Guitar
Icon Merrell Fankhauser
Revisits
Jimi Hendrix's
Legendary
'Rainbow Bridge'
In New Documentary
London,
UK - 'Rainbow
Bridge' was a peculiar 1972 film featuring Jimi Hendrix (who had died
two years before) and a cast of local eccentrics using Hendrix’s
music and a whole slew of UFO sightings to explore their
spirituality. 41 years later, musician and filmmaker Merrell
Fankhauser revisits the film to explore its message more fully. The
'Rainbow Bridge Revisited' documentary was really Maui journalist
Steve Omar's idea, and Merrell and Steve produced it together. The
two had fun looking up and interviewing the original cast of the 1972
Jimi Hendrix movie 'Rainbow Bridge' that was filmed on Maui. It was
interesting to hear what they had to say about hanging out with
Hendrix making the movie. The one-hour DVD documentary also features
some great surfing and music by Merrell Fankhauser, The Space Patrol
and Omar and The Wavespies. The package includes a 12-song
soundtrack.
Merrell
explains, “As you know I lived on Maui for 14 years and I moved
there in ‘73 just a year after the Jimi Hendrix 'Rainbow Bridge'
film came out. And when I moved there I met a lot of people that were
in the movie, and a lot of them were hippies, surfers and cosmic
people that were seeing UFOs, and they said Jimi was
really into the whole UFO thing, and that there were even some
hovering about when they were shooting over there. So we contacted
the ones that we still knew were on Maui and we went
over and interviewed them and it was really interesting what some of
them had to say about hanging out with Hendrix and everything. Then
we went down to Southern California, because some of them lived down
there, and we interviewed a few of those, so we’ve got some really
interesting interviews with an insight into some of the things that
were going on with that movie with Hendrix that didn’t come out. In the
original 'Rainbow Bridge', it follows Pat Hartley the
actress from the Sunset Strip over to O’ahu and then to Maui where
she meets all these characters, and ultimately Jimi. And the message,
because of all of her travels and the way it was put together, kind
of got lost a little bit in the different scenes and things. I talked
to one of the guys from Warner Brothers who was in on the editing and
he said that when they brought the film over it was in all of these
bags and there was sand in it and they were almost afraid to put it
on their machine, and had to clean it all and they kept going through
this stuff and it was just a lot of hippies talking about cosmic
stuff and getting high on drugs, and everybody kept saying 'Where’s
Jimi, where’s Jimi? Where’s the concert' You know they were
afraid they weren’t going to have enough to make the movie really
good, but finally they got to the 'Concert' footage. So what we did, we kind
of condensed these interviews down and we segue into some
really great surfing on big waves over there, because a lot of the
people that were interviewed were surfers and we have old footage of
them surfing, and then we cut to surfing footage from now. I have
about ten of my newer instrumental surf songs in there with the
surfing, and then it goes to a couple of band performances –
there were two Maui bands featured on the soundtrack: Omar and The
Wavespies and The Space Patrol – the lead singer, Les Potts, was in the original 'Rainbow Bridge' movie.”
Rainbow
Bridge Revisited CD
Tracks: 1.
All Along The Watchtower, 2. Last Wave at Hanalei, 3. Wild Gyrations,
4. Surfin 101, 5. Waterfall, 6. Hookipa, 7. Mother Sea, 8. The Wind
Cried Maui, 9. Monster Swell, 10. Surf Rage, 11. The Wall, 12.
Calling From A Star.
Merrell
Fankhauser is considered one of the main innovators of surf music and
psychedelic folk rock, and is widely known as the leader of the
instrumental surf group The Impacts who had the international hit
“Wipeout”. His travels from Hollywood to his 15 year jungle
experience on the island of Maui have been documented in numerous
music books and magazines in the US and Europe. Merrell has gained
legendary international status throughout the field of rock music;
his credits include over 300 songs published and released. Merrell
Fankhauser has presented a number of television programs over the
years including 'California Music', 'Route 66 TV Live', and in 2001
he began hosting a music show called 'Tiki Lounge' that airs on the
California Central Coast, Southern California, Hawaii and parts of
the East Coast.
