Review of “Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision”: Insightful documentary

In the 54 years since it opened, New York’s Electric Lady Studios has hosted recording sessions for music’s most famous acts. Its first clients included Led Zeppelin, Carly Simon and Stevie Wonder – none of whom appear in the documentary about the facility, now in theaters. This absence is initially noticeable, but ultimately not a problem; one of the strengths of John McDermott’s film is that it breaks the stereotype of the rock documentary by not relying on an all-star cast.

Focused on the conception and founding of the studio – the first commercial venture of its kind owned by a recording artist – Electric Lady Studios: A vision of Jimi Hendrix examines the disruptive year spent planning and building the film, with Hendrix and his creative partners battling cash flow disruptions and underground intrusions. The documentary was perhaps a degree or two tighter, but compared to Dave Grohl’s rambling Sound Citya more prominent portrait of a recording studio, more than makes up for its lower glamour factor with a compelling, better told story.

McDermott’s candid oral history tells the story of the people who built and ran Electric Lady in what studio manager Linda Sharlin lovingly describes as an atmosphere of “creative chaos.” It offers an unusual perspective on the biography of a legendary artist and includes fascinating asides.

Refreshingly, this is also a look at Hendrix that is not filtered through the mythical prism of his untimely death. As the second part of the title suggests, the film bears the stamp of an authorized narrative: Experience Hendrix, the company that manages the musician’s legacy and is run by his stepsister Janie Hendrix, produced the film, and director McDermott manages Jimi’s music catalog. While this is a respectful tribute, it is also a pleasingly restrained one. It presupposes a familiarity with and appreciation of the work of one of the most gifted musicians to ever pick up an electric guitar.

Hendrix died of an overdose just a month after the studio’s opening party in August 1970. Key elements of his vision from half a century ago remain unchanged in Electric Lady today. And what’s more, “His spirit is still there,” says Eddie Kramer, the sound engineer who was a key partner in Hendrix’s sonic innovation and studio project and is a central figure in the film.

The saga begins with Hendrix and his manager Michael Jeffery’s purchase of Generation, a blues club in the basement of the Greenwich Village on West 8th Street, the former country music club Village Barn. (Next door was the 8th Street Playhouse cinema, which closed in 1991; occasional glimpses of the marquee advertising deals like Mr Hulot’s Holidays and the Czech drama The most beautiful ageare a touch of nostalgia that will warm the hearts of arthouse fans.)

What started as a $50,000 investment turned into a $1 million DIY project. Hendrix’s original idea was to create a nightclub inspired by Cerebrum, the SoHo spot that was a sort of public loft party for the beautiful and their psychedelic adventures. (Cerebrum isn’t as well known today, having closed less than a year after opening in November 1968.)

To realize his idea of ​​a club with a small recording studio, Hendrix hired John Storyk, the recent architecture graduate who had worked on Cerebrum. Then Kramer urged Hendrix to convert the entire space into a studio, a wise financial decision considering the many thousands of dollars the artist was spending renting the existing space. And so Storyk had to learn a thing or two about the science of music recording. Then came another twist: Jim Marron, the nightclub manager hired for the Electric Lady venture, suggested that the studio should have the atmosphere and aesthetic of a club, a place to talk and work—an idea Hendrix embraced and implemented. He wanted to counteract the institutional emptiness of commercial studios with something inspirational.

Musicians Buddy Guy and Steve Winwood briefly reminisce, the latter pointing out that Electric Lady paved “a path for a different kind of recording,” a place where musicians could experiment and “cause accidents.” But mostly the documentary is about the people who worked there. McDermott spends a lot of time with Kramer and other Electric Lady sound engineers: Dave Palmer, the drummer Kramer recruited and mentored; Shimon Ron, a seasoned pro; guitarist and synthesizer player Kim King, another recruit; and John Jansen, a hanger-on who became a studio assistant.

As for the music itself, McDermott certainly had access to it, but he uses Hendrix performance clips sparingly. He’s more interested in actual scenes of Kramer, Palmer and King at the Electric Lady mixing desk, and recalling the sessions for some of the last pieces Hendrix recorded, including “Freedom” and “Dolly Dagger.” It’s clear that the engineers are recreating cherished moments, and alongside their first-hand knowledge of Electric Lady’s acoustics and atmosphere, their love of Hendrix and the unique blues-rock he birthed permeates the proceedings.

The stories told feature minimal friction, most of it with outside figures rather than Hendrix. When his bandmates do speak briefly, it is with affection. In an archive clip, drummer Mitch Mitchell, who died in 2008, talks about Hendrix’s eagerness to attend other people’s shows when they were on the road and how he was often joined by the artists on stage, guitar at the ready. Bassist Billy Cox mentions the strawberry shortcake they enjoyed when they hung out at Hendrix’s apartment in the Village.

Most unexpected and beautiful are the clips that McDermott includes from Hendrix’s home videos, street scenes he shot from the window of that 12th Street apartment. There’s something intimate and indescribable about these fleeting images, an artist’s view of his world just blocks from the basement where he and a ragtag group of hard-working people made a dream come true.