Gerry Stickells was a car mechanic in southeast England who drove local rock groups to their engagements in his van when, in 1966, he met Chas Chandler, Jimi Hendrix’s manager. Mr. Chandler made him an offer: If he could get Hendrix’s gear out of customs at Heathrow Airport, he could join him on the road in Europe.

The errand completed, Mr. Stickells soon became part of rock ’n’ roll history as the roadie, and then tour manager, for Hendrix, the transcendent electric guitarist who was about to release his first single, “Hey Joe,” in Britain.

It became a four-year assignment: Mr. Stickells handled the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s gear, drove the band to gigs, fixed the van when it broke down and organized its tours. Some shows were more memorable than others: At the Denver Pop Festival in 1969, he brought Hendrix and his bandmates, the bassist Noel Redding and the drummer Mitch Mitchell, to safety in a U-Haul truck at Mile High Stadium after tear gas had enveloped them onstage during a riot.

After the Experience dissolved in 1969, Mr. Stickells stayed with Hendrix, accompanying him most notably to Woodstock, where Hendrix played a jarring, feedback-heavy version of “The Star Spangled Banner.” When Hendrix died the next year in London, Mr. Stickells identified his body at a hospital and accompanied it to Seattle for burial.