When we started making this film we decided we didn’t want to go down the usual route of having talking heads tell Jimi’s story. We wanted Jimi to tell his own story. In order to do this we compiled all the interviews we could find that Jimi had given whether on television, radio, or in print, and then had these transcribed. We then put together a ‘first person’ script based entirely on Jimi’s own words. The next stage was to find someone who could be the voice of Jimi. We didn’t want to use an actor, or anyone who was going to try and mimic Jimi’s voice. Someone suggested Bootsy Collins, not because he sounded like Jimi, but because it was felt his was a voice that people were not overly familiar with, yet sounded enough like Jimi to be believable. We then had Bootsy record the script. Not being a trained actor meant that what would normally have taken a couple of hours ended up taking us three days, we felt it was worth it in the end. This clip is from the opening section of the film where Jimi talks about his childhood.
