Hendrix Hidden in a Purple Haze : JIMI HENDRIX: Electric Gypsy, <i> By Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek (St. Martin’s Press: $29.95; 723 pp., illustrated)</i>

As both architect and casualty of the ‘60s, the great electric guitarist Jimi Hendrix will forever be associated with the broken promises of that era. But as “Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy” emphasizes, the legacy of the black Seattle musician is as rich and enduring as rock itself.

Artists such as Prince, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, ZZ Top and the Gang of Four have little in common, but they share their debt to Hendrix and the supersonic, feedback-drenched sound that was his pure invention. For that matter, it’s hard to consider any modern guitarist’s obsession with music technology without recalling the multitudes of equipment Jimi Hendrix used, abused and occasionally set afire before the musician himself went down in flames.

Exactly what one hears when one hears Jimi Hendrix is thus a matter of substantial interest to many music fans. Certainly it’s a preoccupation for the co-authors of “Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy.” From the dozen or so books written about the enigmatic, left-handed guitarist, Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek’s endeavor is distinguished by its exhaustive appendices, the careful attention paid to the complex Hendrix sound and the sheer volume of material collected by the authors. (Glebbeek is the founder of the Jimi Hendrix Information Center in England.)

Unfortunately, this book is billed as a biography, presumably through which we may come to know the man beneath his soaring music. Shapiro and Glebbeek don’t seem up to the task. Unabashed Hendrix fans (Glebbeek dedicates the book to “Jimi,” as he is referred to throughout), they desire above all to keep the master’s flame, and thus don’t dare fan it. In light of the book’s size, its price tag and the dust jacket’s promise of a “groundbreaking biography,” that’s a disappointing discovery.

The disappointment deepens when one recalls that, according to the preface, the authors managed to score interviews with key Hendrix sources who have never before spoken to the media. Since little in the way of revelatory personal information emerges from this book, it’s likely that these sources got the better of their arrangement with Shapiro and Glebbeek.

What we have, then, is an earnest, uneven biography that works better as a road map of Jimi Hendrix’s music. The authors make an effective case that Hendrix’s peculiar genius did not owe itself strictly to psychedelia but was in fact derived from disparate musical and nonmusical influences. Some of these were black artists, such as Little Richard and fellow southpaw guitarist Albert King, but Hendrix was also greatly inspired by Bob Dylan, and later recorded stirring renditions of “All Along the Watchtower” and “Like a Rolling Stone.”

Yet, as the authors point out, Hendrix did not succeed by apprenticeship, and in fact fared poorly in his music classes. Young Hendrix seemed more enthralled by science fiction, which helps explain the otherworldly sounds he would later coax out of his electric instruments. While acknowledging the jazz, blues and even country influences in Hendrix’s music, the authors are careful to underscore the stubborn individualism apparent in the end product. (Hendrix himself is quoted describing his sound as “a mixture of rock, freak-out, blues and rave music.”)

Though Shapiro and Glebbeek studiously avoid psychoanalyzing their subject, one can occasionally read between the lines and see the forces that shaped Hendrix’s life. His father was a military man, as was Hendrix (101st Airborne, 1962), a fact which tempered his hostility over the Vietnam War, thus putting him at odds with his leftist contemporaries. Hendrix’s mother was barely a presence, and died of cirrhosis of the liver when Hendrix was 15. But her absence made Lucille Hendrix “a powerful legend in his life, full of mystery and fantasy.” Though the authors don’t come right out and say it, the lack of a strong maternal presence may account for Hendrix’s seemingly insatiable need for female companionship, manifesting itself in the endless parade of groupies (Hendrix called them “Band-Aids”) through his life.

After leaving the Army in 1962, Hendrix went to Nashville and performed with an outfit calling itself the King Kasuals. A mere four years later, he was in London, humbling Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Peter Townshend with his pyrotechnic guitar feats. The next year, 1967, Hendrix’s first single, “Hey Joe,” climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard charts, followed by the scorching “Purple Haze” and a performance at the Monterey Pop Festival that gained him instant adulation.

How this breathtaking ascent must have felt to the young musician is scarcely discussed. The authors lovingly describe all of his albums, and even some of his concerts, song by song, but there are precious few scenes that present a vivid picture of how Jimi Hendrix handled success, or how it manhandled him.

At times, this avoidance seems dishonest, an insider’s attempt to preserve a myth. A scene in which someone discovers naked women sprawled across Hendrix’s hotel bed is hastily explained by the authors as “just Jimi being Jimi.” Shapiro and Glebbeek acknowledge that Hendrix hurled obscenities at his audience now and again, but it’s their contention that the crowds, by requesting old favorites, deserved this treatment. Whether they did or not, it’s clear that there is a flip side to Hendrix--testy, brooding and perhaps even tormented--which the authors won’t play for us. This damages their credibility badly in places, especially on the subject of race--which, according to the authors, “wasn’t an issue” in the black musician’s life: “He played it all down and made a joke out of it.”

By 1970, according to the authors, “Jimi was becoming increasingly distrustful of those around him.” Yet the examples cited--including accusing his conga player of being a spy--suggest not simply distrust but also outright paranoia. Perhaps this word wasn’t chosen because of its association with drugs, a subject the authors treat with the greatest of reluctance, though Shapiro has written an entire book about drugs in the music world.

Drugs come with the territory, however: Hendrix was a serious user of marijuana, cocaine and LSD, and died of an overdose of barbiturates in 1970 at age 27. (It’s the position of the authors that Hendrix wasn’t trying to kill himself; to infer that he would be so weak in spirit, they admonish us, “is to do Jimi Hendrix a grave disservice.”)

Certainly it’s instructive to note, as the authors do, that Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”--a song so commonly associated with psychedelia that a type of LSD is named after it--wasn’t written either about or under the influence of acid. Yet Shapiro and Glebbeek do everything they can to downplay the role of drugs in Hendrix’s short life: by emphasizing the addled condition of his band mates (drummer Mitch Mitchell is described here as “a walking chemist shop”), by waxing indignant over Hendrix’s having apparently been framed in a Toronto drug bust, and, incredibly, by seeming to suggest that more often than not, the drugs Hendrix took were forced on him by fans and groupies.

This whitewashing of Hendrix’s life is particularly vexing in light of the authors’ assertion that Hendrix’s death was purely a stroke of bad luck. In fact, even the evidence timidly presented in “Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy” suggests that Hendrix, who also drank a great deal, was careening toward a violent end. Understanding the man necessitates coming to terms with that unpleasant reality.

But Shapiro and Glebbeek refuse to climb inside their subject’s head and probe his yearnings and demons--and clearly they would not presume to judge Jimi. Perhaps they should have admitted this reluctance at the outset, and then focused exclusively on Hendrix’s work, where the authors are at home.

The text of this massive, dutiful paean concludes with the hope that “through more careful appreciation of (Hendrix’s) work he could receive the recognition as a genius of twentieth century contemporary music.” Taken strictly as a means to this end, “Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy” is a useful, perhaps even essential resource.