Frankly, there are a lot of financial disincentives for his survivors to be forthcoming about this. The fact that no one who knows him well has denied this or defended him -- NO ONE as far as I can see -- speaks volumes.

This may not have ever come out in this public way, had that story not been invented about why he killed himself. I think an unexplained suicide would have been sad and puzzling but the idea that he did it because he couldn't play guitar anymore -- that just didn't add up.

That whole line seems to have come from his producer Daniel Thomas, who seems to have been silent through the rest of this. Hopefully he was passing on what he believed to be the truth, rather than making a clumsy attempt to cover up a scandal.

John Salmon