SHAUN BOOTHE Presents the 3rd of 12 Unauthorized Biographies. 1st: JAMES BROWN 2nd: BOB MARLEY 3rd: MUHAMMAD ALI 4th: MLK Jr. & Barack Obama 5th: Jimi Hendrix
http://www.myspace.com/shaunbootheLyrics:
November 27th, 1942
Seattle, Washinton - Johnny Allen Hendrix was due
His mama named him
But at 17 just a little schoolgirl
Instead of raise him
She dumped him on whoever she could
Till his father came home, he was away at war
Renamed him James Marshall Hendrix
When he walked in that door
Growin up was so rough
They were livin so poor
There were times when he would starve
Mama drank too much and it finally caught up
And at 15 she was gone
And around that time's when he got his first guitar
Bought by his father for five dollars,
And little did they know it birthed a star
He would turn the radio on and he would play along
That's how he learned his chops
Then an electric guitar finally came along
A right handed supro ozark
A gift from his father, but the dope part
Is he was left handed so he electrified crowds
When he got onstage and played it upside down
Got in trouble with the law, stole a car, got cuffed
They said u can either join the army or get locked up
Came back a year later - honorable discharge
Went legit and hit the chitlin circuit hard
Little Richard, James brown
He was touring with the stars
Playing da background with his upside down guitar
But in 65 things would soon change
When he formed his own band
Jimmy James And The Blue Flames
See as a sideman he was too constrained
But as the frontman he could do his thing
And then performin at some hole in the wall club
Greenwich Village, New York
The young brother was discovered
By Chas Chandler from the animals
Told him ill make u famous in london baby vámonos
So he gave him a new name and a new band
And said London
Here he is The Jimi Hendrix Experience
And the british pop scene went delirious
Hey Joe, Purple Haze,
Who'd a thought he'd start a craze
Innovating on the stage
Changing the way guitars were played
But he didn't break America until he did The Monterey
Pop Festival
Where Jimi ended his set by settin his guitar aflame
And a star was made
A rock archetype,
Phychadellic voodoo child
Marcian-like
So outta this world he was larger than life
And they couldn't believe that
He would take something as undesirable as feedback
Use it like its music and fuse it into this new sound
Fuzz pedals, wah wahs, he was breaking new grounds
And it was cosmic the way it caused this epiphany
Of all the electric guitar's possibilities,
And it happened so fast
3 landmark albums in a year and a half
But then things would go differently
Pressure and the drug abuse
Would break the whole band up bitterly
But even with all the misery
Summer of 69,
He performed at woodstock and made history
And like that he was immortalized
And no one would achieve more in such short a time
An icon in the hippie movement
A half Black, part Cherokee kid that couldn't read music
Still he was onstage wit his Stratocaster
Fearless individuality - no master
But his mastery put him on top of the globe
A year later he was dead - rock n roll
(less info)
Peace!