John Ridley new film 'Jimi: All is by My Side' explores artist's complex life

Andre Benjamin plays Jimi Hendrix in John Ridley's new film "Jimi: All Is By My Side."

It's a brief window into Jimi Hendrix's life, but the new movie is very telling of how one woman played a central role in his career.

The YouTube video above is a song by Jimi Hendrix called "Sending All My Love to Linda." The Linda in question was Linda Keith, girlfriend of Rolling Stone Keith Richards. In May of 1966, she and some friends went to a Manhattan bar called the Cheetah club where she watched a band.

The band was OK, she thought, but she was blown away by Hendrix, the back up guitarist who played his right-handed guitar left-handed, upside down and strung backwards.

Keith went on to play a pivotal role in Jimi Hendrix's career. Their relationship is the inspiration for the new film "Jimi: All is by My Side," written and directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley, best known for his work with "12 Years a Slave.

Ridley says the movie is a brief, uncensored look at the late artist's life.

"I think we've all seen versions of stories where they're sanitized, and you know there's more to that person there," Ridley said. "I never wanted it to be an official version of the story; I wanted it to hopefully be a story that showed the complex nature of it."