired by old girlfriends anxious to establish the paternity of children they claimed were Jimi's.
And Jeffery had followed him across the Atlantic and was trying to track him down. In desperation, the star fell into the arms of a new companion, the highly possessive Monika Danneman, and moved in with her.
Monika, who always clung to the story they were going to get married, gave an idyllic description at the inquest of their last hours together. They got home at around 8.30pm, she cooked a meal and they shared a bottle of white wine, though Jimi drank more than she did.

Her version of events: According to Hendrix's German girlfriend Monika Danneman (pictured) the singer was still alive as he was taken to hospital by ambulance

He then washed his hair and had a bath, before they sat around talking and listening to music until the early hours. Jimi then said he needed to visit some people he didn't like and that he didn't want her to go with him. An hour later - at 3am - he returned. Monika made him a tuna sandwich, and at around 6.45am she took a sleeping pill and dropped off.
When she woke at around 10.30am, Jimi was asleep and breathing normally. She said she wanted to slip out for some cigarettes, but she knew he didn't like her going out without him, so she looked closer to see if he was about to wake.
Then she noticed he had been sick and that her sleeping pills were on the floor. She dialled 999 and went in the ambulance to the hospital with him. At that time, she said, he was still alive.
Kathy Etchingham is not the only person to have disputed Monika Danneman's story. A casual girlfriend living in Fulham says Hendrix's last 48 hours were a non-stop orgy of drug-taking and sex, combined with business worries.
She says Jimi pitched up at her house a couple of nights before he died 'high on drugs and in a terrible nervous state'. He spent most of the night on the phone moaning about his backers and his financial affairs.
Then he made love with two American girls until 5am, before they all took off around London, smoking dope in various apartments. One of their friends was so high on drugs that he tumbled over a bannister, breaking both his legs.
Jimi finally took part in another orgy before going back to Monika. Then, in the early hours, he left a telling message on his old friend Chas Chandler's answering machine saying: 'I need help bad, man.'
By the time it was picked up, Hendrix was dead. (Chandler later denied this story, claiming he didn't even own an answering machine.)
Whatever happened, drugs certainly played a part in it. But was it suicide, as some of his friends thought, a terrible accident - or murder by the oddball Michael Jeffery, who was indeed in London at the time?
Jeffery was such a fantasist he might easily have claimed that he killed Hendrix, but whether he did is quite another matter.
Did he benefit financially? Jimi hadn't made a will, so everything went to his father Al back in Seattle, where Jimi was buried.
But 'everything', according to Jeffery, was only $20,000. And before Al's lawyer could establish whether there was any more, Jeffery himself was killed in a plane collision in Spain.
In the conspiratorial climate of the times, rumours attended even that death. Some thought Jeffery wasn't even on the plane and had taken off to a desert island with Jimi's money.
Now, with the passage of time, it's impossible to verify this latest, remarkable version of Hendrix's death. So many people saw the star in his final hours, yet so few of them agree on what happened.
The tragedy of Hendrix is that of all the people who surrounded him day and night, none of them was there when he needed them most.

 

 

Jimi Hendrix drummer dies at 61 just days after tribute tour

Jimi Hendrix's drummer Mitch Mitchell was found dead in his hotel room yesterday.
The 61-year-old British musician, who played with the   Experience from 1966 until Hendrix's death in 1970, is thought to have died of natural causes in Portland, Oregon.
He was touring in a tribute band on the Experience Hendrix Tour, which performed on Friday in the city.

Last survivor: Mitch Mitchell, who died yesterday, was Jimi Hendrix's drummer from 1966 until the singer's death in 1970

The trio: Jimi Hendrix with his bassist Noel Redding (left) and drummer Mitch Mitchell

The former child actor starred in the BBC TV series Jennings before he was in his teens.
Mitchell, from Ealing, London, was the last surviving member of Hendrix's trio, after bassist Noel Redding died in 2003.
He had an explosive drumming style that can be heard in hard-charging songs such as "Fire" and "Manic Depression."
Erin Patrick, a deputy medical examiner, said Mitchell apparently died of natural causes. An autopsy has been planned.
Bob Merlis, a spokesman for the tour, said Mitchell had stayed in Portland for a four-day vacation and planned to leave on Wednesday.
'It was a devastating surprise,' Mr Merlis said. 'Nobody drummed like he did.'
He said he saw Mitchell perform two weeks ago in Los Angeles, and the drummer appeared to be healthy and upbeat.
Mr Merlis said the tour was designed to bring together veteran musicians who had known Hendrix - like Mitchell - and younger artists, such as Grammy-winning guitarist Jonny Lang, who have been influenced by him.
He described Mitchell as a 'one-of-a-kind drummer' whose 'jazz-tinged' style was a vital part of both the   Experience and the Experience Hendrix Tour that ended last week.
'If Jimi Hendrix were still alive he would have acknowledged that,' Mr Merlis said.
In an interview last month with the Boston Herald, Mitchell said he met Hendrix 'in this sleazy little club.'
'We did some Chuck Berry and took it from there. I suppose it worked.'