Harry Shapiro’s talk on Jimi Hendrix was a great hit and sold out at Dimbola, raising over £400 for the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust who run and maintain Dimbola Museum and Galleries for us all to enjoy.
Over 50 people came to hear Harry talk on Jimi’s life, especially the years of 1969 and 1970, which he entitled ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’. Touching a little on his childhood, Harry took everyone quickly up to the years in which Jimi was performing and becoming, arguably, the greatest guitarist in the world.
The last year of Jimi’s life
After the interval, Harry concentrated on the last year of Jimi’s life, which was rather eventful to say the least, and finally that fateful morning that he died.
Harry Shapiro’s biography of Jimi Hendrix, called Electric Gypsy, was first published in September 1990, to mark the 20th anniversary of Jimi’s death. It is widely held as the definitive biography of the giant of the electric guitar.
Whilst Harry has worked as a British music-writer, with biographies of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Alexis Korner and Graham Bond, he has also, for over 40 years, worked for UK drug charities as an author, journalist and public speaker.
First public talk about the book
Harry admitted that he’d never given a talk on his biography of Jimi, so Dimbola were honoured to have had the first and only talk by Jimi’s biographer!
He said,
“I was flattered to be asked. It was a great evening; well organised, full house and a very appreciative audience.”
Rave review of the evening
In the audience was Peter Harrigan, the publicist of the original 1969 and 1970 IW Festivals and publisher of ‘The Last Great Event: with Jimi Hendrix – When the World Came to the Isle of Wight, Volume II, 1970’, and he sent a rave review of the evening to Chair of Dimbola, Brian Hinton and organiser Jo Macaulay.
Peter said,
“Thanks for presenting such a brilliant event and enjoyable evening!
“Harry gave us a magisterial illustrated talk. ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’ was full of compelling detail and he gave us fascinating insights into Jimi’s life and music, revealing significant detail on the last year of Hendrix’s life.
“The IW Festival performance was tragically the last great event for Hendrix as well as the end of Festivals here for three decades.”
Don’t miss the exhibition
This event was held in and was part of the exhibition ‘Experience the Isle of Wight Festival 2002 to 2023’, which runs until 17th September and includes over 100 photographs of artists who have headlined the IW Festival over the past 21 years, along with ‘best of’ footage on a large screen in a cinema room, many photographs from around the Festival site, plus artifacts including an IW Festival guitar.
News shared by Jo on behalf of Dimbola Museum and Galleries. Ed
