"Is this love or...just confusion?"
- THE JIMMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE BOXSET
Oh, what can I say about this album? Perhaps it is the best
Hendrix album, mainly because, unlike Axis: Bold As Love or Band Of
Gypsys, here there are not boring songs except for "Remember" or
"51 Anniversary". The album greatly starts with the pumping funk-soul
sound of "Foxy Lady", continuing with the brainstorming "Manic Depression"
(one of the first, and best too, chaotic and feedback-based songs, a thousand
miles away from things like "European Son" by the Velvet Underground
- pathetic stuff according to me -); one of the best things here is the genial
use of crash and ride by Mitchell (this guy truly created a waterfall of sound!).
And now the first gem: "Red House", a 12/8 blues that show the ability
of this guy to play this kind of music; only a complain here, the bass: Redding
is not Entwistle, but he could surely play a richer bass line. I found an interesting
interpretation of this song in an Hendrix biography by... I can't remember.
The author says that Hendrix was inspired by "The Book Of Hopi", written
in the early 60's by Frank Waters who had collected Indian legends and mythes.
According to this book in the ancient Mexico existed a mysterious town called
"Red Town Of South" this town was a religious center, also called "Palatkwapi",
a term that can be translated in English with "Red House". In the town
there was a pyramid, with 4 levels, used for religious ceremonies. Here the
men were trained in occult by strange creatures, called "Kachina". After
a long training someone could access to the fourth level and know all about
the planets, the stars and life by speaking with the Creator. But someone could
deviate from this way: so he'd lose the ability of speaking to the Creator.
Maybe Hendrix, who read this book (as other biographies say), was thinking about
this when he wrote the song (expecially for the verses "...the key doesn't
lock the door...": Jimi can't return where he wants, the fourth level, perhaps).
I want to focus your attention on "Third Stone From The Sun", one of
the best melodies Jimi ever wrote. It's possible that this song could have been
inspired by "Ain' t Nobody Here But Us Chickens", written by Louis Jordan,a
blues song with some sax in it. The fantastic elements in the lyrics are used
by Hendrix to illustrate the desperation of the human condition when man has
no spiritual values. This stellar and spiritual music has a lot of common points
with jazz, expecially for the influence of Wes Montgomery and John Coltrane
on guitar style and for the "duel" between Hendrix and Mitchell that
reminds to me the duels between Coltrane and Elvin Jones. Another important
element of this song is that here you may listen to the finest example of controlled
feedback by Hendrix. And what about the other songs? We have the delicate "Maybe
This Be Love", one of the most psychedelic songs here, with the metaphorical
image of the water: water changes immediatly because the wind, the weather,
can be delicate or terrible, as a waterfall, and so music; in the middle of
this song we have the usual hippie programmatic manifesto (when Jimi sings:
"some people say dreaming is for fooled minds with nothing else to do").
"Can You See Me" is one of the first examples of true hard rock; perhaps
The Who rock harder, but their songs are pop songs played extremely aloud; I
said true hard rock because in general neither the Experience can be called
an hard rock band: most of Jimi's songs are built on precious licks, interlaced
with fluent licks... he's often too sofisticated to be called an hard rocker
but here the song is a brutal frontal assault. "Fire" is another example
of this kind and one of the stage's favourite.
The anthem "Are You Experienced" can be seen as the introducing act
to the psychedelic era, with his innovative wall of sounds made with a lot of
guitar and feedback overdubs, "The Wind Cries Mary", a great ballad
sure, but not very original for the lyrics (Jimi imitated Dylan) and for music
(it's a generic blues) except for the beautiful solo... but a lot of other people
have already made a lot of appreciations on these songs so, for the sake of
originality, I want to speak about some bad things of this album. I think that
Mitchell is a very underrated player: with his jazzy, dirty sound (you may say
psychedelic, as well) and his "continual shaking", he adds a lot to
the Hendrix sound. But sometimes, according to me, he has to be clearer and
more precise: I can't stand his drums on "Stone Free", especially on
the choruses: they become confused, not very strong (fast, sure, but not strong,
without the necessary groove: to understand what I want to say, check out, on
"Disraeli Gears", the sublime drum work by Baker in "Swlabr").
