Documentary Review: 'Changin' Times of Ike White'

You would be hard pressed to find a music industry story as strange or twisty as that of Ike White. A man once viewed by music industry insiders as the heir to Jimi Hendrix, Ike White found mostly obscurity after making a splash in prison. Yes, I said prison. Ike White was an inmate in a northern California correctional facility when he was discovered by a prisoner who shared his talent with a music producer friend.

That producer friend, Jerry Goldstein, became so enamored with Ike that he moved heaven and earth to set up a recording studio in the prison to get Ike on tape. Ike White was a virtuoso who played every instrument and could sing. Ike’s brand of rollicking, bass heavy, R & B and rock evokes just a touch of Hendrix with a whole lot of Stevie Wonder. That, along with Ike’s story, a man sentenced to life for murder who has been reformed through his talent for music, appeared to be a surefire hit, especially with a record made inside the prison.

Things were going so well that Goldstein’s secretary ended up dating and marrying Ike White while he was still in prison. She then used her connections to get Ike’s music and story in front of Stevie Wonder who would play a key role in getting Ike out of jail. That’s only a thumbnail sketch however, Changin Times of Ike White, which turns on a dime from a story of the music industry to a mystery filled with changing identities, lies and other deceptions.

In the first 20 minutes of Changin Times of Ike White you would be forgiven for believing that Ike White had died tragically, some time in the late 1970’s and that his record, Changin Times, was lost when he was. That’s not the case, instead Ike White was very much alive and what happened between earning his freedom through music and when filmmaker Daniel Vernon went searching for him, makes up the bulk of Changing Times of Ike White.

I’m struggling to avoid spoilers in this review because, even though this is a true story, it’s not well known and part of the excitement of Changin Times of Ike White, is in discovering the shocking series of twists. It's a twisted tail laid Ike White to rest and brought forth several new versions of Ike, mostly named David, and who found a niche in the music industry that you will not be expecting based off of his incredible prison album.

Ike White wasn’t a great person but interviews in the documentary reveal a gentle soul who has seemed to learn from his past and in roundabout fashion, eventually became the reformed former prisoner he was hoped to be when he left prison in the mid-1970s. Ike appears in Changin Times of Ike White but his interviews are not the center of attention in the documentary. Go in blind and your jaw may drop at what happens next.

To call Ike White a liar is both true and uncharitable. In interviews, Ike is a fabulist who enjoys adulation of any kind. He appears to live for the approval of a crowd, of women, of anyone willing to listen as he burnishes his mostly nonexistent legend. There is a legend around Ike White but you cannot call the man a legend. Ike White is a figure of fascination, a strange and pathetic source of curiosity, but not a legend.

Throughout the documentary details of Ike’s ego reveal the man in ways he doesn’t appear to realize. Talk of Ike, under his new name, you must see the doc to hear that, playing with legends like Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and others, comes up but no evidence of these collaborations exist. This is odd as the documentary demonstrates that Ike documented his life in endless videos and photos, none of which contain Michael or Lionel or the like.

Another story, that Ike clearly loves to tell, is about marching with Dr. Martin Luther King in Atlanta. The march is well documented, many videos and TV reports of the march exist. And yet, the filmmakers make no attempt to show Ike in this footage. This is despite Ike making clear that he was only three rows back in the march from Dr. King, locked in arms with a Jewish Rabbi. This visual of teenage Ike would be hard to miss and yet, it's quite pointedly never seen.

Changin Times of Ike White is a trip. If you love twisty documentaries and old school R & B, Changin Times is a documentary for you. It’s available in virtual cinemas as of December 8th from Kino Lorber.