We’ve all seen the pictures and videos of Hendrix burning his guitar, playing with his teeth and closing out Woodstock, but beyond that was a very shy and insecure man. The two hour PBS documentary “Jimi Hendrix – Hear My Train A Comin’” shows his life growing up in Seattle to his untimely death at 27.
According to a preview from Reuters the first chords in the film come from the U.S. debut of the band Jimi Hendrix Experience at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival where he played "Wild Thing" and simulated sex with his guitar before lighting it on fire and breaking it into pieces. Some in the audience look bewildered, some appalled.
"Now you look at it and you have kind of seen it," the documentary's director Bob Smeaton told Reuters. "But imagine looking at that for the first time. Imagine seeing Jimi Hendrix at Monterey in 1967 playing like that."
The New York Daily News said the fact that PBS has found Hendrix is both good and vaguely disturbing news. Good because it means mainstream culture certifies him as important, the same way the Post Office putting Malcolm X on a postage stamp felt like an official acknowledgment of how much he mattered.
Vaguely disturbing because being on PBS — through no fault of the network, whose intentions are honorable — also is an unspoken acknowledgment that you are no longer a threat to society.
Even if you are a fair weather fan, no one can deny the influence Hendrix had on the musical world and surely this documentary will share that.