Three years after his untimely death of a drug overdose at the age of 27, the documentary Jimi Hendrix (1973) gave audiences a look back over his life and art through interviews with friends, family, collaborators, and fellow musicians and a marvelous selection of musical performances, all of them presented in their entirety. While the performances are all from the prime of his career, the film takes us back to the beginning to discuss the band he formed while serving as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division and playing back-up for The Isley Brothers and Little Richard and takes us through his move to London where he created The Jimi Hendrix Experience and then his return to the U.S. as a rock and roll superstar.

Along with the personal stories, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend speak of him with respect and more than a little awe for his abilities as both a guitar player and a showman. But the portrait that comes out is of a modest artist with a passion to create music and a gift for creating something new. "The effect he had on English musicians, not just guitarists but all musicians, was just phenomenal," proclaims Clapton. Townshend is even more effusive in his praise: "I think in many respects he changed the sound of rock far more than the Beatles.... Jimi changed the sound of the guitar, he turned it into an instrument." The archival footage of Hendrix includes clips from his appearance on The Dick Cavett Show soon after his controversial electric rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock. Appearing without his band The Experience, Cavett introduces him as "a naïve and inexperienced Jimi Hendrix." It's a joke but it comes back more seriously as those closest to Hendrix describe him as a man too trusting of everyone around him. "He was so gullible," laments Clapton. Experience bass player Noel Redding and Hendrix' manager Michael Jeffery turned down interview requests but Mitch Mitchell, the Experience drummer, offers a dissenting opinion: "He was not a naïve man."

The focus, however, is on the music, which dominates the production. Along with clips of Hendrix from the films Monterey Pop (1968) and Woodstock (1970), we see filmed performances from The Marquee in London from March 1967 (originally filmed for the British music program Beat Club), The Fillmore East in December 1969 (from black and white videotape), Berkeley Community Centre in May 1970, and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival (later preserved in its entirety in the 1991 concert film Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight), plus an acoustic solo on 12-string guitar filmed in London in 1967. In a 1973 interview with Rolling Stone, filmmaker Joe Boyd insisted that the film "is not by any means a biography of the man; it's an impressionistic film. Our first chore was to show his music, and if we could also get a feeling of what the period and Hendrix were like, that was a bonus; but basically it's a musical film."

Jimi Hendrix is "A Joe Boyd / John Head / Gary Weis Production." Boyd had produced records for Fairport Convention and Maria Muldaur and had been involved with the distribution of the short film Experience (1968) featuring The Jimi Hendrix Experience. He became interested in producing a feature-length film after Hendrix's death and started securing interviews. John Head was head of research for the film and Gary Weis, who worked as a cinematographer on the rock documentary Gimme Shelter (1970), is credited with the films "visuals." As Boyd explained to Rolling Stone, "The film was done on a three-way democratic system between me and Gary and John." Weis went on to direct music videos, short films for Saturday Night Live, and the original rock mockumentary The Rutles: All You Need is Cash (1978).

Warner Bros. was reluctant to produce the film. Woodstock had been a major hit but subsequent rock documentaries and concert films had not found success. They gave it the green light thanks to encouragement from the Warner record label and the film broke house records when it opened at the UA Westwood in September 1973.

By Sean Axmaker

Sources:
Behind The Making Of 'A Film About Jimi Hendrix', Judith Sims. Rolling Stone, November 8, 1973.
AFI Catalog of Feature Films
IMDb