Customer Reviews

Jimi Hendrix: Starchild

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3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I don't know what the color of the sky is in the world that the other reviewers
here live in..or what they were smoking. Maybe they are just young, I don't know.
But this book is the biggest piece of crap that was EVER penned in the name of Jimi Hendrix. I should have known before hand though after having read Knight's 1974 book simply entitled "Jimi" what a load of BS this was going to be. In THAT book, Curtis spent more time blowing his own out of tune horn than giving us any useful information on Jimi. You see, here is the problem. Curtis Knight was not a has been. He was a never was. A guy who never got beyond the bar band level but his one claim to fame was that Jimi Hendrix (prefame) was briefly in his band. In the first book, Curtis claimed to have seen Jimi twice since he died. Once Curtis woke up one morning with his girlfriend and looked across the bed and Jimi was laying beside her on the other side of the bed(and Curtis didn't jump up and yell WTF !!!!?) The second time he was alone one evening in a candle lit room and Jimi floated in about 3 feet off the floor wearing a long white robe (and bald no less!) Must have been some good stuff Curtis was smoking. In the book in question here "Starchild," I will give two example of why you should toss this book. Curtis spins a tale of the band doing a gig (in Jersey I think) and on the way home a snow storm causes the car to get stuck in a ditch.The band (except Jimi and Curtis are asleep and they are in danger of freezing to death when Lo and behold a UFO lands, an alien or two get out, and push the car back onto the road. Of course nobody else saw this (imagine THAT). The other steaming pile of crap is in one of the photos in the book. A shot of Curtis by Jimi's grave and the ghost of Jimi mysteriously in the background. What it is, is a really bad double exposure photo that a 1st grader would scream FAKE at.
To sum up...I am a Hendrix completist. I have most EVERY book readily available on Hendrix and some hard to find ones and they vary greatly in the quality of what they offer. THIS book I refuse to have in my collection. Someone gave me a copy and after reading it, politely gave it back. Toss this one into the nearest
trash can. (end of rant).

JIMI WAS MORE THAN JUST 'SEX, DRUGS, AND WILD MUSIC'When you think of Jimi Hendrix you no doubt think of Woodstock, pot, acid and wild living.But by reading this book by a member of one of Jimi's early bands, it becomes obvious that this "dude" had a great spirit, a great soul. He believed in LOFTIER THINGS, had many metaphysical experiences (including out of body trips) and claims an angelic-like UFO being saved his life (UFOs were said to follow him whereever he played). I learned so much from reading this book that I had never heard of before.Jimi was a very special being...he even hinted that he had come from another space and time to preach the gospel of love to earth. He did his job and in the blink of an eye he was gone. An unfortunate -- but prophetic -- event ended his life here on terra firma. Find out the inner workings of this miracle musician.

When Jimi Hendrix experienced his first big break playing at popular clubs in London in 1967, where he was seen and heard by numerous British rock stars such as Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Pete Townsend, one of the first reactions was that Hendrix seemed to have landed from outer space, sent here to show mere Earthlings new things about the electric guitar and its limitless possibilities. What began as a simple metaphor, attempting to describe just how innovative and revolutionary Hendrix's playing was, might have also contained some quite literal truth.

Author Curtis Knight was a longtime friend of Hendrix, being one of the first to give Hendrix some work when the future superstar was down on his luck in New York and couldn't even pay the rent on his hotel room. The two remained friends up until Hendrix died in London in 1970 at age 27, and Knight believes that Hendrix's spirit still watches over and communicates with him from the Other Side.

In the course of their years together, Hendrix often discussed his own paranormal experiences with Knight, who dutifully reports many such stories in "Jimi Hendrix: Starchild." For one thing, Hendrix believed that UFOs used to follow him around and that his life was even saved by an angel-like being who arrived in a spaceship and helped him survive being trapped in a freezing van in the middle of a killer snowstorm. Hendrix reportedly had numerous prophetic dreams and out-of-body experiences. He claimed to know that there was a race of beings living inside the Inner Earth. Some say that Hendrix was telepathically "tuned in" to his close friends and was able to communicate with them mentally.

All of which makes for very interesting reading of course. The book also contains many photos, including several of Hendrix and Knight together.

The spiritual/metaphysical side of Jimi Hendrix has managed over the years to surface somewhat in his lyrics, but Knight's detailed examination of the way Hendrix believed in and interacted with the supernatural contains revelations that go way beyond any mere analysis of the words Hendrix sang as he poured out his heart with virtuoso guitar playing. If you're a fan of Hendrix and his music, or simply interested in the paranormal in general, Knight's "Jimi Hendrix: Starchild" will give you new insights into both the genius and the soul of one of rock's greatest luminaries.

There are many biographies available of Jimi Hendrix, most of them written from a unique perspective. Starchild is no different in that respect, giving us one man's look into Jimi's life before and after he made it big. Curtis Knight has written a book that has historical value, but the writing style is relatively bland and at times tends to embellish the author as much as the subject. If this were the sole basis for the rating, I'd have given the book one or two stars at most. I've bumped the composite score up to 4 stars because, although this is not an engaging read stylistically, there is plenty of meaty substance included here and it provides a piece of the puzzle that's not available anywhere else. When you couple what's written here with the music the two put on tape, it provides a key part of the Hendrix mosiac.

The student of all things Hendrix must sort conflicting information at times, for example, regarding the details of Jimi's death, but Starchild is not really all that controversial. It's a pity that Curtis didn't take the time to dig a little deeper, to document the months prior to Jimi's departure for England in '66. Jimi played and recorded with Curtis Knight and the Squires, but he also played with his own band which was named Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. This was the band seen by Chas Chandler, the man that took Jimi to England and did more than any other to get his career going. I'd be interested to know much more about Jimi's musical development while playing with these two bands - more about the people involved and more about the technology. For example, some credit Frank Zappa with educating Jimi on the subtleties of controlling feedback, which Jimi then took to new levels. It would be interesting to have more views on this exciting period of Jimi's music.

In summary, this is a worthwhile source for the hardcore Hendrix reader, but if you just want one book, you could consider the encyclopedic Electric Gypsy, or (better in my opinion) Musician, bu Keith Chadwick.