Jimi Hendrix, Voices From Home [Hardcover]

Mary Willix (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1995

Hendrix's Seattle years, as told by friends, musicians, family members, classmates, community members and teachers. Interviews with more than sixty people, 200 photographs, memorabilia from school days.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Jimi Hendrix, Voices From Home offers many intimate glimpses of the quiet empathy, generosity, imagination, and laughter of Seattle's greatest musical genius; those who lve his music will value the important new perspective this volume opens up. These voices from home, coming from dozens of individuals, speak from many different perspectives, yet they agree about key themes: neglected aspects of Hendrix's background, beliefs, behavior, and artistry. The book, which Willix intends to be 'a modest tribute to the greatness of a friend,' is much more. It is not only interesting, but inspiring and enlightening." -- Joel J. Brattin, Univibes

"Wonderful, warm anecdotes reveal Jimi as a sensitive, friendly, nice guy. Gives insight into the circumstances that shaped his character, showing that growing up in Seattle, with its racial tolerance, natural beauty and laid-back lifestyle, was key to his art. Many photos. Offers insight and information not available anywhere else." -- Patrick MacDonald, Seattle Times 12/18/95

"Absolutely marvelous publication - a must for Hendrix lovers!" -- Caesar Glebbeek, Co-author Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy, Editor Univibes

From the Author

Those of us who shared Jimi's childhood environment know that his years in central Seattle hold a key to his creative work. We find it frustrating that reverence for Jimi as a mythical folk hero, by a generation born after his death, has been based on information that is incomplete and only partially accurate. This collection of narratives interwoven with memorabilia provides a link that has been missing in Hendrix history. Here are stories about the boy behind the legend; the Seattle kid we knew as "Jimmy," "James," or simply "Hendrix." For those of us who contributed to this book, the child is the father of the myth. Leaving that part out is like the Abe Lincoln story without the log cabin, or George Washington without the cherry tree.

I knew Jimmy Hendrix back when the only thing flashy about him was his smile. I was eleven and he was twelve when we met at Meany Jr. High School in Seattle. Most people counter with an "I don't think so" when I mention that Jimmy grew up in Seattle. Then they usually say, "Wasn't he from New York?" Most New Yorkers know Jimmy wasn't one of them. He could work crazy, long hours like any New Yorker, and his ability for conversation matched that of any Easterner, but he had a sense of playful optimism and an openness that came from somewhere else. Some fans have hastily dismissed Jimmy's origin with a shrug. Others fancifully postulate that he came from another planet. I've been thinking about that.

For years I assumed that somewhere, in another corner of another state, people had experiences parallel to ours. Lately I have begun to wonder. Those of us who were born in Seattle's central area, and went to the neighborhood schools that fed into Garfield High School, grew up in a cocoon. We shared our daily lives, our ups and downs, our lockers and our lunch money, with individuals of different ethnicities, cultures, and classes. It's possible that our childhood experiences were unique. Certainly people across town had little understanding of what we were experiencing. The South was entirely another world to us, more foreign than World War I. In fact, when we read or heard about segregation, or shocking things like lynchings, it was like news from another century - -the Stone Age maybe. My classmates and I were rudely awakened when we left our sheltered enclave. Some of them say, "We were thirty years ahead of the times." Our reactions when running into walls of racism and xenophobia have been almost universal. We think, "Where did these people grow up? What's going on here?" or "Am I in some kind of time warp? Did the clock just zoom backwards a few hundred years?"

This book is the collective effort of dozens of people. It is a collage of representative key people from Jimmy's Seattle circle -- close friends from the decade of his formative years, family members and family friends, musicians who played with him during his junior high and high school years, classmates, and other members of the Garfield community.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Creative Forces Pub; Limited ed edition (July 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964506408
• ISBN-13: 978-0964506404
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,589,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST FOR HENDRIX FANS!, July 30, 2005

By 

William R. Cramer (Durango, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jimi Hendrix, Voices From Home (Hardcover)

For anyone who wants a little better understanding of what made Jimi Hendrix who he was, then this book is a must. This is one of my favorite Hendrix books because it is full of stories about Jimi by those that knew him best, the people that grew up with him. It is not the cheapest book but it is worth every penny. No Hendrix library is complete without this book.

