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Shawn Boothe lyrics : "Unauthorized Biography Of Jimi Hendrix"


The unauthorized copy...
Dedicated to the greatest guitarist of all time

My name Shaun Boothe...

[Chapter 5]

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
'Tll 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


[*"Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix plays*]

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, "You 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 the 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 thang
And then performin at some hole-in-the-wall club

Greenwich Village, New York
The young brother was discovered


[*"Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" by Jimi Hendrix plays]

By Chas Chandler, from The Animals

Told him, "I'll make you famous in London baby, vmonos"
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'da 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, martian-like
So outta this world he was larger than life

{*feedback buzz*}
And they couldn't believe that
He would take something as undesirable as feedback

Use it like it's music and fuse it into this new sound
Fuzz pedals, wah-wahs, he was breaking new grounds


[*"Foxey Lady" by Jimi Hendrix plays]

And it was cosmic, the way it caused this epiphany

of all the electric guitar's possibilities
...And it was happening so fast
Three 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


[Outro]
The Unauthorized Biography of Jimi Hendrix
Next chapter: Sean Combs

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