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dag__chika's review against another edition
3.0
Incredible account of Hendrix's life. Henderson does a phenomenal job explaining in detail exactly how Jimi Hendrix became the icon he was and currently is. The book does feel like it's longer than it needs to be, with paragraphs detailing one guitar solo or the performance of one specific song. The biography would have held my attention better if it spent a little bit less time in the details of a specific song and a little more time on the historical and cultural context of Jimi's life.
yetilibrary's review against another edition
2.0
I finally gave up. If I didn't have to request this through ILL, and if I were able to renew it, I might have kept trying, but I decided to just let it go. I never wanted to pick it up and I'd hit a part of the book that was a real slog.
They say not to fall in love with your subject--whether you're a biographer or the creator of a fictional character--and I wish someone had said that to every dude who wrote about Jimi Hendrix, because they need to stop. David Henderson, at least, has clearly done a lot of very thorough research, but no one told him that a biography does not need to involve telling us about every single conversation Hendrix had in 1968 because YE GODS JUST GET ON WITH IT, MAN. A biography of Hendrix does not also need to involve the complete history of rock and roll, and while I am grateful for that knowledge, that's not the book I was looking for, and decidedly not what it says on the tin. If you want to write a history of rock, do that, but don't shove that 80 pages (plus) into a totally different book. The reader notices. YOU ARE NOT THAT SLICK.
Augh.
Maybe someday, in a distant future, when I feel like a deep dive into every street Jimi Hendrix trod from 1966 until his untimely death, I will pick up this book again. Until that day, I've given up.
tl;dr: WHITHER THE EDITOR?
They say not to fall in love with your subject--whether you're a biographer or the creator of a fictional character--and I wish someone had said that to every dude who wrote about Jimi Hendrix, because they need to stop. David Henderson, at least, has clearly done a lot of very thorough research, but no one told him that a biography does not need to involve telling us about every single conversation Hendrix had in 1968 because YE GODS JUST GET ON WITH IT, MAN. A biography of Hendrix does not also need to involve the complete history of rock and roll, and while I am grateful for that knowledge, that's not the book I was looking for, and decidedly not what it says on the tin. If you want to write a history of rock, do that, but don't shove that 80 pages (plus) into a totally different book. The reader notices. YOU ARE NOT THAT SLICK.
Augh.
Maybe someday, in a distant future, when I feel like a deep dive into every street Jimi Hendrix trod from 1966 until his untimely death, I will pick up this book again. Until that day, I've given up.
tl;dr: WHITHER THE EDITOR?
kabukiboy's review against another edition
4.0
I liked the way the narrative develops the sinister and the cynicism until the end. It took a while to get used to some of the text describing Jimi's thoughts as if the author was right there in Jimi's head but I let it go in the end which made the book less of a slog. It actually made for good reading in the end as it became more of a story about a real person's life.
I have no idea about the premise or possibility of a sinister end for Jimi but that is obviously the agenda the author wanted to push and he did a good job of that. It's quite sad as the same story was told again and again about others after 1970 and it's still happening today, although the 'rock music industry' feels like it no longer exists now.
I have no idea about the premise or possibility of a sinister end for Jimi but that is obviously the agenda the author wanted to push and he did a good job of that. It's quite sad as the same story was told again and again about others after 1970 and it's still happening today, although the 'rock music industry' feels like it no longer exists now.
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