NO HENDRIX SONGS FOR HENDRIX BIOPIC “ALL IS BY MY SIDE” STARRING ANDRE 3000

Experience Hendrix LLC (the owners of Jimi‘s estate) issued a statement claiming that no film will be allowed rights to Jimi’s work without their complete cooperation/involvement. Bad news for those of you who were really wanting to see Andre do some amazing Karaoke, but there is a bit of good news. Other songs have been picked to take the place of all those classics. According to Collider.com writer/director John Ridley will set the story  In London around 1966-1967 just before the release of Jimi’s album “Are You Experienced?” That being said Andre will cover Muddy Waters, The Beatles and more in this much anticipated bio. Yesterday Rolling Stone magazine put out a list of some of the tracks we can expect to hear…meh. I would’ve much rather heard the songs we all wanted to hear with that DVD release of all his works remastered. This kinda sucks!

This is some of what Rolling Stone Magazine had to say about this:

If the movie were to include songs Hendrix wrote, like “Purple Haze” or “The Wind Cries Mary,” the producers would have needed permission from Experience Hendrix, which owns the copyrights to the material. But according to McKittrick, the film was always set in Hendrix’ pre-fame era, so neither he or his team ever approached the Hendrix estate. “This is the story of Jimi being discovered as a backup musician and how he went to London and became Jimi Hendrix,” says the producer. McKittrick says that focusing on early stories about Hendrix – like the times he jammed with Cream and met Eric Clapton – is preferable to a biopic about Hendrix’s full life story. “That would be like making a movie about Kurt Cobain,” he says. “We all know how that story ends.”

A spokesperson for Experience Hendrix tells Rolling Stone that the company had no idea the movie would include non-Hendrix songs. “They want to make a Jimi Hendrix movie without Jimi Hendrix music,” says the estate representative. “It would be like making a movie about Lincoln without being able to use the Gettysburg Address.”

Music industry sources confirm that the filmmakers are legally in the clear as long as licenses are in place for the non-Hendrix songs. “They’re absolutely in the right as long as they got the licenses for those songs,” says Conrad Rippy, a music business lawyer who represents the estates of Elliott Smith and Jeff Buckley. “They don’t need to get the approval of the Hendrix estate for that.”

Well at least his estate isn’t opposed to a film about Jimi using his music and sure we know how it ends, but we knew how the Oliver Stone film The Doors ended too. Did it make it any less relevant? Man like beating a dead horse. We might not ever see the Jimi film we deserve. The film stars Andre Benjamin, Hayley Atwell and Imogen Poots. The film is due out in later 2013.