STONE FREE

This is a focused biographical narrative/history of nine months that changed rock music: the period from September 1966 to summer 1967, when a poor and mostly unknown Jimi Hendrix left Greenwich Village for London, took the world of British blues rock by storm, and returned to the U.S. with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the album, "Are You Experienced?”"
Hendrix's fateful months in London are discussed in a range of rock journalism and published biographies, but amidst the books that are published almost annually from Hendrix lore, there is no book that focuses closely on this story. Obrecht is particularly well qualified to write it. He knows all the available sources and has interviewed many of the people who were with Hendrix in those days; but he also co-wrote My Son Jimi with Hendrix's father James (1999) and has access to personal stories from those times that can inform and enrich the telling. Among the key selling points, this book will shed fresh light on the racism Hendrix faced in London and Europe, the difficult (even abusive) relationships he had with women during this time, and the way the particular London scene of 1966 nevertheless provided the perfect web of relationships and performance venues Hendrix needed to launch his meteoric rise. Beyond the week-to- week details of what happened, Jas intends to render the story so that the other characters and places (clubs, London neighborhoods, etc.) important to the narrative come through in a three- dimensional way.

Jas Obrecht is an award-winning music journalist and former editor of Guitar Player magazine. He has written for Rolling Stone, Living Blues, and many other publications. His books include Rollin' and Tumblin': The Postwar Blues Guitarists and Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar as well as Talking Guitar with UNC Press.