Jimi Hendrix: The Man, the Magic, the Truth by Sharon Lawrence

From the Publisher

The definitive account of Jimi Hendrix's inspiring and tragic life-from one of his dearest friends and most-valued confidants.

A young black man who captivated whites in the segregated sixties, Jimi Hendrix radiated genius and personality when he picked up a guitar. His fans admired him, loved and worshipped him-and still do. 2005 marks the 25th anniversary of his death. Jimi Hendrix: The Man, the Magic, the Truth is not just about looking at the rock legend who died at the age of 27. Rather, the book takes the reader inside his life, his death and its amazing aftermath. It is both a bio and a serious investigation. Jimi Hendrix: The Man, the Magic, the Truth will tell and show what really happened to Jimi Hendrix in his life and his tragically early death with rare, never-before-seen material including unpublished conversations, legal documents and insights from more than fifty fresh, pertinent sources who have previously kept their silence. The book will correct false information, illuminate key truths and supply facts that have been previously withheld from the public.

Sharon Lawrence met Jimi Hendrix in 1968 soon after becoming a young reporter. They hit it off and gradually she became a trusted friend, compassionate confidante and sounding board for Hendrix, whose fast fame found him disillusioned and overwhelmed with business and personal problems he could not have imagined in his worst nightmares. For three years Jimi discussed with Lawrence, at length, his music, his past, his family, his business concerns, his fellow musicians, his worries over The Experience, and his creative dreams for the future during intense, sometimes humor-filled, conversations. Lawrence was present in Jimi's last year of life and talked extensively with him in the days before his death on September 18, 1970, and has waited a long time to tell what she knows about Jimi Hendrix. She is the one and only person to tell the startling truths behind the remarkable life of one of rock n' roll's greatest legends.

The Washington Post - Mary Ishimoto Morris

Lawrence's insightful rendering of Jimi Hendrix the human being is the first written by someone whom Hendrix apparently trusted with his deepest thoughts and feelings -- about his music, family and career. Her Hendrix laughs, worries, shouts, cries, smokes, shares cherished photographs, talks about problems with his family, irons a shirt, flings furniture.

Publishers Weekly

Former UPI reporter and Hendrix confidante Lawrence (So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star) recalls the guitar player's brilliance in this sympathetic biography. She skims over his early years-his abandonment by his mother, his high school rock bands, his brief time as a paratrooper-but slows down once Hendrix gets to playing his guitar in earnest. After knocking around as a session player and winding up in New York, Hendrix signed with former Animals bassist Chas Chandler and went to England in 1965, where he blew away the likes of the Beatles, Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones. He triumphantly returned to the U.S. for 1967's famous Monterey Pop festival, where he became an overnight superstar. But bound by bad deals he signed without counsel, under an intense media glare, exhausted by the road, busted for possession and trapped in a downward spiral of drugs, lawsuits and paranoia, Hendrix burned out. The year before his death, Lawrence writes, she watched Hendrix become a "Shakespearean protagonist... while a growing brood of greedy villains circled like vultures." On September 18, 1970, Hendrix overdosed on pills, which Lawrence believes was a deliberate act to "confront fate." While much has been written about Hendrix's meteoric career over the years, Lawrence's close ties to the musician and her well-written narrative make this book a welcome addition to the Hendrix canon. Agent, Martha Kaplan. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A veteran journalist and friend of the late Jimi Hendrix, Lawrence offers a sympathetic memoir of the musician that unlike past biographies doesn't dwell on Hendrix's creative marvel or lament his early demise. Instead, Lawrence focuses on Hendrix's troubled childhood and the rock star excesses, which included drugged-out hangers-on, social parasites, and preying businessmen. The book starts slowly, yet Lawrence's firsthand experiences with Hendrix (as well as Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton) provide an insider's view of the late 1960s and early 1970s rock landscape. Best of all are the memories of Hendrix the numerology nut (he was a nine), serving as a witness in his much-publicized Canadian drug trial, and recalling his admission that he had "never been in love," all of which reveal the human side of a musical messiah. Thus, Lawrence's presence when Hendrix died reads less like the passing of a god than the sad loss of a friend. Recommended for any library with standard Hendrix biographies like David Henderson's 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: The Life of Jimi Hendrix.-Robert Morast, Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, SD Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0060562994
  
• ISBN-13: 9780060562991
• Format: Hardcover, 288pp
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Pub. Date: February 2005

• Read a Sample Chapter

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

Johnny/Jimmy

She loved a good time. There were few of them in her short and wretched life.

