Ike White's reputation rests on the music he made while incarcerated. He couldn't record any other way in the 1970s, because he was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. He claims the shooting, which took place in the aftermath of a robbery, was an accident, though associates intimate that he could be violent. Alvin Taylor, who played drums with Stevie Wonder, believes he was on Jimi Hendrix's level, because he could play guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums. "He was a master at every instrument." Rico, album cowriter and first cellmate, praises his musicality. Producer Jerry Goldstein, who had worked with Hendrix, was so impressed he put together a mobile recording studio for White to make a record. He even catered food for the musicians and guards, and brought in a girl group to provide backing vocals. White ended up falling in love with his secretary, Deborah, and they got married. Goldstein's MCA imprint released Changin' Times in 1976, and a baby soon followed.
Stevie Wonder, an admirer, helped White to secure new legal representation, leading to his release from the San Luis Obispo facility in 1978. By then he had served 14 years. Instead of continuing on with the recording career he had launched, he struggled to adjust to life beyond the prison walls, eventually returning to some of the bad habits that led him there in the first place. To Goldstein, "He was just his own worst enemy." Friends and relatives eventually lost touch with him. Irish director Daniel Vernon picks up the story in 2014, by which time White has changed his name to make a new start. His doesn't mention it, but White may also have been trying to avoid child support payments, since his relationship with Deborah ended shortly after the birth of their second child. More children would follow with other women. At the time Vernon was working on the film for the BBC, White was married to his Russian-born manager, Lana Gutman, and performing under the name David Maestro (clips from these performances indicate that his best days may have behind him). When he suddenly exits the picture, Vernon pieces together his lost years through voicemail recordings, videotapes, and interviews. He also catches up with his daughter, Angelique, who regrets the time they lost. If White lied throughout much of his life, a few relatives misled him just as badly.
In the end, Vernon doesn't just document an abbreviated recording career, but an ex-con incapable of settling down. Since we learn little about his childhood, other than that his father played keyboards for Ella Fitzgerald, it's hard to say why, though a clue lies in the mother-son relationship he established with an elderly woman in Arizona. Unfortunately, Vernon doesn't follow up on that thread, and nor is it clear if his record received any radio play or experienced an afterlife as a collector’s item, reissue, or cratedigger sample source, lapses that leave this downbeat portrait feeling incomplete. A strong optional selection.