Hendrix - A Biography by Chris Welch

 This 1972 book is probably one of the earliest biographies of my favorite guitarist that I had found and one that I have not revisited in probably decades. Re-reading now, I'm kind of surprised at the harshness of some of Welch's critiques, many that I think is pretty unfair to the man. He does hype the posthumous album, Cry of Love, quite a bit, which had been released right about the time of this book, but he almost goes overboard with his praise, considering that he did not care for greatness like Electric Ladyland! He does interview a number of people close to Jimi, including Chas Chandler, Noel Redding, members of the road crew and more, but he never gets the whole story and this is far from a definitive biography, and I doubt that Welch thought so, either. There is a bit of sensationalism'n'gossip, especially concerning Jimi's death, but also his drug use in general and his supposed mistreatment of women.

Considering the large number of extensive biographies that have been published since this one, I'd say that this is not particularly essential, but there are quite a number of fun photos throughout, even though they are all in black'n'white on flat paper. I'm going to have to revisit some of the other Hendrix books I have to see what I would recommend.