Mick Wall, que es un veterano del oficio y un superventas, tenía muchas posibilidades a la hora de escribir sobre Hendrix. El acceso a testigos (los que quedaban vivos), el recurso a abundantes fuentes bibliográficas, su talento como escritor, su dedicación al periodismo musical y la mística del personaje daban mucho de sí. Podía Wall haber optado por un relato novelado, por una biografía salpicada de crítica musical, por una historia oral o por un libro de entrevistas, y de entre todas esas opciones no se decidió por ninguna.
Veteran bestselling author, Mick Wall, had everything going for him when it came to writing about Hendrix. Access to first-hand accounts (from witnesses who are still alive), an overflowing tankard of bibliographic sources, his talent as a writer, his dedication to music journalism and the mystique surrounding the book’s main character were all more than enough to make for a great story. Wall could have opted for something more fictional, for a biography riddled with music criticism, for an oral history, or for a collection of interviews, but instead, he decided to do none of the above.
«Two Riders Were Approaching. Vida y muerte de Jimi Hendrix» es el curioso resultado de esa elección que contiene todas las elecciones. Da la impresión de que su editorial española ha querido contribuir a esa mezcolanza manteniendo medio título en su lengua original y traduciendo la otra mitad. La portada, tan psicodélica y sesentera ella, anima a entrar en el libro, y la ágil pluma de Wall empuja a devorar sus páginas, un errático relato que fluye desordenado en el tiempo, y que de esa sorprendente manera consigue acercarse al personaje, a su errabundo deambular por el cosmos encerrado en su cabeza y en su música. Hay continuos flash backs, saltos en la narración, cortes abruptos para insertar entrevistas íntegras con diferentes dosis de acierto, dispersión antes de volver al núcleo.
Two Riders Were Approaching:The Life and Death of Jimi Hendrix is the surprising result of what happens when you settle on all and none of the options at hand. The Spanish edition gives us the impression that the publisher in Spain wanted to contribute to this mishmash by keeping half the title in the original language and translating the other half. The very psychedelic and sixties cover entices you, inviting you to open the book, while Wall’s nimble pen encourages you to devour page after page, filled with an erratic story that flows through a jumbled timeline, somehow managing to bring you closer to Hendrix and to his nomadic wandering through the cosmos he had locked in his head and in his music. There are continuous flashbacks, leaps in time throughout the narrative, mixed with abrupt cuts to full interviews inserts that are, at times even fitting… loads of distraction before getting back to the real story.
El texto de Wall es un intento de apresar caleidoscópicamente veintisiete años de un alma atormentada, de arrojarlos contra el telón de fondo de una época agitada que cambió la expresión del rostro de los Estados Unidos y de Inglaterra. El lenguaje con el que está escrito es el del periodista que afina su lápiz pero también es el de las calles de Londres y el de los negros norteamericanos, esos que no consideraban a Hendrix uno de los suyos porque tenía sangre india y se juntaba con músicos blancos. Wall es espectador y es protagonista, llama al escenario a todos quienes desfilaron por él en aquellos años: los músicos, las chicas, los managers, los mafiosos. Con todo ello construye un brumoso pastiche en el que, con trazos de intriga policíaca, siembra la idea de un pérfido plan en el que Hendrix es un muñeco en manos de otros y su muerte no es accidental. Así empieza y así termina el libro, y entre medio brota con todos sus colores la vida de un músico que luchó contra su propio mito, que veía en su música los dos lados del arco iris.
Wall’s text is an attempt to kaleidoscopically capture twenty-seven years of a tormented soul, to hurl them against the backdrop of a troubled era that changed the countenance of both the United States and England. The way it was written is that of a journalist with a sharpened pencil, but who also pertains to the streets of London and the North American blacks (incidentally, the same blacks who didn’t think of Hendrix as one of their own since he had Indian blood and hung out with white musicians). Wall is both a spectator and a protagonist, as he makes a front and center call to all those who marched through Hendrix’s life: the musicians, the women, the managers, the mobsters. He uses all this to knit a foggy quilt, in which thanks to touches that are reminiscent of a police thriller, he sows the idea of a perfidious plan in which Hendrix is merely a doll in the hands of others, hinting at the possibility of a less than accidental death. In fact, the book both begins and ends in this way, and in the middle, tells the dazzling, technicolor story of a musician who fought against his own legendary status and saw both sides of the rainbow in his music.
Translation by Jessica Jacobsen.
