Label: Image Entertainment
Released: September 14, 2010
Some documentaries are for casual fans, others are for more serious fans and others are almost for musicians themselves. This one falls into the latter two categories. There is a bit of narrative that takes him from childhood to the London of 1967 and a bit more that surrounds his death, but the focus is more on his music, his legacy and the many wild guesses as to what he would have done had he lived.
In light of that focus, what makes this documentary really worthwhile is the tremendous amount of first hand accounts offered from the people who were there, whose musical lives were shaken, in most cases quite suddenly, by what Hendrix was doing. It does lack a lot of the clips of interviews and live performances that a more casual treatment would have offered, but the insight of those who knew and worked with Hendrix made this a deeper and more interesting look at his life and music. Best of all, it wasn’t simply an ode to the dead. The film treated Hendrix respectfully enough to be honest about who he was and where he might have gone on to become had he lived.
Rating: 7/10