Jimi Hendrix gets “fictionalized,” toured, and reissued

By Alex Young on December 9th, 2009 in News, Tour

9 Comments »
Jimi Hendrix gets “fictionalized,” toured, and reissued

Next year will mark 40 years since the untimely death of Jimi Hendrix. If this post is any sign of things to come, it’s going to be quite the Hendrix filled year.

We’ll start off with with the forthcoming fictionalized indie film about the legendary guitarist. After all, what’s better than a fictionalized indie film telling the story of two gangsters, desperately trying to get away from a mob boss they double-crossed, who inadvertently kidnap Hendrix, then at the height of his career and drug addiction? And we haven’t mentioned that the plot continues with Hendrix ultimately teaching one of the gangsters about honesty, and Hendrix learns to clean up his act. Yes, what you just read is not only real but will actually be be a feature film. According to the Hollywood Reporter, R.H. Greene, best known as being the author of Incarnadine: The True Memoirs of Count Dracula, will write and direct the project, which is titled Slide. Get it? Update: R.H. Greene comments on the film’s actual story…

This is not to be confused with the Hendrix biopic rumored to be in the works. However, there hasn’t been much of an update with that since we told you about it back in August.

Also coming soon will be an all-star tour honoring the fallen musician. As Variety reports, the fourth incarnation of the “Experience Hendrix” trek will feature a number of high-profile guitarists — Joe Satriani, Jonny Lang, Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford, Doyle Bramhall II, The Isley Brothers’ Ernie Isley, and Living Colour’s Vernon Reid — playing music written and inspired by Hendrix. The rhythm section will include longtime Hendrix friend and collaborator Billy Cox (bass) and Double Trouble’s Chris Layton (drums). What’s more, select tour dates will also included appearances by David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, Susan Tedeschi, and Robert Randolph’s Sacred Steel. Find tour dates below; tickets will go on sale beginning Friday, December 11th via Ticketmaster.com.

Experience Hendrix, which controls the musician’s catalog, has also announced a long-term licensing agreement with Sony Music, which will begin a new Hendrix reissue campaign in 2010.

So, remember when I said it was going to be quite the Hendrix filled year? I wasn’t lying.

“Experience Hendrix” 2010 Tour Dates:
03/05 – Los Angeles, CA @ Gibson Amphitheatre
03/06 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint
03/07 – Mesa, AZ @ Ikeda Theatre
03/09 – Friant, CA @ Table Mountain Casino Events Center
03/10 – San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
03/12 – Reno, NV @ Silver Legacy Resort Casino
03/14 – Denver, CO @ Paramount Theatre
03/16 – Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theatre
03/17 – Minneapolis, MN @ Orpheum Theatre
03/18 – Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre
03/20 – St. Louis, MO @ Fox Theatre
03/21 – Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theatre
03/23 – Akron, OH @ Akron Civic Theatre
03/24 – Montclair, NJ @ Wellmont Theatre
03/25 – Red Bank, NJ @ Count Basic Theatre
03/27 – Atlanta, GA @ Fox Theatre

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comments (9)

  • Whomever they find to portray Hendrix, he has to be able to get past this NYC guy:

    http://www.youtube.com/cc4bleu .

    This is someone who has been doing the Hendrix show for 41 years non-stop, started while a member of Hendrix’s official fan club & someone the Hendrix Estate wishes would just go away & continually is ignored by the Hendrix tour bookers, etc.

    His live performance & in-studio recordings of Hendrix’s music will astound you.

    Also, there were actually TWO such kidnappings & be looking out for NYC filmmaker David Kramer. His upcoming Hendrix doc interviews one of the actual Jeffrey thugs involved in the first kidnapping, as well as over 345 celebs & Hendrix-related folks. It will make all other docs obsolete.

    Stacy W December 30, 2009 at 4:38 am

  • Sounds like it could be a good movie. There’s more about it here http://bit.ly/6bXuYu

    Chris December 29, 2009 at 10:23 am

  • I know about the kidnapping – actually there is a documented 1st hand account from one of the drivers for Michael Jefferys who went to Bethel, NY to pick him up that I witnessed at a screening for funding for another Hendrix film – I was asked to be a consultant on that project but they never obtained funding,

    Peter Feola December 15, 2009 at 10:34 pm

  • Who indeed. There are so many versions of the truth out there that we will never know the real answers. It’s time to get back to the music and enjoy the legacy not agonise over facts that have gone to the grave with many people. Not least of all Jimi.

