Jimmy Hendrix Letter To Father,

JackInBox

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Some people have not seen this.

I was impressed how driven he was. He went hungry,
sometimes not eating for a whole day

------------------------------
--> 1965

Dear Dad,

I still have my guitar and amp and as long as I have that, no fool can keep me from living. There's a few record companies I visited that I probably can record for. I think I'll start working toward that line because actually when you're playing behind other people you're still not making a big name for yourself as you would if you were working for yourself. But I went on the road with other people to get exposed to the public and see how business is taken care of. And mainly just to see what's what, and after I put a record out, there'll be a few people who know me already and who can help with the sale of the record.

Nowadays people don't want you to sing good. They want you to sing sloppy and have a good beat to your songs. That's what angle I'm going to shoot for. That's where the money is. So just in case about three or four months from now you might hear a record by me which sounds terrible, don't feel ashamed, just wait until the money rolls in because every day people are singing worse and worse on purpose and the public buys more and more records.

I just wanted to let you know I'm still here, trying to make it. Although I don't eat every day, everything's going all right for me. It could be worse than this, but I'm going to keep hustling and scuffling until I get things to happening like they're supposed to for me.

Tell everyone I said hello. Leon, Grandma, Ben, Ernie, Frank, Mary, Barbara and so forth. Please write soon. It's pretty lonely out here by myself. Best luck and happiness in the future.

Love, your son, Jimmy (as in Hendrix)
(Letter excerpted from ''Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy.'' reprinted by arrangement with St. Martin's Press. LLC)
 

JackInBox

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Jimmy Hendrix Letter

.
Their was three things I can add;
1) The legal fight over who has rights to Jimmies stuff is over
2) Jimmy brother plays, and just had a big writeup in the New-York-Times
3) The Weekly-Standard made a big deal about "playing lousy", is what people want to hear.
 
T

tyler_hannibal

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i respect him even more for making it on his own two feet
 

willg54

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ahh, Hendrix, my all time favorite .. .I remember when my folks came into my room the night that the news reported his death. I was really shocked and upset. I can remember that night vividly. Anyway, I really wish he were still alive, so we could see how his music would have evolved, and enjoy it still. He had such raw talent and was so far ahead of his time. Listen to him occasionally, and keep his music alive, 'lest we forget.
 

JackInBox

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Jimmy Hendrix Letter to Father; WeeklyStandard analysis

.

This is what i was talking about. David Brooks took
one (or two) sentences from the letter and really aimed
a arrow at the Woodstock generation

From Jimmy to Jimi
An unearthed letter from the great guitarist gives some insight into the Woodstock generation.
by David Brooks
01/03/2003 12:00:00 AM

LAST SUNDAY, the New York Times magazine published a document so amazing, I assumed that it would set off a world-wide sensation, a great cacophony of breast-beating, disillusion, and internal crisis. It was a letter Jimmy Hendrix wrote to his father in August 1965. The letter describes the marketing strategy Hendrix planned to use to get rich. And yet the letter's publication in one of the most-read magazines in the nation has not stirred the hue and cry I anticipated.

....
In the crucial part of the letter, Hendrix explained his business strategy: "Nowadays people don't want you to sing good. They want you to sing sloppy and have a good beat to your songs. That's what angle I'm going to shoot for. That's where the money is."


...

Perhaps the Woodstock movement wasn't corrupted as it aged. Perhaps it was conceived in a bed of cynicism. It was corrupt even before it existed, a beautiful and massive con worthy of P.T. Barnum.

.....
 

Martha Washington

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well, that's David Brooks for ya!
I think he should know a little something about 'massive cons' so I'll defer to him in this.

I think it's a good guess that Hendrix music will stand the test of time better than his mean spirited and oportunistic newspaper columns will....

or I'll eat a bug!!!
 

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