To
purchase Merrell Fankhauser 'Rainbow Bridge Revisited' CD/DVD set:
For
more information: http://www.merrellfankhauser.
London,
UK - 'Rainbow
Bridge' was a peculiar 1972 film featuring Jimi Hendrix (who had died
two years before) and a cast of local eccentrics using Hendrix’s
music and a whole slew of UFO sightings to explore their
spirituality. 41 years later, musician and filmmaker Merrell
Fankhauser revisits the film to explore its message more fully. The
'Rainbow Bridge Revisited' documentary was really Maui journalist
Steve Omar's idea, and Merrell and Steve produced it together. The
two had fun looking up and interviewing the original cast of the 1972
Jimi Hendrix movie 'Rainbow Bridge' that was filmed on Maui. It was
interesting to hear what they had to say about hanging out with
Hendrix making the movie. The one-hour DVD documentary also features
some great surfing and music by Merrell Fankhauser, The Space Patrol
and Omar and The Wavespies. The package includes a 12-song
soundtrack.
Merrell
explains, “As you know I lived on Maui for 14 years and I moved
there in ‘73 just a year after the Jimi Hendrix 'Rainbow Bridge'
film came out. And when I moved there I met a lot of people that were
in the movie, and a lot of them were hippies, surfers and cosmic
people that were seeing UFOs, and they said Jimi was
really into the whole UFO thing, and that there were even some
hovering about when they were shooting over there. So we contacted
the ones that we still knew were on Maui and we went
over and interviewed them and it was really interesting what some of
them had to say about hanging out with Hendrix and everything. Then
we went down to Southern California, because some of them lived down
there, and we interviewed a few of those, so we’ve got some really
interesting interviews with an insight into some of the things that
were going on with that movie with Hendrix that didn’t come out. In the
original 'Rainbow Bridge', it follows Pat Hartley the
actress from the Sunset Strip over to O’ahu and then to Maui where
she meets all these characters, and ultimately Jimi. And the message,
because of all of her travels and the way it was put together, kind
of got lost a little bit in the different scenes and things. I talked
to one of the guys from Warner Brothers who was in on the editing and
he said that when they brought the film over it was in all of these
bags and there was sand in it and they were almost afraid to put it
on their machine, and had to clean it all and they kept going through
this stuff and it was just a lot of hippies talking about cosmic
stuff and getting high on drugs, and everybody kept saying 'Where’s
Jimi, where’s Jimi? Where’s the concert' You know they were
afraid they weren’t going to have enough to make the movie really
good, but finally they got to the 'Concert' footage. So what we did, we kind
of condensed these interviews down and we segue into some
really great surfing on big waves over there, because a lot of the
people that were interviewed were surfers and we have old footage of
them surfing, and then we cut to surfing footage from now. I have
about ten of my newer instrumental surf songs in there with the
surfing, and then it goes to a couple of band performances –
there were two Maui bands featured on the soundtrack: Omar and The
Wavespies and The Space Patrol – the lead singer, Les Potts, was in the original 'Rainbow Bridge' movie.”
Rainbow Bridge Revisited CD Tracks: 1. All Along The Watchtower, 2. Last Wave at Hanalei, 3. Wild Gyrations, 4. Surfin 101, 5. Waterfall, 6. Hookipa, 7. Mother Sea, 8. The Wind Cried Maui, 9. Monster Swell, 10. Surf Rage, 11. The Wall, 12. Calling From A Star.
Merrell
Fankhauser is considered one of the main innovators of surf music and
psychedelic folk rock, and is widely known as the leader of the
instrumental surf group The Impacts who had the international hit
“Wipeout”. His travels from Hollywood to his 15 year jungle
experience on the island of Maui have been documented in numerous
music books and magazines in the US and Europe. Merrell has gained
legendary international status throughout the field of rock music;
his credits include over 300 songs published and released. Merrell
Fankhauser has presented a number of television programs over the
years including 'California Music', 'Route 66 TV Live', and in 2001
he began hosting a music show called 'Tiki Lounge' that airs on the
California Central Coast, Southern California, Hawaii and parts of
the East Coast.
To
purchase Merrell Fankhauser 'Rainbow Bridge Revisited' CD/DVD set:
For
more information: http://www.merrellfankhauser.
