“The Greatest Night in Pop” director Bao Nguyen has found his next music-themed project: a feature-length documentary about Jimi Hendrix.
“Jimi,” from Double Agent, Network Entertainment and Experience Hendrix, is authorized by the iconic rocker’s estate.
According to a press release, the film “will tell the story of a transformational period in music history when Jimi Hendrix set the world — and his guitar — on fire.” It will follow the young Hendrix’s rise to rock ‘n’ roll stardom in the 1960s as he wowed audiences in London before heading back to the U.S. for his breakthrough psychedelic master class at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
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“Jimi’s time in London was some of the most pivotal in his life journey and his musical career. The social scene, night life that often bled into day, connections made, decisions on where he wanted to take his music and where he wanted his music to take him; all of that became something of a roadmap for the course his life would take,” said Hendrix’s sister, Janie Hendrix, in a statement. “Just as Bao Nguyen has achieved in his films highlighting the lives of other iconic figures who influenced pop culture, this presentation of Jimi’s London experience will be inspiring and informative — a story told the way it should be.”
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Nguyen added, “Telling the story of Jimi Hendrix during his pivotal years in London is both a profound honor and a unique responsibility. London has always been a city that inspires me. Having lived there, I felt a deep connection to its creative energy, much like Jimi did when his creativity reached extraordinary heights. I approach this project with deep respect for his legacy and the cultural significance he holds as an American original. Through this film, I hope to capture the vibrant atmosphere of the 1960s music scene, and his meteoric rise to superstardom, culminating in the legendary show at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival – a triumphant homecoming where his incendiary performance didn’t just set his guitar alight – it ignited a cultural shift that changed the course of music history.”
Nguyen’s Netflix doc “The Greatest Night in Pop” centered on Lionel Richie and his quest to gather music’s biggest stars on one night in 1985 to record “We Are the World.”
