Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205735 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-15
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Synopsis
Jimi Hendrix continues to fascinate, and sell huge quantities of albums, even 35 years after his death. Quite apart from his influence on musicians and fans, a large part of the appeal of his sensational life story lies in the thrill of the era whose values he came to stand for. The Sixties still exert a massive pull over pop culture and this is genuinely a book for anyone interested, not only in Hendrix but also in anything to do with the pop culture of the last 40 years. Meticulously researched and sensitively and beautifully written, this is a labour of love that reveals the nuances, foibles and tragedies of the human being behind the iconic image. This is the sweeping, authoritative and colourful biography that Jimi Hendrix deserves and that his legions of fans, young and old have been waiting for.

Customer Reviews

Best so far
I've read a couple of books about Hendrix before, written by those who were supposed to be in the know, eg Kathy Etchingham's book. Wasn't impressed with that as it seemed to be more about her than him. This book is the best of the bunch so far. Unlike MBW above, I'm not nit-picking over minor details, I can't be a***d and hopefully I'm not that sad. For such a weighty book there are bound to be a few discrepancies. This one gives the full story of Jimi's life and I was amazed at the details of his poor and troubled upbringing, how the family split up through health problems and lack of money, the constant moving of home and school. What he went through to escape that background shows that his commitment fully deserved the success he eventually gained. So sad though that within a year or so he was beginning to regret it and towards the end so badly wanted a break from the treadmill. Many will know of the 4 years of fame after Chas Chandler brought JH to the UK, but his life before, and the subsequent fights over his estate are covered well here and bring some surprises. How many folk knew of the number of top acts that he backed before his own career took off? There are 356 pages of the main book but I was never bored with it. I fully enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone wanting to gain a wider picture of Jimi's life

Very informative, but flawed and iritating
I'm just re-reading Cross's book for the second time. I thought I would give it a second chance. I was quite irritated by it the first time, although the wealth of detail on Jimi's diificult early life in particular was very interesting and for me completely new.
Second time around I am even more irritated by Cross's style and errors. He seems to me to be guity of just guessing when he doesn't know for sure, and of stating 'as fact' stories from people which in reality are more likely merely unconfirmed (unconfirmable?) personal anecdotes.
E.g. 1
he repeats an 'eyewitnesses' incorrect description of what Jimi wore during his performance at Monterey. Jeez... How easy would that be to check???
E.g.2
He says the Rainbow bridge concert at Maui began with a Hare Krishna group leading the assembled in chanting 'Om'. (Er... but Hare Krishna's DO NOT chant 'Om'). Cross presumably guessed who the group leading the chanting was.
These errors might not seem like such a crime.
But why guess like that about the 'Om' chanting group??
AND I feel sure if he did that on this 'fact' he'll have done it elsewhere. Bad scholarship and bad biography writing.
How about not knowing the difference between 'Voodo Chile' and Voodo Child (Slight return) and referring to them as if they are ONE song.
Or referring to Eva Sunqvist as his "favourite Swedish groupie" at a time when he hadn't even met her yet as she was an anonymous fan who had sent him roses at each swedish gig and who was a virgin prior to her encounter with Jimi. Etc., etc.
There are many other facts like this which he got wrong, and many stories that seem to be hyped up to my mind.
E.g the 'not serving clowns' anecdote that he made so much of in the beginning (and then repeated later on in the book). I'm sure it has some grain of truth in it, but Cross appears to have accepted Noel's probably fuzzily remembered anecdote and then embellished it himself.

Another example is Jimi supposedly spending a couple of hours one night playing well-known Jazz standards with a lounge pianist in Morocco. Jimi knew "two hours" worth of "Jazz standards"??? Sure. Right.
More likely that the pianist played some jazz standards and that Jimi sat in and improvised along with him.

Am I being too pedantic?
It just seems to me that Cross is adding to the mythology...and haven't we had enough of that already..?

Fans of this book may ask 'what else can be done when all we have to go on is people's stories from forty years ago'?
Obviously, any author of Cross's age HAS TO rely on anecdotes - but there are other and better ways of choosing and expressing the same information.
So, here are some requests to Charles to consider before the next reprint:
1. Present anecdotes as anecdotal and DO NOT dress them up AS FACT.
2. State your sources.
3. Make it clear when there is a difference of opinion about a supposed event and let us the reader decide.

Compare his method with John McDermott and Eddie Kramer's book,"Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight" or the excellent book Not Necessarily Stoned, But Beautiful: The Making of "Are You Experienced" by Sean Egan.

Those are examples of a more honest and therefore more accurately informative way to go about biography. And those books are therefore in my opinion a much more enjoyable read and are much better written.

To give him his due, Charles Cross HAS gathered together a lot of fascinating material that I - as a long-time Hendrix fan - was unaware of before. He has often put some events in a time frame and context that I hadn't understood properly or so well before. So I am glad to have the book. But Charles rarely qoutes his sources. Which makes it harder to guage the accuracy of the info or for anyone to check it. By doing so he also thereby raises his own status to that of THE storyteller and quasi-witness instead of what he is in reality which is a mere chronicler of stories from others long AFTER the events. See how he starts off his book with himself centre-stage discovering Lucille's grave and taking Leon there. I think this says a lot about his approach. i.e. I detect a lot of 'look what I know/have discovered' all the way through his book. Which is OK, as he clearly has unearthed a great deal of little-known information.
But its precisely that lack of humility that allows him to justify making up facts when he doesn't know the detail and shows his lack of respect to his readers assuming most of us won't notice.

I read many people championing this book as THE definitive Hendrix Biography.
Well, I agree it is a welcome addition. But, II would suggest there are a good deal better books out there.
THE definitive Hendrix Biography?
Nah!
This book definitely is NOT that, in my opinion. Not by a long way.

Adds Something to the Collection
This biography adds a new dimension to the literature on Hendrix, namely, it devotes much of its space to Jimi's life and career before fame.

Like The Beatles or Dylan, new books come out regularly and help flesh out the history or find a new angle to discuss. It seems that the author has had access to people who may not have been interviewed before and this results in a very interesting read.

Several issues, such as the loss of his mother, have not been well covered before. There are also some nice unreleased photos from the early days.

The downside is that there's not as much discussion about the music but there are plenty of other books which cover that.

Highly recommended