It would be better a sound like the Buddy Miles's one, for instance (listen
to "Stone Free" in the "Live At Fillmore East" or the beginning
drums in "Machine Gun"). On the other side, here Redding is fantastic;
a question here is unavoidable: why these guys BOTH never write a good arrangement
for their own instruments? About drums, "I Don't Live Today" suffers
the same problem of "Stone Free", but here the fascinating drum-solo
intro dissolves all the criticisms. And now: Noel Redding; what's wrong with
this guy? Not so bad, I admit, try to listen to other 60's bass players, like
P. Quaife, R. Waters or B. Wyman. Perhaps the main problem on this album is
not the little ability of Hendrix as songwriter (here the songs are all good,
sometimes so-so, but never really bad) but the lyrics: except for "Manic
Depression","Purple Haze","Are You Experienced" and "The
Wind Cries Mary" that create,expecially the first three a misty and suggestive
atmosphere, they are too generic ("Can You See Me?" and "Remember")
or, like "51st Anniversary" and "Foxy Lady", full of common
places (expecially about love and women) and without originality. This album
is one of the best debut-album I ever heard: with a single album we have the
first examples of hard-rock and a revolution in rock guitar; Jimi provided to
very memorable song like "Purple Haze", an intoxicating riff with one
of the best chaotic solos that relies not only on feedback but also on a fluent
lick. With this album we can see together rock, blues, psychedelic anthems.
I'm not a musician, so I'm not able to talk about all news Jimi introduced with
his style, but I'm surely able to notice the differences with the other albums
of this epoch: the sofisticated use of feedback, a jazz-rock drums's section,
jazzy and rhythmic bass, lyrics with some beautiful landscapes (like the first
strophe of "Are You Experienced" or "Third Stone From The Sun"),
disillusion and rage ("Manic Depression" - note that while Morrison
sings "We want the world and we want it now", Jimi sings "I know
what I want but I don' t know how to get it" - and "I Don't Live Today",
a song about the desperation of the American Indians). Well, I can go forward
for other 1000 pages or I can stop now; and I do so. Uhm... I'm not so satisfied
with this review... do I manage to explain how good is this album... aaaaaah,
now I'm so tired... if you don't know this album buy it NOW and you will understand
what I wanted to say.
Send your comments and reviews of "Are You Experienced"
Wow, this is an album in which Redding & Mitchell contribute
not only with their particular instrument's sound but also with their musical
ideas; and this is a good thing. In AYE there was too few feeling within
the band (they began to play together only from october 1966) and in EL
Hendrix became too dictatorial to allow other members contribute with their
ideas. Mitchell contributes with the most heavy and fast drums he ever did,
just listen to "Spanish Castle Magic", "She's So Fine" and the
"Moon's rolls" on the title track while Noel, thanks to his jazzy bass,
improves the sound, giving it more richness and thickness; if you like his voice
(mmmh... you can compare it to R. Davies's one, just a bit worse) you'll receive
pleasure from this record, in fact with his falsetto he gives a particular atmosphere
to most of the songs, he provides one of the groovest bass-lines I've ever heard
("Little Miss Lover") and a song too, and it is a very good one. This
record maybe it's the only one where you can listen to Experience working as
a band; and what is the result? Well, it's quite obvious to say: fusion of genres,
but such statement doesn't mean too much to me; Hendrix's contributions are
to be founded mainly on lyrics (yes, I'm not joking! In this album you can listen
to the best Hendrix's lyrics), hard-rocking riffs, with the usual bluesy vein
(in this album he seems to put apart psychedelia); Noel contributes mainly on
pop/rock side and Mitchell give the record a bit of jazz and the best drums
arrangemnts he ever created, he rolls here and there, he manages to be soft
and, for one time, both fast and groovy. As result, the album sounds more pop-ish
and softer than the previous one. But things are not as they seem, just look
at the rating; apart for "Spanish Castle Magic", "Little Wing",
"Castles Made Of Sand" and the title track, the rest of the songs are
boring and uniform, not bad or unlistenable, just a little monotonous. The album
opens with a Jimi's fantasy about aliens that degenerates in a feedback-party;
let's start with the first true track "Up From The Skies": it's the
most jazzy song here, made more precious with the delicate wah-wah running all
over the entire song; the lyrics are interesting mainly for the fact they show
a different point of view from hippie's one (Jimi sings " I hear some of
you got your family, living in cages tall and cold [...] Do I see the vacuum
here [...] things like "Love the world" and "let your fancy flow"...").
