Jimi

Antonio G. Pereira  © 2023  Antonio G. Pereira

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        Jimi by Janie Hendrix and John McDermott. Official 80th Birthday Edition. Published by Chronicle Chroma. An Imprint of Chronicle Books. https://www.amazon.com/Jimi-Janie-Hendrix/dp/1797220012 

        This is quite a gorgeous Coffee Table sized book. Beautifully designed and presented. To review, Janie Hendrix is Jimi Hendrix' sister, daughter by marriage (of Al Hendrix to her mother Ayako) and adopted and raised as his own child by Al Hendrix, when Jimi was away in Europe becoming a sensation. Though she was very young when Jimi returned to the United States, and they finally met in 1968, she remembers him very well, with love and fondness throughout this book. John McDermott first came to my attention through the magazine, International Musician and Recording World (a magazine which I became aware of in 1981, when Dan Foster, who worked with Caesar Glebbeek at the original Hendrix Information Centre in Amsterdam, Holland, and helped Glebbeek put together the original Hendrix Information Centre Booklet (of which I have a copy) shared his issue of International Musician and Recording World with me; as an article about Jimi Hendrix was in that particular edition. Later in the mid 1980s, I subscribed to the magazine, and that is where I first saw mention of John McDermott; who at the time was producing Promotional Videos for one of the better Hendrix copyist bands, named Jon Butcher Axis. I remember a big window display for their current album in the Sam Goody's that used to be across the street from Radio City Music Hall, the week they were appearing at The Bottom Line.

        This book, along with Chris Welch's book, 'Hendrix', and David Henderson's book, 'Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child of The Aquarian Age', as reference tools, will give you a complete, honest picture of Jimi Hendrix' life. Here, you will find no opportunistic, two bit Drug Counselling Expert Analysis stupidity disguised as Scholarship, or misguided, superimposed onto Hendrix, one dimensional Right Wing Pseudo-Patriotism. Just the facts. With the exception of the openly dishonest and mob connected (in both Britain and America) Michael Jeffrey (as well as the assorted shady characters and ass-kissers that worked for him), and the circumstances of Hendrix' death (still open to question as far as I'm concerned), this is as close to an honest assessment of Jimi Hendrix' life as you're going to get. A heartfelt thanks to all the people who contributed with their time, their thoughts and remembrances, to help put this book together. I think one Jimi Hendrix, would be quite surprised and moved, that so many people cared about him and his legacy of music, all these decades later.