    Jimpress December 10, 2009 at 3:15 pm

  • who knew a discussion about Jimi could become as heated as “abortion or politics”? I certainly didn’t.

    bobbyrisigliano December 10, 2009 at 1:18 am

  • He told Monika Dannemann this? Oh, well then, it must be true!

    Isn’t that the women who changed her story about the events that led up to Jimi’s death every single time she told it. Her story seemed to fit whatever circumstance she was in and never made any sense what so ever. In the end it looked more like she had a direct connection to why Mr. Hendrix suffered the fate he did. Her fictitious stories all having to due with covering up her role in feeding him the sleeping pills and pouring wine down his throat from which he drowned being so knocked out from the effects of the drugs. They are quite certain now that the wine was not present when he died, that’s according to the toxicology reports I have read.

    And this is the very same women who made a career out of being Jimi’s fiancée after he died,

    Such a stable source of information on Hendrix she wrote books and channeled his spruit for years after until of course she took her own life following a British High Court order decision regarding her repeated character defamation allegations against Kathy Etchingham?

    Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the one your referring to, and if your trying to tell me you think anything she has to say could possibly be true, and you actually believe that, then your movie should be classified as fiction.

    I’ve done probably as much research into Hendrix as you and I don’t believe a word of it. His movements at the time were incredibly well documented and there was never a time he went “missing” for several days. No matter how you want to spin this its a complete fabrication, a re-writing of history and I take exception to these types of films taking creative license from innuendo and complete bullshit and portraying it as if it actually happened. I mean how difficult would it be to just write a true accounting of how Jimi lived and died, how he came from nothing and made himself something, more than something, a cultural icon who will never ever be forgotten.

    That would just be to simple and straight forward, probably would not sell in the box office either right? So, lets go and make some shit up.

    I think its shameful and certainly in no way paying tribute to a man who struggled how entire life, never knew any real riches, and was taken advantage from the very first contract he signed, to the disgraceful way his legacy has been treated by the wicked step sister who met him once.

    I for one will not be going to see your fictionalized version of this mans life, I have way to much respect and admiration for him to do something like that!

    3goldens December 9, 2009 at 11:38 pm

  • Mr. Greene I don’t believe Hendrix was an addict, no do I feel his death was an accident. Most of the research I have done does not suggest he was addicted to heroin or cocaine. I am tired of Hendrix being portrayed as a drug addict. In this light, how will Jimi be portrayed? What drugs is he abusing here? What has your researched reveled? What is your opinion of his death and the accounts of John Bannister, Reg Jones & others in comparison to Dannemann? How will Michael Jeffrey be portrayed? – thanks

    Underground Sounds December 9, 2009 at 1:55 pm

  • Thanks, R.H. We amended the article to include your information.

    Alex Young December 9, 2009 at 12:47 pm

  • Folks –

    Thanks for your coverage of my upcoming movie. There were a few things reported on your page that originated elsewhere and aren’t really completely accurate, which is obviously nobody on your end’s fault. Still, since you (rightly) objected to one of them, I thought I’d take a minute and send of an email about where this script came from and what it’s actually about.

    Some of the initial coverage used the word “fiction” to describe this project. After digging into the various accounts of Jimi’s kidnapping and dramatizing what seemed to me the most likely sequence of events, I would say that’s a simplification that borders on inaccuracy.

    The finished script is actually inspired by a pervasive story that has circulated for 40 years saying that Jimi Hendrix was kidnapped shortly after his performance at Woodstock and held for several days. I did extensive research on Jimi, the incident itself and the period, and discovered among other things that Jimi had told two of his closest associates (including Monika Dannemann, his reputed fiancee and the woman who slept beside him as he died) that it was true, though their accounts of what Jimi said happened varied. The details died with the participants, but there’s strong circumstantial evidence something occurred, and the known facts, including the actual murder of a Hendrix associate during the same time period, have all been adhered to in SLIDE.

    SLIDE is therefore much more grounded in actual events than, say, ME AND ORSON WELLES or LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, to name two recent films that blend real events and actual personages with created characters.

    And additional reports that Jimi teaches one of his kidnappers some sort of a life lesson are news to me. Nothing like that is in the script, and nothing like that will be in the movie. Your disdain for this idea is shared by me — I would never put something so pat and trite into a film that wants to depict Jimi truthfully and in full.

    It’s inevitable that reporting on something that hasn’t happened yet will contain speculation, so no harm no foul. Still, despite the fact that SLIDE necessarily contains conjecture and speculation (for no definitive version of this very pervasive story exists), I promise to do my best to make the movie and the depiction of Jimi within it as truthful as humanly possible.

    best, R. H. Greene

    R. H. Greene December 9, 2009 at 12:41 pm

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