I am an educator, author and Jimi Hendrix Historian who has been studying Jimi Hendrix for over 20 years, with a concentration on promoting him to the youth and people of color. One of my prime objectives is to ensure that Jimi's ENTIRE legacy is covered and given the proper respect. Once you incorporate my two books on Jimi (Nobody Cages Me, and Jimi Hendrix Black Legacy) and my forthcoming documentary into the research that already exists on Jimi, only then, can you get a fuller picture of the complexities of Jimi Hendrix. I had to sift through many books, magazine articles, and a wide variety of multi-media to try to get a grasp on the REAL Jimi Hendrix. I started seeing holes in what was being presented, so I decided to talk to people that were there. Many of these people didn’t appear extensively in these source documents. This list is just a start. In order to TRULY understand the genius of Jimi Hendrix, you must dig a lot deeper.
This book was really the first serious biography on Jimi Hendrix. The author, David Henderson, was a contemporary of Hendrix and wrote the book as a favor to him. Henderson was a founding member of the Umbra Poets, an influential collective of poets and writers who were central to the Black Arts Movement. Clocking in at over 400 pages, this book offers a very detailed look at the total life of Hendrix, from his formative years in Seattle, to his life as a musical superstar, rubbing elbows with musical luminaries in London and NYC. This is the Jimi bio that I use to compare all other Jimi bios. (This bio has stood the test of time! There have been many pressings and updates to this book. Originally published in 1978, its latest reprint was in 2009.)
Fusing blues, jazz and psychedelia with an outrageous personal style and image, Hendrix is still revered as the most important instrumentalist in the history of rock. He died aged 27 from drugs and alcohol. Capturing the essence of Hendrix's intense, apocalyptic and ultimately tragic life, the author covers Hendrix's boyhood in Seattle, his years in the US Air Force, his reputation as the best sideman around, his manic trip to London and superstardom, the songs, the concerts, the flaming guitars, the drugs, the booze, the women and most important, the incomparable legacy he left behind.
Music has always spoken to my innermost being, and coming of age in the late 1960s, I’ve been drawn to the quest for justice and equality in politics. In my undergraduate studies at Berkeley, the late political theorist Michael Rogin, who interpreted Moby Dick as a parable of 19th Century race relations, taught me that my two interests could be combined. As a professor of Political Science I’ve written books and articles that explore music’s ability to express ideas about politics, race, and ethnicity in sometimes unappreciated ways.
Gilroy sees in black music a democratic “ethos” embodied in features like “call and response” and improvisation. This ethical sensibility unites disparate parts of the African diaspora, but Gilroy also insists that the music is irrevocably “hybrid” and “Creole,” connecting African-derived cultures with European and other ones as well. Gilroy argues that black music’s connective ability creates an intersubjective, democratic community which he calls an “alternative public sphere.”
Afrocentrism. Eurocentrism. Caribbean Studies. British Studies. To the forces of cultural nationalism hunkered down in their camps, this bold hook sounds a liberating call. There is, Paul Gilroy tells us, a culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once, a black Atlantic culture whose themes and techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce something new and, until now, unremarked. Challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural studies, The Black Atlantic also complicates and enriches our understanding of modernism.
Debates about postmodernism have cast an unfashionable pall over questions of historical periodization. Gilroy…
I am an educator, author and Jimi Hendrix Historian who has been studying Jimi Hendrix for over 20 years, with a concentration on promoting him to the youth and people of color. One of my prime objectives is to ensure that Jimi's ENTIRE legacy is covered and given the proper respect. Once you incorporate my two books on Jimi (Nobody Cages Me, and Jimi Hendrix Black Legacy) and my forthcoming documentary into the research that already exists on Jimi, only then, can you get a fuller picture of the complexities of Jimi Hendrix. I had to sift through many books, magazine articles, and a wide variety of multi-media to try to get a grasp on the REAL Jimi Hendrix. I started seeing holes in what was being presented, so I decided to talk to people that were there. Many of these people didn’t appear extensively in these source documents. This list is just a start. In order to TRULY understand the genius of Jimi Hendrix, you must dig a lot deeper.
I mentioned that David Henderson’s book was the first SERIOUS biography on Jimi Hendrix. It was not to take a dig at this book, which was the first biography written on Jimi Hendrix (1974). It was written by his friend and early musical collaborator, Curtis Knight, who was really the first person to let Jimi spread his wings musically. Jimi was his bandleader and shared the spotlight with Curtis. Since this bio was written so early, you can’t really say that Curtis was trying to cash in on the Hendrix craze that exists now. At that time, there was no market for a Jimi bio. I have always respected that. This was the first Jimi bio that I read. (Sidenote: With Curtis’ second published book on Jimi Hendrix in 1992 called Starchild, he was the only author to have written TWO books on Jimi Hendrix. This is until I…
Brent Abell resides in Southern Indiana with his wife and Drake the Puggle. Brent enjoys anything horror-related. In his writing career, he’s had stories featured in over 30 publications from multiple presses. His books Southern Devils,Southern Devils: Reconstruction of the Dead, In Memoriam, The Calling, Phoenix Protocol, Dying Days: Death Sentence, Dying Days: Zealot, Death Inc., and Wicked Tales for Wicked People are available now. He is also a co-author of the horror-comedy Hellmouth series. Currently, he is working on a multitude of projects. You can hang out with him on his website for some rum, beer, and a good cigar.
