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Overlooked & Underrated Docs & Features
(click on broll or dschwartz for all his posts)
Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a-Comin It’s hard to imagine. It’s hard to imagine not having heard, I mean really heard Jimi Hendrix. It’s hard to imagine not being excited and moved and thrilled by his music. It’s hard to imagine not having your heart shattered by his tragic death at the age of 27, at not being furious at having a possible lifetime of unimaginable music torn away.
Made for the PBS series American Masters, Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a-Comin is Bob Smeaton’s cinematic biography of Jimi Hendrix. In a very short 90 minutes we follow Jimi from birth to death, hitting as many points as that time-frame allows.
Smeaton’s film is an outline of Jimi’s story simply told, and in that simplicity, it is heart-breaking. Smeaton paints a picture of Jimi as deeply insecure—a wounding apparently due to an unstable family life which was balanced a bit by a positive father-son relationship. As an artist obsessed with and consumed by his art. As an icon not consumed by his celebrity. As a friendly, light-hearted guy. As a lover.
I am grateful for Bob Smeaton's film. The grace of the filmmaker’s work evokes the grace of its subject.