08 September, 2013


One of the truly great and original artists to emerge from the 1960s -- a decade packed to overflowing with truly great and original artists -- Jimi Hendrix remains to us an ambiguous, inchoate figure.


A dreamer, a visionary, prone to violent outbursts and fits of cruelty, a man somehow both childlike in his earnest open-mindedness and as cold and remote as a distant moon, Hendrix is almost always understood -- if, indeed, he is ever really “understood” –- through the music he left for us. His biographical details just aren’t that helpful; even his closest bandmates seem to have found him mystifying.


Of course, Hendrix’s extraordinary, revolutionary catalogue of three proper studio records, several live recordings, and various outtakes and bootlegs, are required listening for any serious student of rock’n’roll music. Which is why it is impressively daring and yet, finally, baffling that "All Is By My Side," writer-director John Ridley’s dramatization of the year before Hendrix emerged on the international music scene uses exactly none of the songs we tend to associate with the man. No “Hey Joe,” no “Purple Haze,” no “Foxy Lady” are to be heard anywhere in this film. Indeed, none of these works is ever even mentioned.


Rather, Ridley has chosen to get at Hendrix -- a determined but, at 38 playing a 23-year old, distractingly old Andre Benjamin -- through the two women he was closest to in 1966.


"All Is By My Side," then, aims to access the Hendrix’s obscure mind by studying the women who loved him: his muse and closest confidant Linda Keith (the luminous and compelling Imogen Poots) and volatile girlfriend Kathy Etchingham (an impressive Hayley Atwell). It’s a daring gambit, to be sure.


Following the world premiere screening of "All Is By My Side" at the Toronto International Film Festival, Ridley (who also penned the screenplay) and Poots took questions from the audience, each one a variation on the same theme: why did you choose to tell the story of Hendrix through these women?


Article continues after slideshow





  • US rock singer and guitarrist Jimi Hendrix ('Hey Joe', 'Purple Haze') pictured during his concert on the island Fehmarn in the Baltic Sea, West Germany, 1970.




  • US rock singer and guitarist, Jimi Hendrix performs on stage at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970.




  • US Rock singer and guitarist Jimi Hendrix on stage at the Pop festival on the Baltic Sea island of Fehmarn 1970.




  • 1970 photo of Jimi Hendrix performing on the Isle of Wight in England. (AP Photo/FILE)




  • The Jimi Hendrix Experience; Noel Redding, Jimi Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell.




  • Jimi Hendrix performs live on stage 1969




  • Noel Redding, left, Jimi Hendrix, centre, and Mitch Mitchell, of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, arrive at Heathrow airport, London, Aug. 21, 1967, after completing a nine week tour of the United States. (AP Photo/Peter Kemp)




  • The American rock singer and guitarist Jimi Hendrix performs at a pop festival on the Baltic Sea island of Fehmarn.




  • An undated portrait of the US-American rock singer and guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix died on 18th Septmenber 1970 after the consumption of alcohol and sleeping pills.




  • The Jimi Hendrix Experience; (clockwise from top left) Mitch Mitchell, Noel Redding and Jimi Hendrix. Circa 1969




  • The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing live on stage. Circa 1968




  • American-born guitarist Jimi Hendrix with his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham at a record launch in central London. 1969




  • Shown in photo is 25-year old Pop singer Jimi Hendrix was jailed for drunkenness in Stockholm, Sweden in morning on Thursday, Jan. 5, 1968 after having gone berserk and destroyed everything in his room at Goteborg hotel Opa Len. Jimi Hendrix is escorted by two police. (AP Photo)




  • Hendrix In England, 1966




  • Hendrix In England, 1966




  • Singer and songwriter, Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) smiles as he arrives at Heathrow airport, London, England. 1965




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX and Curtis KNIGHT and SQUIRES, 1966




  • Jimi Hendrix At An Airport Around 1966-1970




  • Al Hendrix and his son Jimi Hendrix (3 years old), 1945




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX 1967




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX performing, 1967




  • Photo of Noel REDDING and Mitch MITCHELL and JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE and Jimi HENDRIX




  • Photo of Noel REDDING and Jimi HENDRIX




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX EXPERIENCE and Jimi HENDRIX and Mitch MITCHELL and Noel REDDING




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX 1967




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX EXPERIENCE and Jimi HENDRIX and Mitch MITCHELL and Noel REDDING
    1967




  • Photo of Mitch MITCHELL and Jimi HENDRIX and Noel REDDING 1967




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX 1967




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX 1967




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX 1967




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX 1967




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX 1967




  • Photo of Jimi HENDRIX 1967





“I think, like a lot of people, I consider myself to be a Hendrix fan,” explained Ridley, looking very relaxed onstage in his neon sneakers and loose suit. He has answered this question before, one can be certain. “One night, very late,” he recounted,” I was crawling on the internet and I heard a song I had never heard before by Jimi Hendrix. […] For an artist who was amazing at interpreting emotion, [it was] probably one of the most searing, reaching and deep pieces of music.... And I looked at the title of the song that was on the screen and it was "Sending My Love to Linda".


I just thought, 'Who is Linda?' 'Who is this person?'”


Linda Keith was, in fact, Keith Richards’ girlfriend, and soon to be immortalized as the subject of one of the Rolling Stones’ best songs, the aching "Ruby Tuesday." In Ridley’s portrayal -- which does not always jibe with what one might know of Keith’s life story from other sources, notably Richards’ autobiography “Life” -- she was a fixture on the music scene in the mid-1960s, a gorgeous and brilliant posh woman with an impeccable taste for American blues music (and the men who played it well, some might add).


She was not exactly a “groupie,” in Ridley’s rendering, but not exactly not one either. She introduced Hendrix to LSD, convinced music industry mavens to come and see his act, and finally connected him to Chas Chandler, the former bassist for The Animals who would become Hendrix’ manager. In the film’s telling, Hendrix might never have found his voice if it wasn’t for Linda Keith’s shepherding.


“For me,” explains Ridley, “this part of the story had emotion, had depth, had a personal velocity. More importantly, for me, for a story to be relevant it has got to be informative. I wanted the audience to feel that sense of surprise, curiosity and revelation that I felt [while researching the film].”


“I always felt that it was very much of a partnership,” adds Imogen Poots, whose Linda is the intellectual centre of Ridley’s film. “Like partners in crime, [Keith] let him get away with things that other people would have been suspicious about. She encouraged him to embrace his wild side.”


Perhaps the funniest, but also the most telling, line in the film comes when Hendrix, after taking Keith’s advice to stop processing his naturally kinky hair, is described by one young woman to another as looking like “the wild man of Borneo.” Racist assumptions of primitivism are the dark undercurrents in Ridley’s examination of mid-1960s London, as they should be given the racial tensions of the day.


But, ultimately, Ridley’s choice to access Hendrix through Linda Keith leaves us no more certain of his mind than when we sat down. “Maybe Jimi Hendrix played up this persona of being naïve, but he actually wasn’t that naïve,” suggests Poots. “Linda was very savvy about that. She knew where his mind was. And that’s a real secret: to be that close to somebody’s mind.”


As the buzzing audience bled back into the balmy, rainy Toronto night, I wonder how many of them felt they had gained even an inkling of such a secret. More likely, what we came away with was the final acceptance that Jimi Hendrix will always remain to us unknowable, absent.


Maybe it’s better that way. I don’t know. But, I went home and listened to "Electric Ladyland." As magical as ever.



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