Jimi Hendrix: Sessions: The Complete Studio Recording Sessions, 1963-1970

by John McDermott, Eddie Kramer, Billy Cox

Jimi Hendrix is universally recognized as the greatest rock 'n' roll guitar player of all time. But until now, the story of how he made his amazing music has never been told. Jimi Sessions is the first book to take us inside the studio and reveal, album by album and track by track, how his songs were born and shaped into the classics they would become. Hendrix biographer John McDermott, working with Hendrix's producer Eddie Kramer and bass player Billy Cox, recreates in extraordinary day-by-day detail the making of every one of Hendrix's songs. Based on firsthand accounts by people who were there and on hundreds of hours of unreleased tapes, this book reveals what went into the creation of "Purple Haze", "Foxey Lady", "All Along the Watchtower", and Hendrix's many other masterpieces. It explains how Hendrix manipulated the primitive studio technology of his time to achieve his unprecedented sounds, and it shows the new heights toward which he was reaching at the time of his death. Beginning with Hendrix's legendary journeyman sessions for the Isley Brothers and other soul greats, and continuing through his last work, this is the authoritative treatment of Hendrix as musician that admirers have long awaited. Illustrated with over one hundred photographs, handwritten lyrics, and studio memorabilia, Jimi Sessions is a loving and timeless tribute to the electric guitar's greatest master.

Genres: Music

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would even go so far as to give this book 3½ stars if that was allowed by Goodreads. But it is, after all, something of a compromise, no doubt by necessity. It is really sort of half one thing and half another- while it does indeed offer fairly detailed coverage of Jimi Hendrix's recording career, it is also formatted as a "coffee-table book", and so contains as many photos as blocks of text. I've never seen any of the three authors put their names on anything that outright sucked, and quite honestly, this book is well worth the price just for the information inside it. Aside from the primary draw of learning more detail about how Jimi Hendrix went about creating his amazing and enormously influential work, Eddie Kramer is one of the greatest recording engineers ever, and Billy Cox was the primary inspiration for me to become a bass player many years ago. John McDermott and Eddie Kramer had also written another book about Jimi Hendrix, more biographical in nature (Hendrix: Setting The Record Straight), first published in 1992, and this present book is perhaps best seen as an adjunct to that one.

Jimi Hendrix has been on of my favourite musicians since I was a little kid in the early 1970s; when I first heard Billy Cox's extraordinary bass-line for the song 'Ezy Ryder' roughly half-way through that decade, I immediately knew that I was going to play the bass. As far as that goes, Mitch Mitchell's jazz-inflected style of drumming has always been the model for the sort of drummers I prefer to play with, as well. Many years later, the things I had learned from hearing or reading interviews with Eddie Kramer were incredibly helpful when my own band began recording.

Obviously, given all that, I was reasonably familiar with much of the music discussed in this book; after all, the very first LP I ever bought was a Jimi Hendrix record, a very good U.K. compilation called 'Stone Free' (https://www.discogs.com/release/15836...), which I highly recommend. Despite all that, reading this book not only reminded me of songs I hadn't listened to in years, but also turned me on to a few recordings of which I was completely unaware. In addition, my wife was pleased, because she sometimes gets a bit tired of my listening to jazz almost all the time (with occasional bits of rock & roll, rhythm & blues or blues), and would much prefer that I listen to more Jimi Hendrix!!!

[Steve Coscia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explains much about early recording. The Red House recording is still the best.

[Clifford Novey · Rating 5 out of 5]

for die hard fans- Eddie Kramer's notes are an invaluable first-hand insight into Hendrix and his work.

[Bjm Index]

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