I have been an eager listener, follower, and collector of the music of Jimi Hendrix for nearly 40 years. My collection of the recorded sounds of Jimi Hendrix spans his entire career, and then some; hundreds of recordings including all official studio and live releases, outtakes, alternate takes, live concerts, and separated basic tracks from which I can gain insight into his guitar playing. Jimi has been a tremendous inspiration on my own guitar playing. I learned to play many songs from watching films of Jimi. I have adapted his singing style to my own with enough effect that people tell me I sound just like him. I formed a Jimi Hendrix tribute called, Foxy Lady: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix. I have the credentials, the history, the archive; I am an expert on Jimi Hendrix. I am close friends with only one other person whom I would call an expert on Jimi. We have traded tapes back and forth through the years. And we have eagerly awaited, consumed, and dissected each release that has hit the marketplace. We can discuss fluently the many phases/faces of Jimi. I'll focus this blog entry on the more recent Jimi Hendrix releases and how we should move away from any further bottom-of-the-barrel offerings..
Over the last 15 years there have been many Jimi Hendrix albums released through official channels. Even though he passed in September, 1970, his music is still very much in demand. The "keepers of the vault" are his half-sister, Janie Hendrix, whom he barely knew, and archivist/historian, John McDermott, who has published several informative books about Jimi. At first, the albums that they released were right on the money. They followed the course that had been pretty much set by Jimi. They also released several live albums through the side label, Dagger Records. Then, gradually, as the studio remains became less and less refined, they began to pad releases with sightly alternate versions of tunes they had previously released. An upcoming release this March threatens to do more of the same.
When Janie and John took control of the Jimi Hendrix legacy, "First Rays Of The New Rising Sun," was the obvious starting point since it was the album Jimi had been working at the time of his death. The album sequence had been set by Jimi, and many of the songs had been mixed. A few of those songs had final mixes and were complete. When Jimi died, these tracks appeared on the posthumous releases, "The Cry Of Love," "War Heroes," "Rainbow Bridge," and "Loose Ends." The newly charged Experience Hendrix group did an excellent job with "First Rays..." and with the follow-up, "South Saturn Delta."
Dagger Records was the side label which allowed them to offer recordings that were essential but may have suffered from inferior sound quality. This collection on Dagger Records stands out as some of the best Jimi stuff released since he died; LIVE recordings from Clark University and Paris; Embryonic studio rehearsals from late in Jimi's career; The jam sessions that happened right before the infamous Band Of Gypsys two-night stand at the Fillmore. The Dagger releases are treasures.
My favorite official collections are "West Coast Seattle Boy," and the "Jimi Hendrix Experience Box Set" (Purple Box.) "West Coast Seattle Boy" is a fine collection which delves deep into Jimi's catalog. It includes several tracks that Jimi recorded before he hit the big time, such as the previously hard-to-find, "My Diary," which he recorded with his friend, Arthur Lee, later of Love. The Purple Box is an evenly paced collection of studio and live tracks from throughout Jimi's career. The standout track (among many) is, "Somewhere." This song first appeared on the posthumous "Crash Landing" album; a collection of tracks put together by Alan Douglas, a producer reviled for wiping the backing musicians off of Jimi's recordings. Alan's claim to fame was to replace Jimi's backing musicians with his own eclectic group of people. The goal was to create the tracks the way "Jimi would have wanted." The end result is questionable at best. The best of intentions, eh? Even worse was the "Midnight Lightning" album which dredged the bottom of the barrel, wiped the backing musicians, and supplanted them with the same cast of unknowns on "Crash Landing."
My favorite unofficial collections are Box Of Gypsys and 3 Nights At Winterland. Box Of Gypsys is the most complete collection of Jimi's two-night stint at the Fillmore; four complete concerts plus the aborted show at Madison Square Garden they did nearly a month later when Jimi walked off the stage after just two songs. 3 Nights At Winterland includes the 6 concerts Jimi did at Winterland in 1968. Both collections are mostly in excellent sound quality, which means they were professionally recorded. Yet, sadly, they have still not seen a proper release.