If a person ever personified being a metal god, it was Lemmy. The leader for the legendary Motorhead didn’t care about how he appeared to people. Lemmy wanted to kick ass on stage and leave a legacy marked by booze and smokes. This book shines the light on how Lemmy rose to become one of the most influential vocalists and bass players in metal. If you like an irreverent look at the price of fame, this book is for you.
Lemmy's name was synonymous with notorious excess. His blood would have killed another human being. This is the up-to-date story of the heaviest drinking, oversexed speedfreak in the music business who tragically passed away earlier this year. Lemmy had quickly outgrown his local bands in Wales, and tripped through his early career with the Rocking Vicars, backstage touring with Jimi Hendrix, and his time with Hawkwind. In 1975 he went on to create speedmetal and form the legendary band Motoerhead. Motoerhead stand firm as conquerors of the rock world, their history spanning an insurrectionary forty years. While the Motoerhead line-up…
I am an educator, author and Jimi Hendrix Historian who has been studying Jimi Hendrix for over 20 years, with a concentration on promoting him to the youth and people of color. One of my prime objectives is to ensure that Jimi's ENTIRE legacy is covered and given the proper respect. Once you incorporate my two books on Jimi (Nobody Cages Me, and Jimi Hendrix Black Legacy) and my forthcoming documentary into the research that already exists on Jimi, only then, can you get a fuller picture of the complexities of Jimi Hendrix. I had to sift through many books, magazine articles, and a wide variety of multi-media to try to get a grasp on the REAL Jimi Hendrix. I started seeing holes in what was being presented, so I decided to talk to people that were there. Many of these people didn’t appear extensively in these source documents. This list is just a start. In order to TRULY understand the genius of Jimi Hendrix, you must dig a lot deeper.
The most emphasized aspect of Jimi Hendrix’s life has always been his turn as a meteoric Rock guitar phenomenon. His exploits in Europe and his triumphant return to the US usually captures most of the ink regarding his existence on this earth. Many people thought that Jimi Hendrix came out of thin air and was manufactured in London. However, this book sheds light on Jimi’s musical foundation as an itinerant sideman on the Chitlin’ Circuit. This was where he honed his craft and developed his chops.
You can’t leave this aspect out and jump straight to Purple Haze and All Along the Watchtower. This book leaves no stone unturned, as far as it relates to his formation as a skilled guitarist. The colorful cast of characters Jimi encountered on the dusty roads of the South and everywhere in between, will have you amused and laughing out loud.
Becoming Jimi Hendrix traces"Jimmy's" early musical roots, from a harrowing, hand-to-mouth upbringing in a poverty-stricken, broken Seattle home to his early discovery of the blues to his stint as a reluctant recruit of the 101st Airborne who was magnetically drawn to the rhythm and blues scene in Nashville. As a sideman, Hendrix played with the likes of Little Richard, Ike and Tina Turner, the Isley Brothers, and Sam & Dave- but none knew what to make of his spotlight-stealing rock guitar experimentation, the likes of which had never been heard before. From 1962 to 1966, on the rough and tumble…
Julian David Stone is an author, screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker. He shot dozens of the 1980s greatest acts by sneaking his photography equipment into concerts such as Prince, U2, the Police, David Bowie, R.E.M., the Ramones, Elvis Costello, the Talking Heads, the Grateful Dead, Joan Jett, and many, many more. Other work include screenplays for Disney, Paramount, Sony, and MGM. He is also the writer and director of the hit cult comedy feature film, Follow the Bitch, which has played to packed houses all around the country and received numerous awards.
I found this to be one fo the best of the never-evening parade of rockstar autobiographies. Townshend is very honest about his complex personality and his shortcomings, and reading this, you can easily trace how this informed so much of The Who’s amazing music — and the stories of all the craziness of the early days of The Who are a blast, to boot.
“Raw and unsparing...as intimate and as painful as a therapy session, while chronicling the history of the band as it took shape in the Mod scene in 1960s London and became the very embodiment of adolescent rebellion and loud, anarchic rock ‘n’ roll.” — Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
One of rock music's most intelligent and literary performers, Pete Townshend—guitarist, songwriter, editor—tells his closest-held stories about the origins of the preeminent twentieth-century band The Who, his own career as an artist and performer, and his restless life in and out of the public eye in this candid autobiography, Who I…
There is a reason we hail B.B. King as the King of the Blues. King is a cultural icon of immeasurable influence that extends far beyond the blues. De Vise tracks King's journey in great detail, from his Mississippi sharecropper upbringing, to his rise to fame among Black audiences, to breaking through with white audiences in the late 1960s, and ultimately achieving legendary status. An outstanding read, that gave me new insight into one of the 20th century's greats.