"Spanish Caslte Magic" has a good riff, that's all; I prefer the nearly-stop-and-go
version on BBC Sessions. Then we have the first example of a monotonous
song: "Wait Until Tomorrow" and "Ain't No Telling" sound really
the same song to me, but they are funny and catchy. The following track, "Little
Wing", is one of the best Jimi's ballads: sweet and soft chords, a fluent
solo, Jimi singing at "low volume" and an hazy and dreamy atmosphere
(thanks also to the lyrics); without doubt the best song here.
I'm not a fan of the lyrics of "If 6 Was 9", but they are among the
first songs with this kind of words, so I can stand it (apart for that "Mr.
bussinessman you can't dress like me"!), plus the song has some fascinating
noises at the end (sometimes it seems the guitar imitates a flute). The album
goes on the same tune until the last track (until this point, is particularly
remarkable the delicate and delicious portraits of daily tragedies of "Castles
Made Of Sand"); this is one of the best songs of Jimi's entire catalogue;
the lyrics are interesting for the personification of the human feelings with
the colour (you know Jimi was used to talk about music using metaphorically
the colours and he often tries to do in music using the colours the same thing
that was experimented by some painters of the 800's). Here you can hear the
best Mitchell, for me sure, he's steady, groovy, rolling here and there. Jimi
also provides to one of the most exiting solo, with a particular use of the
pauses after the drum-solo: here he sounds a bit like D. Gilmour (and this time,
it's a compliment!), but he manages very well to get the control of the music
and of the effect (in fact here the music and the sound effects are perfectly
balanced) and is never over long or uncontrolled; and while Jimi and Mitch are
busy in creating spirals of sounds, Noel keeps the beat and unificate the sound
with his precise sound. Excellent song. Oh, by the way, it features the first
use of phasing, too. And many other devices are used in this album, in order
to make the sound more gentle (like in "Castles Made Of Sand" and "Little
Wing") or more threatening an chaotic ("If 6 Was 9"). Very good
album, even if it's not as groundbreaking as the first.
Send your comments and reviews of "Axis: Bold As Love"
Now I'll try to explain why I think Electric Ladyland
is the best Hendrix album (I have to admit I especially like it because it is
less easy-listening, or better, more sofisticated than Are You Experienced).
The first track tries, with slowed tapes overdubs, distorted voices, to create
a sonic picture of the Paradise "When The Gods Make Love". This song
(no, this stuff: it isn't music) is useful only to introducing to the sweetly
soft and hazy atmosphere of the album (perhaps the atmosphere is the link among
most of the songs); I don't know what I can say about this stuff, I don't have
criteria to judge extreme experimentation. So let's talk about "Have You
Ever Been (To Eletric Ladyland)". Smooth and soft chords, in the style of
"Little Wing", interlaced with fluent licks (I recommend to all Hendrix
fans the alternative take of the solo, available in "THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE"
boxset) delineate the first features of the land Jimi wants to take us to; the
phasing effect on drums increases the softness of the whole song. Here the lyrics
are quite interesting: the song is the Hendrix "Magical Mistery Tour",
introducing the concept of the album: "I wanna show different emotions".
This verse, togheter with the dedication "We dedicate this album to acoustic
and eletric woman...", shows how Jimi intended to create an extraordinary
picture of all human feelings and emotions. In fact Hendrix had a particular
feeling with the groupies, the women "around" the musicians, and to
these girls he was used to communicate his inner feelings and problems. And
then, with "Crosstown Traffic", we have the first, and the best, attempt
to fuse rock with funk (I recommend to all Red Hot Chili Peppers fans to listen
to this song and try to reflect about the originality of their favourite band:
throw away "All Around The World"!!!); fast and steady drums (sometimes
not so groovy -see review of Are You Experienced -), fantastic guitar
lines... oh, one of the best song of the album, an hellish boogie, with a great
(and I say GREAT) strings arrangement, also due to progressions of jazzy chords.
According to musical critic Dave Whitehill, a song with a musical complexity
and armonic exquisiteness, extraordinary for the epoch. Add Hendrix scat-voice
with the Pultec filter on it and... le jeux son fait! "Voodoo Chile"
is a fantastic example of Delta blues, a dark and murky song (or better a jam)
with the Hammond organ working a lot to make it so terrific. All the licks here
remind B. B. King and M. Waters and the lyrics show the historic relationship
between the bluesman and the devil. An unavoidable chapter of the Hendrix mithology.
