Somebody Up There Likes Me, a new documentary film from director Mike Figgis, is due out in mid-September and will get up close and personal with 73-year old Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood.
The film follows the fascinating story of a musical family in north London, where the young Ronnie learned about music appreciation from his older brothers.
Following those first stirrings and years spent practicing and imbibing the blues masters, he came to prominence in the late 1960s as guitarist with the Jeff Beck group. Later he joined the glam-looking but rumbustiously bluesy The Faces, who were fronted by Rod Stewart. Wood then replaced Mick Taylor in The Rolling Stones in 1975.
The film concentrates on Wood's thriving career as an artist and musician, and it features new interviews with his friends, including Damian Hirst, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Imelda May, Rod Stewart, Charlie Watts and Wood himself.
The film also details the many addiction issues which Wood had to deal with, notably alcoholism. "If you're talking to a sober person, you’re talking to the real person," his wife Sally says in the trailer. "I prefer the real person."
Figgis is the esteemed director of the Academy Award-winning film Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and he has form in blues music documentary making.
He recorded Van Morrison, Georgie Fame and Tom Jones revisiting their Rhythm and Blues roots in a 2005 film, Red, White and Blues, which was about the 1960s British blues scene.
In that film, Fame, along with Mick Fleetwood, John Mayall and Eric Clapton talked about their varied experiences playing with the visiting Delta Blues men from the USA.
"I was in the hands of destiny all my life," Wood says in the trailer to the new Figgis film, "and being in the right place at the right time."
Somebody Up There Likes Me will be available as a Virtual Cinema release starting September 18 at www.ronniewoodmovie.com, running through October. That digital screening availability will be followed by a DVD, Blu-ray and hardback book release on October 9.
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