On His 70th Birthday, the Ghost of Jimi Hendrix Lives
Jimi Hendrix would've became a septuagenarian today. And while we already knew that show business would be giving the guitar legend a double-necked present — a movie starring Andre 3000 that won't feature any of his own music, and a "new" album that will — plans for the latest incarnation of all things Hendrix are finally starting to get a little less, uh, hazy.
All Is by My Side — the Hendrix biopic starring Gillette spokesman and Outkast's absentee dandy Andre 3000 — is reportedly finished shooting and slated to come out some time next year. The leading man has been out touting the film recently, dropping some quotes that might disappoint dorm-room stoners who view Hendrix as a druggie saint. Andre 3000 tells Vibe's Mikey Fresh that he wants viewers to hear Hendrix's cautionary words:
In my research there's an interview and Hendrix says 'I used to think that I was made for acid,' he said, 'Now, I know that I was not and that I’ve done way too much acid.' ... This was like towards the end of his career but he knew it. I think a lot of kids look at Hendrix as ‘He’s the drug guy.’ Kids need to know this.
Who knows whether All Is by My Side will do justice to its subject or not. On the one hand, Andre 3000 is probably the only person who could pull off Hendrix's velvet trousers and feather boas. But on the other, remember Idlewild? And without permission to use Jimi's original music, the project is veering dangerously close to Jackie Jormp-Jomp territory. "We never needed them," Andre 3000 assures us. "We're not trying to recreate YouTube moments. It's the real Hendrix story—things you wouldn't know about how he got to be this person, and people in his life that helped make him."
Fans wanting something sanctioned by the Hendrix estate can look forward to March 5th, the scheduled release date for a posthumous album of 12 unreleased "experimental" tracks called People, Hell, and Angels. Hendrix's longtime producer and recording engineer Eddie Kramer is at the helm, and the song teased in the video below actually sounds like it could've been a proper Hendrix single circa 1968:
