Crosstown Traffic cover art

Crosstown Traffic

Jimi Hendrix and Post-War Pop

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About this listen

Winner of the prestigious Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, roots-savvy British critic Charles Shaar Murray assesses the lifework of guitarist Jimi Hendrix in the context of black musical tradition, social history, and the upheaval of the 1960s.

©1989 Charles Shaar Murray (P)2012 Talking Music Entertainment & Celebrities
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Picked this up expecting a Hendrix focused story but it's far more than that. An excellent explanation of his influences and of those he influenced. Wonderfully detailed with anecdotes from the major jazz musicians of the 20th century, this is a must for any serious music fan.

Amazingly good

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Loved it, learned from it. Bit dry at the finish. Overall good, showed the attitude of the stars in a modern context.

Decent opinion presented.

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Not a Hendrix biography, but a homage to him and his musical predecessors and (lack of) successors, highly informative and, thankfully, given the author, opinionated too. Great to hear CSM's narration too. Loved it.

Wonderful

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This is partly a biography of Jimi Hendrix and partly Murray’s personal take on the different strands of the most significant or even best music of the last hundred years or so, particularly blues and jazz. He relates it to Hendrix by putting his music in the context of where it came from and where it went, and also maybe where it might have gone had he lived. I found it very interesting and there was a lot of stuff in there that I didn’t know before and music that I will now listen to having heard of it here. Murray writes well and clearly knows his stuff and this is not necessarily for everybody. But if like me you have a serious interest in music and you get Hendrix, which not everybody does, then I’m sure you will find this book enjoyable and illuminating.

Well informed selected history of modern popular music seen through the prism of Jimi Hendrix.

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