The Experience Hendrix group continued to release decent Jimi Hendrix studio fare until around 2010, when the availability of unheard "new" Jimi Hendrix material started to wane. They released "Valleys Of Neptune," which featured the title track; a song that had been circulating for years as one of the most complete and best representations of the direction Jimi was taking his music. The album also featured other recordings which were in varying degrees of completeness. They followed this up with "People, Hell, and Angels," in 2013. This album featured a slightly different version of, "Somewhere," from the Purple Box. It also included, "Bleeding Heart," and "Hear My Train A-Comin'," versions of which were also on the Valleys Of Neptune album. A new album is slated to be released in 2018, "Both Sides Of The Sky." But this album already looks to be yet another disappointing rehashing of songs that have already been released; nearly half the tunes are reworkings of songs from the previous two albums. It is clear that the bottom of the barrel has been scraped bare and should probably be left alone. There are other areas of Jimi's canon yet to be explored.
A real puzzler was the 2015 release of a Curtis Knight album, "You Can't Use My Name." I suppose this was necessary to shine a light on the work Jimi was doing in the year before his rise to stardom. But at the time, Jimi was a sideman to Curtis Knight, whose only claim to fame is that Jimi briefly played in his band. The fidelity of these recordings could not be improved upon; not even with the studio wizardry of the incredibly talented Eddie Kramer, who produced pretty much all of Jimi's finest work. And the quality of the material is way below what we think of when Jimi's name comes up.
The Experience Hendrix handling of Jimi's concert recordings has a few blemishes, but is much more relevant and satisfying. For example. the 2016 release, "Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show," is an excellent recording of the first of four concerts that Band Of Gypsys played over new year's 69/70. So what about the other three complete shows? It's clear that all four shows were professionally recorded because multiple songs have been released from each show. Another example is "Winterland." This 4CD official release highlights the six shows Jimi did at Winterland. But the tracks are out of order and it does not present a complete concert. Why not present the concerts in their entirety with the songs in the correct order? Because of this, 3 Nights At Winterland, while only a bootleg, is a much better choice for any serious Jimi Hendrix collection.
To be fair, Experience Hendrix did do a fine job with the 2013 release of Jimi's appearance at Miami Pop in 1968. The associated DVD, "Hear My Train A-Comin'," showcases not just the available Miami Pop footage, but also several other films of Jimi performing live including footage of Jimi's last concert on the Isle Of Fehmarn in 1970. They also did a good job in 2015 of finally releasing the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival DVD/CD. This had originally been released on laserdisc in Japan over 20 years earlier. So it was nice to see it's domestic release.
It is clear that the likelihood of finding and presenting new Jimi Hendrix songs is bleak. Experience Hendrix should do better than to continuously recycle material we've already heard many times over. While the recent Jimi Hendrix studio releases increasingly lack substance and flair, there are still areas to explore. There are many high-quality studio recordings which follow the making and development of various Jimi Hendrix tunes such as, "Fire," "Red House," and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)." There are still several well-known concert recordings yet to be released in either video or audio formats. The 1969 Royal Albert Hall performance still ranks as one of the most requested unreleased concerts. It is unfortunate that there are still unresolved issues pertaining to the ownership and copyright of the actual recorded material from that show. There still circulate excellent complete audio recordings of this show, but the existing circulating video is grainy from many generations of copies. It would be nice for this historic concert to finally see a proper release. Also in the vaults: Jimi's Maui concert in July, 1970, the New York Pop performance also from 1970, various appearances on British and German TV.
The Jimi Hendrix legacy has been kept alive and vibrant thanks to Janie Hendrix, John McDermott, Eddie Kramer, and their team at Experience Hendrix. While it seems that the wealth of new studio recordings has been exhausted, there is still much to explore within the Jimi Hendrix vaults. Hopefully, in the near future, we will be able to enjoy more of Jimi's music as it becomes available.
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