Jimi Hendrix: A Brother's Story

Jimi Hendrix: A Brother's Story by Hendrix, Leon. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781250031433.

More than forty years after his death, Jimi Hendrix-recently named the greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine-continues to inspire fans of rock music. Many have written about Hendrixs life and music, but Jimi Hendrix: A Brothers Story provides a revealing and unprecedented look at this visionary icon: an intimate biography written by Jimis younger brother, Leon. Leon Hendrix takes us back to the days before Jimis amazing rise to fame in the 1960s, beginning with their tough childhood in Seattle, when their fascination with science fiction and UFOs helped them escape a difficult family life. (Jimi insisted his family call him "Buster," after Flash Gordon actor Buster Crabbe.) The author reveals Jimis early fascination with sound, from his experiments with plucking wires attached to bedposts to the time when he got in trouble for taking apart the family radio ("I was looking for the music," he explained) to Jimis purchasing his first guitar-a Sears, Roebuck and Co. acoustic, from a neighbor. Leon recounts Jimis early days performing on the "Chitlin Circuit," when Jimi would call from the road to play early versions of tracks for the classic album Are You Experienced, and illuminates the biographical roots of Jimis most well-known rock & roll songs. Readers learn about the heady days of sex and drugs that came with Jimis skyrocketing fame in the sixties and how Leon felt Jimis management isolated him from the rest of the family. The author speaks of his own heartbreak, learning of his brothers sudden death while incarcerated in Washington States Monroe Reformatory. Commemorating what would have been Jimis seventieth birthday, Leon Hendrixs poignant and captivating account sheds new light on a music legend.