Product Description

33 1/3 is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives - often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task which can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #355994 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 132 pages

About the Author
John Perry explores Hendrix's extraordinary double album of 1968.

Customer Reviews

A guitar fan's wet dream
Jimi Hendrix after 30 years from his death is still revered as a guitar hero and innovator in the way the instrument was played and recorded (based on many recent polls), and Electric Ladyland was a major benchmark in his too short studio recording career in letting him stretch out and play compared with his prior 2 LPs and hit singles.

That this book is written by a guitar afficionado should thus come as no surprise, and the author was clearly influenced by Hendrix at an early age having seen him live in the UK and in his own subsequent career as a guitarist. The content (especially on the individual tracks and their recording) is very guitar playing orientated, explaining a lot of chords, tuning and playing techiques that made Hendrix sound so different and while a fascinating insight into exactly how unique Hendix was in his playing, I suspect it will potentially drag with many non-musicians (of which I am one) though as a lifetime Hendrix afficionado I must admit I found it all fascinating.

The book also picks up on many side issues that help one understand Hendrix and his times better esp. his position as a black American and his initial and subsequent treatment by US rock writers, and later in the heated anti Vietnam war and US domestic race riots happening at that time managed to remain politically indifferent.

A captivating book especially for Hendrix fans and in the end piece that speculates that Hendrix at the time of his death shortly afterwards had already delivered his best recorded work.

Personal and Interesting
A good read with some interesting personal perspective about Jimi Hendrix's first appearances in England. He introduces some new texture to some well known stories and fleshes out some detail and context around the recording of Hendrix's music. I'd like to see this corroborated, not because they ring false but because over time, a lot of people have said a lot of things.

A worthwhile addition to the library of any serious student of Jimi Hendrix.

It takes a great guitarist to write about one!
Enjoyed the book thoroughly - a must for any 60s music fan, especially Hendrix-freaks. John Perry brings a profound, music-insider understanding of this classic guitar album.