by Annette Basile
Worth: $16.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Ellen McIlwaine, Margret RoadKnight, Taj Mahal, Ani DiFranco
Intro:
… lovingly compiled with archival images and footage plus extensive interviews with McIlwaine herself ...
Ellen McIlwaine was good enough for Jimi Hendrix – he shared the stage with her for a series of gigs. She was good enough for Cream legend Jack Bruce, who played bass on one of her albums. And she was good enough for Fatboy Slim, who sampled her revolutionary cover of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Higher Ground’. And yet, the singer/guitarist was once told by a producer that she didn’t have “the chops” to play with the boys. It’s enough to turn a woman to drink, and it did …
McIlwaine, who died in 2021, as this documentary was being completed, was a guitar virtuoso who didn’t achieve the fame that she deserved. The film opens with her playing her original composition ‘We the People’ for a live television audience. It’s a spellbinding start – the song, a kind of frantic folk piece – shows off her chops, her slide and her rich vocals – her skill and speed reminiscent of Ravi Shankar’s sitar playing. It’s that good …
Born in Nashville in 1945 and adopted by missionaries, McIlwaine and her family moved to Japan, where she had a happy childhood. She eventually landed in 1960s Greenwich Village, a time and place vividly brought to life in the recent Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown.
Much of the film is about introducing McIlwaine, with a line-up of talking heads (Taj Mahal, Ani DiFranco) singing her praises. It’s full of her wonderful music, described as psychedelic gospel and rootsy folk Americana. But the doco also paints a wider picture about the lack of recognition of women guitarists in a male-dominated field. Just take a look at Rolling Stone Magazine’s greatest guitarist list – where is Heart’s Nancy Wilson? Where is (the recently cancelled) Buffy Sainte-Marie, who, like McIlwaine, created her own unique tunings? And where the hell is McIlwaine?
With the exception of Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt and perhaps the Australian shredder Orianthi (also ignored by Rolling Stone), precious few female players are given the kudos they deserve. Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur neatly sums it up here when she says, “The story is much more profound when seen in the long run about women striving to be seen in a man’s world that has been trying to contain and dictate, essentially, what women’s roles are.”
There’s also an Australian connection here, when Aussie folkie Margaret RoadKnight – a fan – brought McIlwaine Down Under for a series of shows. RoadKnight and the small team behind the tour are interviewed, and it’s comforting to see that while the rest of the world ignored McIlwaine, Australians didn’t.
Helmed by Alfonso Maiorana – the Canadian filmmaker who co-directed the must-see Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World – this music doco, lovingly compiled with archival images and footage plus extensive interviews with McIlwaine herself – aims to bring this forgotten artist to a wider audience. Hopefully, it will achieve what the 2020 documentary In My Own Time did for another ignored female talent, the tragic Karen Dalton.
Goddess of Slide proves beyond doubt that Ellen McIlwaine had the chops … and then some.
