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Univibes Review of Jimi Hendrix an Illustrative Experience-

 
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Georgina



Joined: 20 Dec 2005
Posts: 235
Location: London

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2008 4:29 pm    Post subject: Univibes Review of Jimi Hendrix an Illustrative Experience- Reply with quote

Hello I know we already had a long thread on this book-but I thought you'd all like this review from Univibes.

BOOK REVIEW
– by Joel J. Brattin

JIMI HENDRIX: AN ILLUSTRATED EXPERIENCE
By: Janie L. Hendrix & John McDermott. Published: 9 October 2007, Astria Books, New York, U.S.A. (price: US $45.00. ISBN: 0-7432-9769-5); Simon & Schuster UK, London, England (price: UK £30.00. ISBN: 0-7432-9489-0). 64 pages. Index: no. Enclosed CD: 69:25 total time. – Rating: ** [fair].

Most of the information about Jimi Hendrix in this book-and-CD package appears to be correct, though the authors provide no sources for any of their quotations, and indeed offer no documentation to support any of the claims they advance here. But despite the fairly high level of factual accuracy for the text, this new package presents both trivial and also gravely serious problems with misrepresentation of the truth.

Let us consider the accompanying Hendrix Live CD first. The sticker on the front of the book claims it is a “70 minute CD” of Hendrix live recordings, although the clock actually stops at 69:25. But it is astonishing that representatives of Experience Hendrix (Janie Hendrix is the CEO, and John McDermott has been the catalog manager for a decade) would allow that sticker to say that the performances on the CD were “never commercially released.” Jimi Hendrix’s performance of “Fire” in Worcester on 15 March 1968 has been commercially released by Experience Hendrix twice previously: first on a Dagger Records recording of 1999, and again on the MCA box set in 2000.

In fact, all six tracks on the CD have been available commercially for seven years: the two interviews and three songs recorded in Worcester appeared on Live At Clark University (1999), and the “Keep On Grooving Jam/Jungle Jam” session with Buddy Miles appeared on Morning Symphony Ideas (2000). If you have these CDs, there’s simply no reason to take Hendrix Live out of its sleeve.

The text of the book is unremarkable: generally accurate, notably brief, but more carefully edited than many previous Experience Hendrix publications. The introduction emphasizes “electric blues”: that phrase concludes each of the first two paragraphs. The authors make no mention of rock music, however, and the description of Jimi jamming in “a dusty Southern roadhouse” is a romantic (and perhaps anachronistic) fantasy (p. 5).

The three chapters devoted to Hendrix’s life and career before the Experience (pp. 6-19) mention Jimi’s siblings Leon and Joey, allude to Jimi’s “juvenile indiscretions” with stolen cars, quote from his official military records, and emphasize, appropriately, his work with such groups as the King Kasuals, the Isley Brothers, Little Richard, Joey Dee, and Curtis Knight.

Four chapters (pp. 20-45) cover the entire career, recordings, and performances of the JHE, from the early singles to the breakup of the group, the Toronto drug bust, and Jimi’s jams with Billy Cox and Larry Lee in the Ashokan House in the summer of 1969. Apart from the claim that Jimi played a “slide bass part” with a cigarette lighter on “All Along The Watchtower,” the facts in these chapters are largely accurate.

The final three chapters (pp. 46-61) treat Woodstock, the Band of Gypsys, the late recordings and final concerts, and Hendrix’s legacy. The most significant distortions are the perfunctory treatment of Jimi’s final European tour, selling short some fine shows after the Isle of Wight festival, and the elision of most of Hendrix’s posthumous history: the book leaps directly from 1971 to 1993, with no acknowledgment of the accomplishments (or shortcomings) of the Alan Douglas years.

This short book is richly illustrated, as the title suggests. Only a single page is wholly without illustration, and seven pages are devoted entirely to photographs of Jimi. Most of the images are familiar – the full-page shot of Hendrix on stage at the L.A. Forum in 1970 near the end of the book occupied a similar position in Jimi Hendrix: The Lyrics (2003), for example, but here it hasn’t been subjected to sepia toning, and is correctly attributed to photographer Chuck Boyd. There are a few previously-unpublished shots of Jimi on stage, and backstage and in the studio; in the best new shot, engineer Eddie Kramer captures Jimi happily writing lyrics at The Record Plant in the spring of 1968.

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the book is the presence of detachable facsimiles, either bound into the book or more commonly tucked into one of thirteen separate pockets or envelopes. Facsimiles of paper ephemera like handbills, tickets, and a concert program, and reproductions of artwork from Hendrix’s childhood and maturity, are of less interest than the facsimiles of Jimi’s written work. For the most part, these manuscripts have been published elsewhere previously.

It is too bad greater care was not taken with them, but Experience Hendrix has an unfortunate record of treating Jimi’s handwritten materials with disrespect. The facsimile of the notebook with lyrics for Electric Ladyland omits several songs, gives “Gypsy Eyes” in incomplete form, and inaccurately presents some pages Jimi actually penned on rectos as though they were on versos.

The letter Jimi sent his dad from Kentucky in November 1961 is clearly incomplete (p. 15). [Note: Like the postcards mentioned in the next paragraph, this “reproduction” is almost certainly a counterfeit – C.G.] And the “Machine Gun” lyrics, originally written on Beverly Rodeo Hyatt House stationery, are reproduced from Jimi Hendrix: The Lyrics, rather than from the original manuscript, resulting in the addition of printed lines to the background (p. 49).

The most grievous mistakes with respect to the facsimiles appear to be instances of outright deception on someone’s part, if not the authors: the “reproductions” of postcards Hendrix sent home from Los Angeles on 19 February 1965 (p. 1Cool and from München on 12 November 1966 (p. 23) are both counterfeits.

These two postcards are not in Jimi’s handwriting, and even the photographic images on the cards don’t match the originals Al Hendrix photocopied and presented to Caesar Glebbeek in Seattle on 25 January 1989.

If the originals could not be located for this book project – in his 1999 book My Son Jimi Al claimed, “I don’t have any of the original letters or postcards Jimi sent me” – why not admit this fact, rather than trying to pass off deceptive fabrications as the real thing?

There are a few facsimiles here that are new, and welcome: the lyrics to “Voodoo Child” now include the ending, omitted (presumably by accident) from Jimi Hendrix: The Lyrics, and readers will be grateful to have Jimi’s instructions for the Electric Ladyland cover art, his “Letter to the Room Full of Mirrors,” and his handwritten notes for the album sleeve all assembled together.

Best of all is Jimi’s last letter home, written in the final weeks of his life. Though the letter is evidently incomplete, bearing no greeting, address, date, or signature, it seems indisputably authentic, and its content is quite interesting.

The CD is useless, and the text of the book unremarkable, but there are some attractive photographs here, and a few interesting facsimiles. The counterfeit items, however, are deeply disturbing, and may, perhaps, influence some potential purchasers to save their money.

[First published in UniVibes #56, April 2008. All rights reserved.]
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Christopher X



Joined: 07 Jul 2006
Posts: 236
Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Thu May 29, 2008 3:54 am    Post subject: Thanks Reply with quote

Thanks Georgina,my brother used to get this magazine for a little while,not now i think though.And he left the old magazines with me to look after.
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Robert W



Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Posts: 88

PostPosted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 1:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I didn't buy the book, either. I really wouldn't.

I wouldn't give Janie Hendrix my money if she was the last person on earth.


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