Lucille Jeter shook off the gloomy blanket of wartime anxieties that troubled all the adults around her, and despite her family's admonitions, she ignored the tedious drip ... drip ... drip of the Seattle evening rain to go out and dance every chance she got.

The sweet-natured and naïve "baby" of the Jeter family, Lucille hadabrotherandthreeoldersisters. Theirparents, Prestonand Clarice, were typical of many of the black residents of Seattle in the 1940s, men and women who had migrated west, seeking a better life but frequently disappointed. Born in Virginia, Preston Jeter possessed educationbut few opportunities. He worked,atvarioustimes,as a miner and as a longshoreman. His wife, Clarice, a native of Arkansas, brought in much-needed income toiling as cleaning lady and housekeeper. Welfare checks sometimes entered the picture. Mrs. Jeter's Pentecostal religion was both her rock and her social life; she worried and prayed about Lucille and her always fragile health. Lucille was inclined to overdo.

The sight of the pretty, tiny, pale-skinned black girl kicking up her heels and the sound of her giddy laughter as she was tossed into theaircaptivatedAlHendrix.Itseemedthatshewouldneverget enoughofthebrightlightsandspiritedjitterbugrhythms.Lucille loved her music!

Theexhilaratingnightsonthedancefloordidn'tlastlong. Weeks after the couple's first meeting, Lucille became pregnant and hurriedly married twenty-two-year-old Al, an attractive if not handsome bantamroosterofaman,standingbarelyfivefoottwo.She told her mother that she liked the way Al smiled at her.

Her young husband was an American citizen raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, who had settled in Seattle several years before to try his luck as a lightweight boxer in the city 's Golden Gloves competition. Al 's father, Ross Hendrix, was an Ohio native who grew up to becomeaChicagopolicemanandeventually,makinganexotic switch, took a job as stagehand for a vaudeville troupe. He married one of the dancers in the company, Nora Moore, the daughter of a full-bloodedCherokeemotherandanIrishfather.NoraandRoss Hendrix decided to give up the traveling life and make a new start in Vancouver. In quick succession Nora gave birth to two sons, a daughter,and finally to James Allen Hendrix, generally known as Al.

Since his education had ceased in the seventh grade and he was unprepared for any skilled work, Al turned to the love of dancing he 'd inherited from his mother to making a few bucks here and there in dance contests. His specialties were tap dancing, jitterbugging, and soloimprovisations.AlthoughAllater wastorefertohimselfasa member of an important show business family, Mama Nora worked longhoursinthekitchenofaVancouverrestaurantaftersheleft vaudeville; as a teenager Al was a waiter there.

WhenhemarriedLucille,Alhadperhapsonlythreethingsin common with his sixteen-year-old wife: They both were the youngest children intheirrespectivefamilies, they each lovedto dance, and theyhadachildontheway.Withindaysaftertheirmarriageon March 31, 1942, Al kissed Lucille good-bye. Drafted into the army, he was sent more than fifteen hundred miles away to Oklahoma, and then on to Georgia.

Lucille was barely seventeen when she gave birth to her first son, Johnny, on November 27, 1942. The birth took place at the home of Dorothy Harding, a good friend to Lucille 's sister Dolores. Relatives and friends joked about how strange it was that these two short peoplehad conceived such a graceful, long-limbed baby.

Raising a baby was no joke, and Lucille was unprepared to handle the transition from dropout schoolgirl to mother. Through an army snafu, she was not receiving any of Al's military pay. Not long after Johnny was born, Preston Jeter died of a heart condition. As a result, Clarice was plagued by financial problems. She loved Lucille's baby, butshecouldn'ttakecareofhimandalsoworkfivedaysaweek. ClariceandherdaughterDoloresweredeeplyconcernedabout Johnny'swelfareashewasshuttledaroundacircleofrelatives, friends, and even completestrangersin homes in and near Seattle. Week to week Johnny never was quite sure who was "in charge" -- a phrase that stayed with him. He slept on pillows, in baskets, and in otherpeople'sbeds;arealbabycribwasaluxuryJohnnyseldom knew.LucillefloatedinandoutofJohnny 'slife,the"Mama"he adored -- eveniftheyounggirlcouldn'tsupporthimor manageto take care of him for more than a few days at a time ...