Entertainment
LOST & FOUND: HENDRIX ESOTERICA
Discover the Jimi you never knew with this new book.
Wed, Jun 12, 2002 12:00 am
Alex Constantine
For Jimi Hendrix collectors who have long cried for a definitive guide to his brief but convoluted career, Steven Roby's Black Gold: The Lost Archives of Jimi Hendrix (Billboard Books) will dry their eyes.
Black Gold is billed as "the first book to authenticate the lost sessions of Jimi Hendrix, previously unknown recorded collaborations, and rare film and video documents."
It's an obvious labor of love -- Roby published and edited Straight Ahead: The International Jimi Hendrix Magazine from 1989-96 -- and an engrossing history of the guitar virtuoso's life and career, not the dull bin of pop arcana the book's subtitle suggests.
The biographical sections detail Hendrix's apprenticeship on the brutal Southern "chitlin' circuit," backing Slim Harpo, Curtis Knight, Wilson Pickett, the Isley Brothers and a slew of other R&B acts.
The book also salvages from obscurity his early performances and studio sessions as "Maurice James" with Little Richard (who fired Hendrix for upstaging him), Love's Arthur Lee and Jayne Mansfield (!) among others.
Roby's interviews with friends, family and musicians who recorded or jammed with Hendrix provide a steady spate of revelations big and small.
Periodic status reports detail the contents and availability of every known Hendrix recording, film and documentary, formerly a confused mountain of acetate, now a tidy inventory of music that still, as Frank Zappa warned, "eats you alive."
Anyone with an interest in Jimi Hendrix will find Black Gold an experience.
It's an obvious labor of love -- Roby published and edited Straight Ahead: The International Jimi Hendrix Magazine from 1989-96 -- and an engrossing history of the guitar virtuoso's life and career, not the dull bin of pop arcana the book's subtitle suggests.
The biographical sections detail Hendrix's apprenticeship on the brutal Southern "chitlin' circuit," backing Slim Harpo, Curtis Knight, Wilson Pickett, the Isley Brothers and a slew of other R&B acts.
The book also salvages from obscurity his early performances and studio sessions as "Maurice James" with Little Richard (who fired Hendrix for upstaging him), Love's Arthur Lee and Jayne Mansfield (!) among others.
Roby's interviews with friends, family and musicians who recorded or jammed with Hendrix provide a steady spate of revelations big and small.
Periodic status reports detail the contents and availability of every known Hendrix recording, film and documentary, formerly a confused mountain of acetate, now a tidy inventory of music that still, as Frank Zappa warned, "eats you alive."
Anyone with an interest in Jimi Hendrix will find Black Gold an experience.