Review: 'Jimi'

Whenever I write a review, I keep a notepad by my side, and my first note after picking up Jimi was "How much does this book weigh?" The answer is: about four and a half pounds. Not the heaviest book I've reviewed recently; Prince: All the Songs is six pounds, but Prince's career lasted about ten times longer than Hendrix's. Like All the Songs, Jimi is a big hardback with text and lots and lots of pictures. Originally published in 2007, the 80th Birthday edition of Jimi puts a lot more emphasis on the pictures than the text (both are equally important in the Prince book), but I was surprised by how satisfying Janie Hendrix (Jimi's sister) and John McDermot's text was despite the fact that it accounts for maybe fifty pages on the 300-page book. While there are certainly more in-depth biographies of the guy I think we can all agree was the most innovative, imaginative, and influential rock guitarist who ever lived, Jimi still provides a pretty good compact bio, and there are so many quotes from him that it almost feels like a proper autobiography in spots. It's nice to get so much of Hendrix's own perspective.

But, again, it's the pictures that are the main selling point of this big, big book, which is a fair purpose considering how visual an artist Hendrix was. Always wildly attired and commanding despite his spacey, gentle persona, he's is a guy you just want to stare at while sinking into his extraordinarily visual music. There's a nice variety of images in Jimi, most, obviously, displaying its subject on stage and back stage and posing with his band, but there are also some charming family photos (young Jimmy Hendricks beams as he gets down into a stance while wearing his little football uniform), handwritten lyrics (including the weirdly Christian early draft of "Purple Haze"), lots of groovy concert posters, and a page from The Monkees' newsletter that discusses their upcoming tour with the most inappropriate opening act in history. But I was most taken with a drawing of a rock band Hendrix made when he was young. It's not only rendered in excellent proportion, but also full of personality, action, and humor. I could have looked at 300 heavy pages of the little guy's drawings.