JIMI: AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPH By Curtis Knight

Ripping off the late great has always been a fascination of rock, but Jimi is something else. In terms of sheer ripoff value, it has Going Down With Janis beat hands down. Not that it’s anywheres near as interesing.

Jimi Hendrix and Curtis Knight are both products of the seamy underside of the Greenwich Village— specifically McDougal Street — rock club scene, the sort of cirucuit that Baby Huey and the Baby Sitters, the Blues Magoos, and Lothar and the Hand People came out of. MacDougal Street, in the mid-60’s, became New York’s mod showcase, a place where dollies from the Bronx and Queens sat on stoops, rapping to brothers from uptown and Bed-Stuy and white suburban boys in Bobby Dylan caps. The Big Little Store sold buttons, the holes in the wall sold meatball sandwiches, and places like the Cafe Wha? sold sounds. The Street was an intellectual sump of sorts, one I remember fondly and to which I wouldn’t return if you paid me a fortune.