One of the amazing things about Jimi Hendrix, subject of a lavish two hour “American Masters” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings) is that he seems to have been born fully formed.
Even before Chas Chandler found him in a New York club and took him over to London to become one of rock’s premier acts, he had the flash, style and inimitable innovation to the electric guitar – a stage dynamism that was matched by his off-stage shyness.
The traits he showed as a backing player for Little Richard to the Isley Brothers were essentially those he had at the top of the rock world. If anything, even as he got more creative he retained a humility and quiet offstage demeanor that made his only national TV appearance, on the Dick Cavett Show just before Woodstock seem painful.
Bob Smeaton’s “Jimi Hendrix – Hear My Train A Comin'” is full of music and performances as well as interviews with both former members of his trio (who have since died), Billy Cox, the Army buddy who returned as his bass player late in his career and an array of rock stars starting with Paul McCartney, who suggested the Monterey Pop Festival hire Hendrix, Steve Winwood, Billy Gibbons and Dave Mason. Engineer Eddie Kramer goes through one of those things at the board where he isolates’ Hendrix guitar and voice on classic tracks, but it all works better as a unit.
More than one smart rock journalist points out the obvious: that Hendrix delivered, seemingly effortlessly, a hybrid of blues, soul, rock and psychedelia in a way that few have been able to reach ever since.
Another possible saving grace of the biography is that it may shift PBS music tastes away from Irish Tenors and doo-wop to psychedelia.