The first full and authoritative biography of an American—indeed a world-wide—musical and cultural legend
“No one worked harder than B.B. No one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues.”—President Barack Obama
“He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced.”—Eric Clapton
Riley “Blues Boy” King (1925-2015) was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a…
My earliest filmgoing memory is of a bad guy getting pushed down the stairs in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. That shocking scene has stayed with me, leading me into a lifetime of exploring the dark visions of crime stories. It was only natural that my love of rock music, and in its interaction with other media would draw me to mystery writers whose books were fueled by their love of rock, blues and pop. "If not for music and movies, I wouldn't be a novelist," George Pelecanos once told me. "They have influenced me more than any author. I want to shout about it." Me too.
A lot of people know George Pelecanos from his work as a TV writer, but long before he contributed to The Wire and The Deuce, he was turning out great mysteries, most of them set in his hometown of Washington, D.C. These are smart, sociological thrillers that teach you a lot about life on the city's mean streets. What sets books like King Suckerman apart for me is how much they teach you about the way popular music—heard from car radios, boom boxes, and record store systems—defines people's lives. For me, one of the book's many highlights is a fierce exchange between a guy who, based on Jimi Hendrix's funky playing in Band of Gypsys thinks the guitarist should be filed under soul rather than rock because that was the direction he was going and a friend who responds, "What you think you are, man, the Amazing Kreskin... gonna…
While out looking to buy drugs, small-time dealer Dimitri Karras and his friend, record-store owner Marcus Clay, stumble into a big deal gone bad, acquire some cash that is not theirs, and become players in a savage game of cross and double-cross.
I am an educator, author and Jimi Hendrix Historian who has been studying Jimi Hendrix for over 20 years, with a concentration on promoting him to the youth and people of color. One of my prime objectives is to ensure that Jimi's ENTIRE legacy is covered and given the proper respect. Once you incorporate my two books on Jimi (Nobody Cages Me, and Jimi Hendrix Black Legacy) and my forthcoming documentary into the research that already exists on Jimi, only then, can you get a fuller picture of the complexities of Jimi Hendrix. I had to sift through many books, magazine articles, and a wide variety of multi-media to try to get a grasp on the REAL Jimi Hendrix. I started seeing holes in what was being presented, so I decided to talk to people that were there. Many of these people didn’t appear extensively in these source documents. This list is just a start. In order to TRULY understand the genius of Jimi Hendrix, you must dig a lot deeper.
Some people consider this the second serious biography about Jimi Hendrix after David Henderson’s bio. Charles Cross had a great budget and the benefit of being based in Seattle. Since it was published in 2006, it also had the huge advantage of a treasure trove of updated information, culled from decades of numerous people doing research on Hendrix, who had a huge renaissance in the late ’90s, when his family won the rights back to his catalog. This Jimi bio was just a tune-up for his more successful bio on another Seattle Rock legend, Kurt Kobain, which was entitled, Heavier Than Heaven.
'Charles R. Cross has got as close to the truth as anyone yet in his exhaustive and ground-breaking account of the life of the greatest guitarist in the history of rock.' Observer
'Meticulously researched' Mojo
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…
I have two major passions in life: music and writing. I started learning guitar aged 16, and my friends and I formed a band as soon as we possibly could. My first professional job was writing about pop music for a monthly magazine, and much later in life, I discovered jazz. Now I’m a bass-player, jazz singer, and composer who works with some of the finest jazz musicians in London, and I play regularly at Ronnie Scott’s club. As well as the Donald Fagen biography, I’ve also written biographies of the great jazz singers Mark Murphy (for me, the greatest of them all) and Jon Hendricks.
When I was growing up, the fabled 1969 Woodstock music festival was a byword for the alternative drop-out culture of hippiedom then at its height.
Even today, people remember it and the town that gave it its name (although it's actually located 40 miles from the site of the festival). What’s perhaps less well known is that Woodstock first became Hippie Central several years before, after Bob Dylan and his manager Albert Grossman moved there, and it continued to attract musicians and artists long afterwards.
This book tells an often shocking tale of excess – drink, drugs, and sexual shenanigans. (And incidentally, Donald Fagen now divides his time between Woodstock and New York.)
Think "Woodstock" and the mind turns to the seminal 1969 festival that crowned a seismic decade of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. But the town of Woodstock, New York, the original planned venue of the concert, is located over 60 miles from the site to which the fabled half a million flocked. Long before the landmark music festival usurped the name, Woodstock-the tiny Catskills town where Bob Dylan holed up after his infamous 1966 motorcycle accident-was already a key location in the '60s rock landscape. In Small Town Talk, Barney Hoskyns re-creates Woodstock's community of brilliant dysfunctional musicians, scheming…
