JIMI HENDRIX ELECTRIC GYPSY
Authors: Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek
Publisher: St. Martin\'s Griffin, August 1992
Full-color and black-and-white illustrations throughout, 

St. Martin\'s Press | 1992 | ISBN: 0312085001 | 753 pages | PDF | 437.52 Mb


From an Amazon Review:
This book still remains the best Hendrix biography on the market. The only other work that comes near it is Harry Shapiro\'s Crosstown Traffic, but Electric Gypsy has the edge because of the sheer wealth of information presented. The authors cover all aspects of Jimi\'s life & career, including the seedier side of a rock\'n\'roll musician\'s life i.e.sex, drugs, etc. However, where this biography really scores is by ensuring that the main focus remains on Jimi\'s music, and how it informed his whole life. Harry Shapiro & Caeser Glebeek are also careful to ensure that Jimi\'s own words are used to express his attitudes to life & music. This helps to provide invaluable insight into Jimi\'s unique personality; painfully shy & quiet offstage (save for some bouts of explosive temper when he was capable of anything, well documented in the book), and yet capable of extraordinary, incendiary performances on stage. It\'s clear from this book that music was always number one for Jimi, for obvious reasons; the electric guitar provided the medium through which a very shy & introverted teenager was able to transform himself into the greatest musician rock music has produced to date. There are many excellent accounts & reviews of Jimi\'s most famous (and infamous!) concerts; Shapiro\'s excellent prose makes you feel as if your at the concerts yourself! The chapter covering Jimi\'s death is slightly less clear, but due to the many unresolved contradictions surrounding Jimi\'s demise this is inevitable.There is also an excellent discography,a list of every gig Hendrix ever performed, + comprehensive info on Jimi\'s guitars & equipment for all you technophiles out there!This biography is one of the few on the market truly worthy of the man who revolutionised the sound of rock music more than any other. The extensive quotations from Jimi\'s lyrics also highlight his very underrated songwriting abilities.I would wholeheartedley recommend this book to anyone with an interest in rock music, or indeed music, because Jimi saw no great divisions in music & was open to ideas from any genre, which is why his music still sounds so fresh & alive today. Read this book & broaden your horizons!