The Grail Guitar
The Search for Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze Telecaster
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- $49.99
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- $49.99
Publisher Description
In The Grail Guitar: The Search for Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze Telecaster, Chris Adams takes readers on a fascinating mystery tour to determine whether a Fender Telecaster bought secondhand in a London music store in 1973 was the one used by Jimi Hendrix to record “Purple Haze” in January 1967. The only clues are its left-handed tuners and the salesman’s chance remark that the guitar was brought into the shop by a Hendrix roadie. But these are enough to set the author off on this intriguing journey into Hendrix history.
With firsthand details from model Linda Keith, who discovered Hendrix in New York, Adams recounts how the rising star left for London with a white Stratocaster belonging to Keith Richards. The man who made Hendrix’s pedals explains how this Strat failed to make the “Purple Haze” recording session and how it was replaced by a borrowed Telecaster. As Adams tracks down the surviving musicians, they shed light on the fate of that Telecaster and gradually the two guitars begin to merge into one. Throughout, Adams weaves his own story as a rock musician and tells how, against the odds, he managed to hold on to this remarkable instrument.
Here is a riveting story of one man seeking the truth about a cultural artifact that changed rock history, a story for rock fans and guitar aficionados, treasure hunters and antique dealers, as well as anyone who likes a detective story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Musician Adams's fascinating search for the provenance of his beloved and battered Fender Telecaster which may or may not have been owned by guitar hero Jimi Hendrix is equal parts cultural history and detective story, and it's completely compelling reading. Adams's quest for the history of his "grail" begins almost 40 years after he found the guitar in 1973 in a London music store, where a salesman casually tells Adams he got it from "one of Hendrix's roadies." At the time, Adams was guitarist in the folk-rock band String Driven Thing, and his knowledge of the late 1960s music scene serves him well as he and a researcher friend inspired decades later by rumors about "Jimi's lost Tele" comb through Hendrix biographies and Internet sites. They discover a few solid facts in the chaos of Hendrix history: that Jimi used a Telecaster on overdubs on the "Purple Haze" recording, even though his guitar of choice was the Fender Stratocaster; that Hendrix bass player Noel Redding had procured the guitar from a friend for the session; that Redding ended up with the guitar after he had stopped playing with Hendrix; and that Redding had probably sold it to an actual Hendrix roadie. As Adams traces the guitar's journey through the 1960s including a day-glo paint refinishing he successfully rescues "this little piece of rock history for posterity."
