The Force That Was Jimi Hendrix

1001 Movies To Watch Before Your Netflix Subscription Dies, Part 29
Joe Boyd, John Head, & Gary Weis (directors), Jimi Hendrix

It’s difficult to believe, given his outsized influence in multiple musical genres, that Jimi Hendrix’s mainstream success lasted only four years. He went from the blustering rebel smashing his guitar at Monterey Pop, to a solemn icon playing with quiet intensity at the Winterland Ballroom, to an early grave, faster than some artists today produce their second album. He left behind a lifetime’s output, and he changed lives along the way.

Filmmakers Boyd, Head, and Weis began creating this rocumentary shortly after Hendrix’s abrupt passing. They bring together both original and vintage interviews with concert footage to eulogize an artist whose passing was still recent. The fresh hurt on many interviewees’ faces is palpable. But the music Hendrix created remains fresh and powerful; the licks from tracks like “Machine Gun” and “Purple Haze” still influence musicians today.

This documentary begins with the assumption you know who Jimi Hendrix is. It launches with concert footage of Hendrix deliberately overwhelming his speaker stacks, getting the well-modulated pop and whine that made his guitar work groundbreaking. (Hendrix didn’t invent feedback, Ike Turner did, but Hendrix exploited feedback’s popularity for everything it’s worth.) Then, when you’re good and rocked out, it launches into serious journalism mode.

Interview subjects include people who knew Hendrix personally, before his early fame, and also musicians, mostly British, who felt his impact on their careers. Little Richard, in whose band Hendrix paid dues; Pete Townshend, who viewed Hendrix as a rival at Monterey; Eric Clapton, who started off seeing Hendrix as somebody who stole his licks, then became an ardent admirer. Hendrix clearly changed every life he touched.

But though it’d be easy and cost-effective to interview well-known musicians, these filmmakers throw the net wider. They interview people Hendrix knew and worked with, people who loved him before he became famous, people who guided his musical sound as he guided theirs. Childhood friends, Army platoon mates, influential DJs, old lovers, bandmates. Diverse voices combine to tell Hendrix’s story in ways he, being absent, cannot.

Jimi Hendrix sets fire to his already-smashed guitar at Monterey Pop (click to enlarge)

Al Hendrix, Jimi’s father, provides important context for Jimi’s struggling childhood. He discusses how Jimi, a desperately shy child, found identity through playing guitar; if ordered to clean his room, young Jimi would strum his broom, Al says. But Al, a notorious alcoholic with a temper, also struggles through his narration, his words audibly slurring. It’s difficult not to wonder how reliable a narrator poor Al actually is.

Our filmmakers match their interviews with well-chosen concert footage. When Pete Townshend talks about his battle with Hendrix over playing order at Monterey Pop, the camera jumps directly to Hendrix’s legendary performance, where he played “Wild Thing,” culminating in smashing his guitar. Early girlfriend Fayne Pridgeon talks about almost getting evicted behind Jimi playing Bob Dylan at full volume, leading into “Like a Rolling Stone” at the Isle of Wight.

And what concert footage! Hendrix remains famous for early, high-energy recordings like “Wild Thing,” but that represents one fraction of his output. His performance of “Machine Gun” at Winterland, in which he mostly stands still and plays with understated gravity, is downright entrancing. And a vintage jam where he plays “Hear My Train a’Coming,” a concert staple he never recorded to his satisfaction, on an enormous acoustic twelve-string, brings chills.

Ironically, Hendrix himself probably wouldn’t have approved this eulogy. Archival interviews show his disdain for Q&A repartee. Doing panel with Dick Cavett, he subverts every question Cavett asks, leaving the interviewer stumped. Another anonymous off-camera interviewer questions whether smashing his guitar is a “gimmick”; Hendrix disparages the idea of gimmicks altogether, and says destroying a guitar is neither better nor worse than destroying a Vietnamese village with napalm.

This film substantially reflects its time. Released in late 1973, just months after Operation Homecoming basically ended the cultural moment we call the 1960s, its ethic was already outdated upon debut. Interviews with Buddy Miles, Noel Redding, and multimedia pioneers Arthur and Albert Allen, bespeak a street-fighting attitude that probably made sense one year earlier. Various attempts at hippie-era pop philosophy reflect how the Woodstock era was already dying.

Yet it also reflects how much Hendrix himself breathed life into that period. Some of his live performances and interviews included here were recorded mere weeks before his sudden passing in 1970. Though Hendrix’s survival wouldn’t have prevented the 1960s ending, it’s tempting to wonder exactly how culture might have changed. But, like a supernova, the light of Hendrix’s burning continues shining long after the source itself has burned out.