Are You Experienced?

Book excerpt: The Jimi Hendrix Experience had one of the most dazzling and sensational careers of any band. Their roller-coaster ride through a schedule of sell-out tours and frantic recording sessions left them crazed with sex, drugs, stardom, and exhaustion; but at the same time they produced some of the most explosive, inventive, and inspired music ever heard. Now, for the first time, Experience bassist Noel Redding tells the whole story. He lucidly and wittily describes the making of the band's startlingly innovative music; how their phenomenal stage act, featuring Hendrix playing with his teeth and setting his guitar on fire, engendered a state of mass hysteria in the audience; and the scarring aftermath of legal hassles and corporate duplicity. Frank, funny, rich in anecdotes, and full of insights into Hendrix, his genius, and the way it has been exploited, Are You Experienced? is a no-holds-barred account of an unforgettable band and a musical legend.