5.0 out of 5 stars All about the love, February 15, 2010

By 

Snu Snu - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jimi Hendrix, Voices From Home (Hardcover)

Maddog's review is right on the money. This book is all about Jimmy, not Jimi. If you are looking for hype about groupies, drugs and excess, then keep looking! If you are looking for info about the person behind the image, presented in a loving and respectful way, then this is the book you need!

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Belongs in the Upper Echelon of Hendrix Bios, March 10, 2004

By 

Mad Dog "maddog6969" (TimbuckThree, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jimi Hendrix, Voices From Home (Hardcover)

This book was written by Mary Willix and published in 1995 by Creative Forces (San Diego). I picked it up a long time ago and had big problems reading it. It is so rich in emotion that I had problems keeping with it. I finally got through it after months of picking it up and setting it back down, but my reading was so discontinuous that the sum effect of the book was compromised. So I got back to it this winter and made the committment to read it without interruption. The bottom line summary is that I consider Voices From Home to reside in the extreme upper end of the Jimi Hendrix literature - a must-have for anyone that really wants to understand what made Jimi tick.

Mary Willix was a childhood friend of Jimi's. She wrote this book in her words: "to settle the gut-wrenching feeling I had about his death". In the process of writing the book, she concluded: "The story of what really happened to Jimmy
Hendrix was more devastating than I had ever expected. The more I found out, the more I wanted to unravel the tangled bits of misinformation. Part of me wanted to climb the highest mountain and shout 'INJUSTICE!'".

Mary assembled comments from Jimi's friends and family. The opening chapters were from two of Jimi's best friends as a young kid growing up in Seattle: Terry Johnson and Jimmy Williams. These three met in grade school, grew up together
and learned to play music together in high school. When you read the words of Mary, Terry and Jimmy, you feel their bond of friendship and love for Jimi. This isn't some faked Andy Worhol 15 minute fame gig. What I see in their words
is consistency with respect to the forces that defined Jimi's soul. Jimi was a strongly spiritual individual and as a kid he had a huge need for love, probably due to his troubled home life. His friends knew a sensitive, intensely creative
young Jimi and they truly valued their time with him.

People have always talked about their interpretations of Jimi's song lyrics. In fact, I've often felt like some people went too far in their interpretations. The comments in Voices From Home have only solidified my opinions. Jimi's best friends repeatedly stress how Jimi loved to joke, tease and find excuses to laugh. For example, Jimmy Williams pointed out: "He could do things with a very tongue-in-cheek attitude. Of all the people I know, Jimmy was probably one of the most fun-loving, humanitarian people I've ever met. It all came from his attitude. He liked to play, he loved to give people nicknames, he always saw positive things in people."

At the same time, they admit that Jimi was fond of symbolism, but was so private about his feelings that even they couldn't speculate about the meaning of all his words. Jimmy Williams wrote: "Contrary to what some fans think, Jimmy's most significant song is not 'Purple Haze'. To know Jimmy, you have to look at songs like 'Straight Ahead." Mary pointed out how Jimi wrote of freedom, unity and love and qouted a lyric that was especially meaningful to her: "The best love to have is the love of life."

Hopefully, the above has put you into the ballpark on this book. Rather than continue to pluck out what I see as key quotes, I'll leave that to the reader to investigate. This book is an absolute gem. Essential stuff for those wanting
to get the most out of Jimi's music. If you want to understand why Jimi integrated blues, rock and jazz into his own Voodoo Child creation, I think you'd be better off to look here rather than any other source. The "how" is probably covered better in other sources, such as Keith Shadwick's Musician, but the why is much more of a roots approach to understanding the man. This book is as real as the dirt under your feet.