New Hendrix Documentary to Be Released in November

Larry C. Morris/The New York Times Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969.

A new two-hour documentary DVD about Jimi Hendrix and a compact disc with a previously unreleased concert 1968 recording by the Jimi Hendrix Experience will be released on Nov. 5, as the concluding installments of a yearlong commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the guitarist’s birth.

The documentary, “Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A Comin’,” will also be shown as part of PBS’s American Masters series the same day the DVD version is released. Sony Legacy, which is releasing both discs in a collaboration with Experience Hendrix, the production company overseen by the guitarist’s estate, issued “People, Hell and Angels,” a collection of studio outtakes, earlier this year.

The concert disc was recorded at the Miami Pop Festival on May 18, 1968, when the Jimi Hendrix Experience was at its height: the group had released its second album, “Axis: Bold as Love,” the previous December, and was working on the followup, the two-disc “Electric Ladyland,” which would be released in October 1968.

Hendrix gave two performances at the Miami festival, and the album is drawn from both. Included are Hendrix’s earliest recorded concert performances of “Hear My Train a Comin’” and “Tax Free.” The set is otherwise devoted to familiar classics - “Hey Joe,” “I Don’t Live Today,” “Red House” and “Purple Haze,” with versions of “Foxy Lady” and “Fire” from both the afternoon and evening shows.

Recently discovered film from the outdoor concert also figures into the documentary, which is directed by Bob Smeaton. Mr. Smeaton’s other music films include “The Beatles Anthology,” “Festival Express” and several installments of the “Classic Albums” series, as well as several Hendrix projects: “Hendrix: Band of Gypsys” (1999), “Jimi Hendrix: The Dick Cavett Show” (2002), “Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child” (2010) and  “Hendrix 70: Live at Woodstock” (2012).

“The biggest challenge,” Mr. Smeaton said in a telephone interview from London, “was that having done a number of Hendrix projects in the past, I had to find a way of getting everything I wanted into the film without having it run six hours, and without having it turn into the same film I did in the past. You’ve got to hit certain points: when he came to London, when he played Monterey, certain albums, Woodstock, building his recording studio. But you also want to get a different take. And that’s the hardest thing - trying to stay fresh.”

One way Mr. Smeaton did that was to rely mainly on people who knew and worked with Hendrix. And though he includes plenty of interviews with musicians who collaborated with Hendrix, Mr. Smeaton said that he was most taken with the observations by the women in Hendrix’s life.

“In the past, I’ve interviewed mainly guys,” Mr. Smeaton said. “And with guys, it always comes down to, ‘He was a great guitar player, he looked good on stage, he died too young.’ And that’s all true. But the women offer a different take. They say ‘He was shy,’ or ‘He was gentle.’ The women bring an interesting insight, and maybe for once we know more about him.”

“The other things that’s important, when you make a film like this,” Mr. Smeaton added, “is that you try to get to the real musicality of the guy, rather than just ‘here we go again, another guitar solo.’ There’s a section where Eddie Kramer, his producer, is sitting at the mixing desk, playing each of the four guitar tracks on ‘Little Wing.’ Each part is different, and when you put them together, it’s orchestral. So you hear about Hendrix playing the guitar with his teeth, or behind his head. But he knew what he was doing. And that sometimes gets overshadowed by the crazy hair and the other stuff.”