By Ed Symkus

Jimi’s sister and a Newton-based Hendrix scholar dig into the archives and come up with a coffee table book that celebrates the rock icon.

Jimi by Janie Hendrix and John McDermott. Chronicle Books, 320 pp., $50 (hardcover)

It would take a considerable chunk of time to figure out how many books about Jimi Hendrix have been published. The guitar god packed a lot of experience into his brief life (Nov. 27, 1942-Sept. 18, 1970), much of it before he found stardom with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and writers have glommed onto him via a profusion of topics ranging from his musical prowess, his love life, his drug abuse, his perfectionism, and much more.

Most fans know that upon his death, Hendrix became a member of “The 27 Club” – rock artists who died at the age of 27. Among the ill-fated folks who preceded his demise from asphyxia were Brian Jones and Canned Heat’s Alan Wilson. The 27-year-olds whose deaths followed his included Janis Joplin (just two weeks later), Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse.

Details of Hendrix’s death are there for the reading near the conclusion of Jimi, the new coffee table book by his stepsister Janie Hendrix and Newton resident John McDermott, the music catalog manager and recording and film project producer at Experience Hendrix. It’s actually an updating and re-designing of the co-authors’ 2007 book Jimi Hendrix: An Illustrated Experience, now expanded and featuring a lot more photos and ephemera.

But, because there has been so much overexposure of the sad facts leading to that tragic conclusion, those details are among the volume’s least interesting components. This is a book of celebration – its recent release was timed to what would have been Hendrix’s 80th birthday. What’s enthralling here is the way the authors have concisely packed in so many elements that chronicle the rise of a kid from the Pacific Northwest who, ukulele in hand, played along with albums from his dad’s record collection (Muddy Waters and Louis Jordan were in there).  He eventually achieved astonishing international success, but he traveled a long, hard road to attain it.

Like the circumstances surrounding his death, much about Hendrix’s life is out there in the information universe. It won’t be news to a lot of people that he was born Johnny Allen Hendrix or that, after his parents split, his dad legally changed that name to James Marshall Hendrix when he was 3. Nor will knowledgeable fans be surprised to read that Hendrix didn’t enjoy the discipline of army life or that, after moving east and playing as a sideman with both the Isley Brothers and King Curtis and the Squires, he started his own band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Or that he was “discovered” by former Animals bassist Chas Chandler, brought to England, and reconfigured into the frontman of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

But, to its credit, the book is also chock-full of cool little factoids that might not be on everyone’s radar – they certainly weren’t on mine. I didn’t know that it was Chandler who suggested that the guitarist change his first name from Jimmy to Jimi, or that Experience bassist Noel Redding was a guitarist who learned to play bass after he was invited to join the band, or that the choice of who would be the Experience’s British drummer came down to a coin toss over Mitch Mitchell or Aynsley Dunbar. It was again a coin toss – this one well known – that later earned the Experience the closing slot at the Monterey Pop Festival when neither the Who nor Hendrix wanted to follow one another.

Hendrix was already renowned, at least in England, for the theatricality of his shows, which featured him playing guitar behind his head as well as with his teeth. But it was the fiery conclusion of his Monterey set that captured American audiences. Well, that and his scorching guitar playing.

There’s plenty more information delivered in McDermott and Janie Hendrix’s text, including ample quotations from Jimi, spread throughout the book’s pages, that provide insight into his dreams and his character. But the main reason to own Jimi is its splendid array of visuals, from the home photos of baby Jimi to a wide variety of stage shots as well as a huge selection of concert posters covering the four years that he was an active performer. It’s easy to pick him out in an elementary school photo with 46 other kids, and it’s fascinating that you can pretty much feel his emotional energy in a closeup of him at Boston Garden in 1970.

After reading the book, I went through it again, just to appreciate those photos and posters. Jimi works extremely well as a beautifully designed art book. I don’t own a coffee table, but if I did, this volume would certainly find a spot on it.

Ed Symkus is a Boston native and Emerson College graduate. He went to Woodstock, is a fan of Harry Crews, Sax Rohmer, and John Wyndham, and has visited the Outer Hebrides, the Lofoten Islands, Anglesey, Mykonos, the Azores, Catalina, Kangaroo Island, and the Isle of Capri with his wife Lisa.