Counterculture icon deaths in 1970 generated conspiratorial interpretations.

Evidence

Around Thanksgiving, Albert Ayler’s body washed up on the Brooklyn side of the East River. He was thirty-four. Unstable and depressed, Ayler blamed himself for his brother Donald’s breakdown after he had dropped him as a trumpet player. Ayler almost certainly took his own life but, as with Hendrix, who was being tracked by the FBI’s Cointelpro and the CIA’s Operation CHAOS, and whose disgruntled manager had Mob connections, Ayler’s death inspired conspiracy theories: The FBI assassinated him. Mafia hitmen threw him in the river, tied to a jukebox because he refused to make more rock ‘n’ roll records for Impulse! (which had canceled his contract). — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1643

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Janis-Joplin / Hendrix / Cointelpro thread in earlier chapters of this book; also resonates with the reader’s claim that authorities surveilled the counterculture. — connects to: A public figure’s death can crystallize the collapse of an entire cultural era.