NAMES IN THE NEWS : He Won’t Let Hendrix Music Die
Ken Voss never saw Jimi Hendrix perform live. But he’s spent the 19 years since the death of the counterculture guitarist keeping his music alive for later generations.
“It’s funny when I go on tour with Hendrix material or stage concerts devoted to his music,” Voss said recently. “We get the 14-year-olds and the 34-year-olds, but the 24-year-olds don’t seem to know who Jimi Hendrix was.
“There’s sort of a gap there--part of a generation apparently doesn’t realize what a force Hendrix exerted on the music performed today.”
Voss is trying to close the gap, spreading the word about the acid rocker who used his teeth on the guitar strings in an unsettling, feedback-laden rendition of the national anthem at the Woodstock music festival.
A former music journalist, Voss, 38, is founder of the Jimi Hendrix Information Management Institute (JIMI), curator of a mobile museum of the star’s memorabilia and editor of a quarterly newsletter titled “Voodoo Child,” a name taken from a Hendrix hit.
He’s become a one-man clearinghouse of information about the Seattle-born Hendrix since the musician’s drug-related death in Britain Sept. 18, 1970.
“As my wife says, I’m a fan turned fanatic, I spend 12 to 20 hours a week on Jimi Hendrix,” said Voss.
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