Over fifty years after his death Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) is celebrated as the greatest rock
guitarist of all time. But before he was setting guitars and the world aflame James Marshall
Hendrix was a shy kid in Seattle plucking at a broken ukulele and in fear of a father who
would hit him for playing left-handed. Bringing Jimi's story to vivid life against the backdrop
of midcentury rock and with a wealth of new information acclaimed music biographer Philip
Norman delivers a captivating and definitive portrait of a musical legend. Drawing from
unprecedented access to Jimi's brother Leon Hendrix who provides disturbing details about
their childhood as well as Kathy Etchingham and Linda Keith the two women who played vital
roles in Jimi's rise to stardom Norman traces Jimi's life from playing in clubs on the
segregated Chitlin' Circuit where he encountered daily racism to barely surviving in New
York's Greenwich Village where was taken up by the Animals' bass player Chas Chandler in 1966
and exported to Swinging London and international stardom. For four staggering years from 1966
to 1970 Jimi totally rewrote the rules of rock stardom notably at Monterey and Woodstock
(where he played his protest-infused rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner) while becoming the
highest-paid musician of his day. But it all abruptly ended in the shabby basement of a London
hotel with Jimi's too-early death. With remarkable detail Wild Thing finally reveals the truth
behind this long-shrouded tragedy. Norman's exhaustive research reveals a young man who was as
shy and polite in private as he was outrageous in public whose insecurity about his singing
voice could never be allayed by his instrumental genius and whose unavailing efforts to please
his father left him searching for the family he felt he never truly had. Filled with insights
into the greatest moments in rock history Wild Thing is a mesmerizing account of music's most
enduring and endearing figures.
