BBC Two takes viewers on a journey through The Seven Ages Of Rock and explores the music that has been the soundtrack to popular culture, defining each generation since the Sixties.

  

From the producers of the award-winning series Dancing In The Street, Walk On By, Lost Highway and, most recently, Soul Deep, comes another landmark in television history. The Seven Ages Of Rock charts the story of rock music from the suburb to the stadium, from crackly 45s to MP3 downloads. Along the way, rock's greatest performers, singers, writers and producers reveal how rock emerged, grew, strengthened and gave a voice to each new generation.

  

In tonight's opening episode, The Road To Woodstock, the rock revolution of the Sixties is seen through the life and music of Jimi Hendrix. Viewers see how he became the first ultimately-doomed icon of rock. As a Delta blues man, Dylan-esque poet and a technological prophet, Hendrix was the synthesis of everything that had gone before him and all that was to come. This episode also explores the influence of R&B on a generation of British musicians such as The Rolling Stones, Cream and The Who, and how the song-writing of Bob Dylan and studio developments of The Beatles transformed the possibilities and ambitions of rock.

  

Next week's episode sees the likes of David Bowie, Velvet Underground, Roxy Music and Pink Floyd exploring how rock became a vehicle for artistic ideas and theatrical performance.

  

Julian Rhind-Tutt narrates.

Sounds great. I'll probably have to wait until 2012 before I get to see it in Denmark!

Anyone watch this?
It used Hendrix as a vehicle for profiling rock in the sixties. It traced a line from Howling Wolf and Little Richard to the early Stones, Who, Yardbirds and Dylan to Cream and Hendrix. The Beatles got a look in for Sgt Pepper (mainly about the studio experimentation) then back to The Stones, whom they seemed to regard as the most important post-psychedelic band (in the way that they incapsulated the darkness surrounding rock after the Summer of Love and into the Altamont/27 club era.
It was really well done, and certainly increased my appreciation of Hendrix. The story of him as an almost unknown asking to jam with Cream and then blowing Clapton off stage was especially illuminating. They reckoned on Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone as being the most single important  song of the sixties, and Pepper being the most important album (suprise suprise)
Next week it's the artrock thing centering around Bowie and Floyd (BBC 1 21.00 Sat, and repeated 23.00 Sunday)

Yeah, I watched it. Some good interviews - SOME! There was a one journalist who got on my nerves a bit though - the guy who was at the first live performance of Sgt Pepper by Jimi Hendrix - know the guy I mean? Sounded like one of those pretentious NME journalists from the Seventies. Overall though, I was very impressed - REALLY looking forward to next week!

Hendryx? Is that the English spelling?  

Quoted from Sandra

Hendryx? Is that the English spelling?  

Dunno, I've never heard of him!

yeh I watched it and thought it was great- I've always been a bit of a Jimi fan. Really sad seeing the clip of Eric Clapton talking about the last time he saw Jimi before he died- and talking about the left handed stratocaster  

Looking forward to Floyd and Bowie!