If you are a gigantic music fan, you've probably already listened to and absorbed Jimi Hendrix' music to the point where you might think you never ever need to hear it again.  I know the feeling-- when I was in high school Jimi was one of the primary artists I listened to, over and over and over again to the point of oblivion.

So to you, the jaded, I say, hold up!  Just when you think you've seen and heard everything (and maybe you have, but this was new to me...), here comes the fairly recent reissue of the 1973 documentary Jimi Hendrix, which was directed by Joe Boyd, John Head III and Gary Weis.  I read about it in Joe Boyd's White Bicycles, and finally got my hands on a copy of the movie. 

Producer extraordinaire Boyd was heartbroken by the bumps that came along with putting together this film.  One thing he was dead on about, and what really makes this film compelling above all others about Hendrix, is that the interviews were conducted only 3 years after Hendrix' death, and both his contradictory and brilliant presence and the awe he inspired in his fellow musicians is extremely palpable.  Heck, you can see it written all over Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend's still-freaked-out faces! 


Roadies and managers are also interviewed, folks I had never seen in other documentaries.  Their memories are fresh:  a roadie recalls having to stand behind the amps and hold them up while Jimi humped and flailed away on the front of the Marshall stack; a manager remembers landing in London in 1970 to a pack of paparazzi and moving aside, only to have his arm firmly grabbed by still-shy Jimi, who didn't want to be left alone with the press.

Joe Boyd's recently written autobiography, White Bicycles, is amazing.  I've previously professed my jealousy of Cameron Crowe's life, but I actually think Joe Boyd has overtaken Crowe in that race.  By far.


Although he never won an Oscar (like Crowe), Boyd has had an extraordinary run in the music biz. He was always in the right place at the right time.  It's hard to even hit on all the amazing things he has taken part in here-- there's just so many of them. He was one of the first to arrange and manage European Jazz and Blues tours.  He worked for Elektra and eventually formed his own production company called Witchseason.  He booked an extremely successful club night in London in the 60s that hosted Pink Floyd and The Move, among many others.  He went on to produce artists like Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention.

In one of my favorite passages in the book, Boyd describes the night at The Newport Folk Festival when he was a stage manager and Dylan went electric.  Reading that portion of the book made my heart race!  If for nothing else, it's worth buying White Bicycles just to read about this momentous occasion in rock history from a fresh viewpoint.  Boyd was truly a part of that evening and remembers it all!  He really must have kept a journal.  It answers some questions about who exactly was in a physical fight that night, who started what and if Pete Seeger did indeed cut the electricity with an axe.  There really was an axe there that night, and that's all I'm gonna say!

Reason 2,472 that I love Amoeba: I wake up, I read the paper  (online, of course) and always find some neato thing!

Today, this is the patch of online journalism that jolts me - somewhere between a good cup of coffee and shock-paddles de resuscitare, I find this description of a man shopping at Amoeba Music, the one on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California:

from the calendar section of the LA Times:

'... These [albums] were not of mere musical interest to Boyd. He produced them. And throughout the store there's plenty more of his handiwork: influential albums by innovative English folk-rock group Fairport Convention and its most famous alums, Richard Thompson and the late Sandy Denny; the idiosyncratic work of Scottish psychedelic-folk avatars the Incredible String Band; and the singular sounds from the too-brief life of singer-songwriter Nick Drake.

Although that music stands on its own merits, the value is even more evident in the presence here of many younger acts claiming influence from Boyd's catalog, from R.E.M. (which recruited him to produce the 1985 "Fables of the Reconstruction" album) to the currently acclaimed crop of "freak-folk" figures such as Devendra Banhart and (seen to your left) Joanna Newsom, who talk of music associated with Boyd in hushed, reverent tones."


... so, ,maybe Miss Ess, purveyor of music lit world-wide, can blog to us all one day and tell us what she thought of this man's new book: