Barrett, Eric

Eric Barrett was there when Hendrix set Woodstock ablaze, when paranoia crackled through Toronto Airport, when his music electrified a sea of 600,000 at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, and in the quiet hours backstage when he revealed the insecurities behind his genius. Hendrix confided in few people. Barrett was one of them. ‘Experienced’ is Barrett’s unflinching memoir: the definitive inside account of Hendrix as friend, bandleader, and phenomenon. It strips away the mythology to reveal the man in all his brilliance and contradiction – volatile, generous, insecure, incandescently creative, and always in pursuit of the next sound. His final years were tested and defined on British soil. Taking readers into performances that veered between transcendence and chaos, Barrett captures a Hendrix rarely seen, nervous before British crowds and afraid that the country that had once embraced him might be moving on.