Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Legacy is Brought Back to Life in an Engaging New Biography

‘Electric Bluesman: The Life and Times of Jimi Hendrix’ By Wylie Graham McLallen Sunbury Press, 326 pagesHe got his start on an old acoustic guitar with one string, then added more strings that he could play with his teeth, behind his back and, like a baseball switch hitter, with right-handed or left-handed instruments, producing a sound, when he got his first electric guitar, that had a spiritual, otherworldly effect consonant with his reading of science fiction and the Bible.Jimi, known to Seattle locals as Buster, grew up poor, an indifferent student in an integrated Seattle school, with not enough to eat, and with a guitar, for which he had no case, strung on his back, carrying it around like it was his baby, growing up with him as he listened to all sorts of music from classical to the blues to rock to the Nashville sound—a profoundly eclectic mix of influences that he made inimitable—so much so that he got kicked out of a lot of bands that just wanted him to play the standard notes.Wylie Graham McLallen situates Hendrix in the history of popular music right from the start in a deftly swift account even as he depicts a young African American struggling in a family fraught with breakups, beaten by a father who wanted his son to get rid of that guitar. Jimi, quiet spoken but determined, plucked away no matter what, unable to read music but picking up every sound by ear and playing it back to the world in inventive virtuoso performances.Like many American innovators in the arts who had trouble finding an audience on his homeground, Hendrix reached stardom first in England, meeting his idols like Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, who were impressed but also wary of a musician who could upstage even the greatest stars.Returning to the United States, Hendrix found his audience in Greenwich Village, comfortable there in integrated musical groups and audiences. As Mr. McLallen reports, in Harlem it was a different story, where Hendrix was booed for playing what was considered white people’s music. In the age of Black Power, Hendrix dressed more like a hippie white dude and was sometimes attacked on stage by various flying objects.Those rejections, like the earlier ones, did not seem to trouble Hendrix that much. His idol was Bob Dylan whose off key voice appealed to Hendrix who also wanted to sing. Unlike Dylan, Hendrix’s music rarely became political, until late in the day when his version of the Star Spangled Banner electrified audiences for its inspiring but also violent rendition of a national anthem that gave the “home of the brave” a frightening, portentous sound.Hendrix was only 27 when he died from the complications of a drug overdose. He had worked himself into exhaustion, troubled by the typical demand that he keep playing his greatest hits, rather than the new music he wanted to perfect. Never learning to master his finances or his drug intake, or his insatiable quest to bed women, the handsome Hendrix predicted he would die young.It is to Mr. McLallen’s credit that Hendrix, for all his failings, including his occasional brutal treatment of women—never becomes just another rock star gone wrong. Hendrix struggled to come to terms with his failings, apologizing for his bad behavior, and giving every indication that he was seeking redemption. If he sometimes sounded like he was doomed, he had the power to recover himself, to think of the future that science fiction opened up for him.Along the way, Mr. McLallen provides fascinating details about how Hendrix developed his electrifying music, using the fast-evolving amplifiers and their feedback to thrill and even shock audiences in sound shattering performances. Mr. McLallen never uses the word, but his biography creates a figure that is almost saintly in spite of the sometimes putrid circumstances of a life out of control.How does Mr. McLallen do it? The key, I believe, is in the biographer’s devotion to the music Hendrix created which is tantamount to a devotion to Hendrix himself, a flawed instrument capable of ecstatic performances that awed not only his audiences but fellow musicians who realized they were playing with a nonpareil. Mr. Rollyson is the author of “American Biography.”

Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Legacy is Brought Back to Life in an Engaging New Biography

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