MURRAY, Charles Shaar 1950(?)–

PERSONAL: Born c. 1950.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, St. Martin's Press, 175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER: Writer. Former editor of New Musical Express, England.

WRITINGS:

(With Roy Carr) David Bowie: An Illustrated Record (biography), Avon (New York, NY), 1981.

Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and the Post-war Rock 'n' Roll Revolution (biography), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989, published as Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-war Pop, Faber and Faber (London, England), 1989.

Shots from the Hip (articles), Penguin (New York, NY), 1991.

Blues on CD: The Essential Guide, Kyle Cathie (London, England), 1994.

Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century (biography), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Contributor to anthology This Old Guitar: Making Music and Memories from Country to Jazz, Blues to Rock, Voyageur Press (Stillwater, MN), 2003. Contributor to periodicals, including Manchester Guardian.

SIDELIGHTS: Charles Shaar Murray has followed the music scene for several decades and is the author of several autobiographies of prominent artists in the business. His first, cowritten with Roy Carr, is David Bowie: An Illustrated Record. A study of Bowie's career, the book includes a discography and reproduces a collection of concert programs, press releases, and articles about the rock star. Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and the Post-war Rock 'n' Roll Revolution (published in England as Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Postwar Pop,) was written several years later as a tribute to Hendrix, who died in 1970 at the age of twenty-seven of an overdose of sleeping pills. In the book, Murray notes that Hendrix was heavily influenced by the legendary blues singer and guitarist Robert Johnson and by B. B. King, Buddy Guy, Albert King, and Muddy Waters.

Born in Seattle, Hendrix was of mixed race—black, white, and Cherokee—and he played his black-inspired music to audiences that were primarily white. He began his career playing for Little Richard and with various rock bands before being transported to London by his agent, Chas Chandler, former bass player with the band the Animals. It was in London that the flamboyant guitarist became a pop icon, impressing audiences and other musicians, including Eric Clapton. His famous rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," at the conclusion of the Woodstock Festival, is replayed to this day. Hendrix's career lasted just four years.

Publishers Weekly contributor Genevieve Stuttaford said that Murray "augments solid musical scholarship with astute social and historical commentary, and meets the challenge admirably." Jeremy Harding wrote in the London Review of Books, "In a sparkling homage, far more readable than most books about pop music, Murray argues that the extravagant left-hander who introduced a new vocabulary to rock guitar-playing was the unsung progenitor of a jazz we will never know."

A selection of Murray's articles from two decades are collected in Shots from the Hip. Murray also wrote Blues on CD: The Essential Guide, which documents recordings from the 1920s to the 1990s, including those by artists Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey to contemporary blues masters like Kinsey Report and Saffire/Uppity Blues Women. Library Journal contributor Rick Anderson noted that "Murray's fresh and friendly writing and profound mastery of the subject matter make this guide worth acquiring."

Murray returned to biography with Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century, drawing in part on interviews with friends, family, and Hooker himself. Born in the Mississippi Delta, Hooker first played blues guitar as a child in the 1920s. Murray traces the musician's career from Memphis to Detroit and finally to San Francisco, chronicling Hooker's worldwide status in the 1960s rock culture. Because Hooker could not read music, each time he performed a song it sounded unique. Hooker influenced musicians like Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, and ZZ Top. He had been playing more than forty years when he had his first hit album, The Healer, which also featured Raitt and Carlos Santana, although his seminal album, Canned Heat, had been recorded two decades earlier in the 1960s.

"As Murray sees it, nobody else but Hooker could have come up with the particular style and sound that have made him the legendary bluesman that he is," wrote Paula Friedman in the Los Angeles Times. "It is a view that might seem a mere truism, yet Murray makes the case compellingly clear." Friedman concluded that "Murray provides an intelligent analysis of the various strains of popular music with which Hooker's blues became entwined. Folk, pop, rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll all came under the sway of Hooker's emotionally intense, rich, broody voice."

Murray contributed to the anthology This Old Guitar: Making Music and Memories from Country to Jazz, Blues to Rock, a history and tribute to acoustic and electric guitars of various makes. The volume includes historical photographs, memoirs, and stories as well as quotes from famous guitarists, including Clapton, Waters, King, Hendrix, Pete Townsend, and T-Bone Walker.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 2000, Mike Tribby, review of Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century, p. 406.

Library Journal, October 1, 1981, Lauren Fleishman, review of David Bowie: An Illustrated Record, p. 1929; September 15, 1994, Rick Anderson, review of Blues on CD: The Essential Guide, p. 73; October 1, 2000, David Szatmary, review of Boogie Man, p. 102.

London Review of Books, May 24, 1990, Jeremy Harding, "Got to Keep Moving," review of Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-war Pop, p. 19.

Los Angeles Times, October 26, 2000, Paula Friedman, "A Blues Career of Enduring Eloquence," review of Boogie Man, p. E1.

New York Times Book Review, January 20, 1991, Robert Waddell, review of Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and the Post-war Rock 'n' Roll Revolution; March 18, 2001, Michael E. Ross, review of Boogie Man, p. 17.

Publishers Weekly, June 22, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and the Post-war Rock 'n' Roll Revolution, p. 40.

Rolling Stone, November 9, 2000, David Thigpen, review of Boogie Man, p. 42.

Sunday Times (London, England), October 24, 1999, Robert Sandall, review of Boogie Man, p. 42.

Village Voice Literary Supplement, March, 1992, Richard Gehr, "Vicious and His Circle: Taking Aim at the Sex Pistols," review of Shots from the Hip, p. 27.