A treasure trove of unheard tapes and unseen documents relating to JIMI HENDRIX has been hidden since the early '70s. Finally, its protector Trixie Sullivan is ready to share its contents with MOJO - along with strong opinions on some abiding Hendrix controversies. "Do you know what bullshit is?" she asks Danny Eeereston. Portrait: BARRY PEAKE
aT MIKE JEFFERY’S OFFICE at 39 Gerrard Street in London’s West End, the cupboards were crammed with artefacts and documentation pertaining to the notorious rock manager and club owner’s clients: The Animals, Soft Machine and, most notably, Jimi Hendrix. But when bailiffs came calling – the inevitable upshot of Jeffery’s tendency not to pay for things – they weren’t interested in the archive of demo and master tapes, or the future memorabilia, only the objects of immediate visible value: the furniture. Everything else they dumped on the floor.
“When I went in and saw the mess I nearly died,” says Trixie Sullivan, then Jeffery’s assistant. Tipped off by the building owner – “a nice Jewish guy; someone said he had a crush on me, I had no idea” – Sullivan arrived in time to rescue stacks of material, some prosaic, some fascinating, which she has looked after ever since. Only now, aged 80 and with her future care to think about, is she looking for a purchaser. Representatives from Experience Hendrix – the company that manages the guitarist’s estate and curates his legacy – are booked in to view the material. But not before MOJO has its turn.
Diving into the huge stacks of paperwork in a small office in Pinewood Studios, the realm of film industry professional and Sullivan family friend Pete Sheppard, is to immerse in the day-to-day running of rock bands at the end of the ’60s. Here’s a postcard from Hawaii from Hendrix to Sullivan in July 1970, on the trip that incorporated his contribution to the movie Rainbow Bridge, plus photographs the incendiary guitarist took on the flight over. And here’s a letter from Sullivan to Jeffery, dated January 10, 1969, updating him on Jimi’s circumstances. “He’s buying new curtains and carpet for the flat and domestication seems to suit him for the moment,” Sullivan writes. “You never know how long it will last…”
Among the archive’s wealth of tapes, all in perfect condition, most are contemporaneous copies of recordings that Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer suspects Experience Hendrix have in their library (“Jimi would have a copy, [producer] Chas [Chandler] would have one, and maybe one for Mike,” he says). One, a 7-inch box labelled in red biro in Hendrix’s own hand, contains early versions – possibly
