Jimi Hendrix by Sharon Lawrence

Author:Sharon Lawrence
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061844904
Publisher: HarperCollins

Late Saturday afternoon Jimi’s New York attorney, Henry W. Steingarten, waited by the telephone in his room at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. His client’s trial would commence in less than forty-eight hours, and Steingarten was worried. The two high-powered Canadian attorneys who’d been retained to defend Hendrix had told him they were less than confident about the outcome of the trial. They were also expensive, and Jimi’s personal cash flow was down to a few thousand dollars.

An hour after checking into the Royal York, I sat in a chair by a window as Steingarten removed a silver cocktail shaker from a bulging briefcase. “My wife generally makes a shaker of manhattans for me to take along when I travel, in case, at the end of a long day, a drink is in order,” he explained. He was a considerate man, very close to the “teddy bear” Jimi had described to me. A teddy bear with keen eyes, a fine legal background, and adorned in conservative suits. He commanded respect.

He offered to pour me a cocktail from the shaker. “No thank you,” I said. “I’ve always thought manhattans and martinis taste like gasoline.”

I had mentioned to Steingarten some time back that it seemed strange to me that Jimi never seemed to be invited to genuinely social occasions by his business associates or even his so-called friends. When I occasionally traveled to New York, I was treated very well, but Jimi spoke as though he were unfamiliar with good Village and midtown restaurants. He might have been a star, but he was not a part of the upscale lifestyle of successful New Yorkers. In Britain his English friends had offered hospitality and friendship that were dazzling to him. In New York, to some, Jimi was more of an object.

In the fall of 1969, as a result of our conversation, Steingarten arranged a lovely dinner at his home and was shocked and humiliated, particularly in front of his wife, to have Jimi turn up not alone or with a date but rather accompanied by several of his so-called friends. They were high when they walked in the door and became even higher through the evening. They’d brought cocaine into the home, and there was much running back and forth to the bathroom to snort it. Steingarten didn’t quite realize precisely what was going on, blaming the “intruders” more than he did Hendrix. Still, he said, “Jimi was a complete ass that night.”

However, here in Toronto, Steingarten was willing to give it another try, and he had planned a small, relaxed dinner for this evening at a nearby steakhouse for Jimi, Chas Chandler—who was making a special trip from London to testify—and me. It was a night designed to bolster Jimi before he went into the courtroom.

The busy attorney led a demanding business life and preferred to spend his weekends with his family. He couldn’t believe that he was sitting here now waiting for the phone to ring to signal Jimi’s arrival from New York.

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