"Little Miss Strange", Redding only contribution to the album, is a
pop song in Who/Small Faces style, but with its four guitars and one of the
best Moon-imitation by Mitchell, the song is catchy. Nothing particular, but
what's wrong? I complain that Noel wrote only two songs for the Experience,
I like his style. "Long Hot Summer Night" is a relaxed song where Jimi
was looking for a mysty female figure as a spiritual guide. Al Kooper on piano
completes Hendrix sound, greatly backing some of the most fluent licks of Jimi.
"Come On" provides to one of the most exciting solos; a great song in
which the suspence for the solo is increased by dramatic ascending chords, similar
to the old swinging-orchestra ones. "Gipsy Eyes" has a lot of reminisenses
of Delta blues and reminds to me "Rolling And Tumblin'", recorded for
the first time by Hambon Willie Newbern in the 1929. Nothing to add here, I
don't particularly like this song, because it is too generic, according to me.
Jimi considered "The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp" one of his best compositions;
I like the lyrics of the song: they describe a scene not in its entirety, but
through particulars, creating a sense of fragmentariness and mistery; and the
main riff is so catchy. The "acquatic suite" is one of the Hendrix masterpieces.
The first song of it, creates an atmosphere like a hazy nightclub's one, with
great sax and licks in the style of Charlie Christian. Faucette on congas and
expecially Finnegan on organ, not only fill the sound but create most of the
song's armonic-rithmic skeleton. You can ear Jimi singing with funny voice "Hey
man, it's raining". This verse was taken from a story by B. Crosby, in "Revenge",
where he used the same funny voice of Jimi. The apple of controversy is "1983":
good melody, sure, but also experimentation for the sake of experimentation.
Altought there are remarkable and innovative things: a lot of eletrical-devices
(most of them created by R. Myers) like "delay" on Jimi's voice, gulls's
noises created by headphone-feedback, C. Wood on flute, and many more... perhaps
it's too long and degenerate in "Moon turns the tides... gently, gently,
gently" (an useless track). The lyrics of "1983" are not so bad:
another apocalypse by the spiritual-child Hendrix. "Still Raining, Still
Dreaming" is remarkable for its "talking" solo with wah-wah. "Voodoo
Child (Slight Return)" is a great song , with a fantastic riff, but I think
that live version is much better. I don't want to speak about "House Burning
Down": generic music and horrible lyrics (Jimi is not good when he tries
to talk about the concrete reality -the song is about violences and disorders
in U.S.A.-); it is the only filler, according to me. And about "All Along
The Watchtower"? I don't know the original version ("...you'll probably
scream and cry...", but I have burned out all my money to buy "THE JIMI
HENDRIX EXPERIENCE" boxset!) but I want to analize the fantastic solo: it
is built in four parts. The first one is a classic rock solo,the second a blues
slide on a twelve-string eletric guitar (he did not use the bottleneck, but
a lighter), the third a wah-wah passage and the fourth consists in a group of
chords played in unison.
Now the final considerations; I prefer this album to Are You Experienced
for these reasons: a) Here you can ear Jimi's voice at his best: he managed
to sing succesfully blues, rock, funk... he was not the best 60's vocalist (maybe
Morrison was or McCartney; Daltrey in the 60's was like a lion without his roar)
but his voice sounds fantastic in songs like "Come On","Long Hot
Summer Night","Voodoo Chile" and especially "All Along The Watchtower".
b) Production: nothing against Chandler, but with Hendrix as supervisor of the
console, helped by E. Kramer, you can hear the true sound Jimi was thinking
about. Another reason is that I have known Chandler, especially on "Axis:
Bold As Love", worked a lot in cutting song, in order to make the album
more commercial. I avoid to say that I can't stand a thing like this! Rock music
is one of the most expressive arts of the century and... you know what I want
to say. Sorry Chas (even if you did a great work on the first Hendrix album)!
c) With this album Hendrix got past the hard rock and create an unique fusion
of rock and roll, blues, jazz, funk-rock and avantgarde. d) This is not a "guitar-album",
even if there is tons of guitar work on it. If in the first two albums there
are some weak compositions (expecially in the second) , here Hendrix composed
most of his best songs, with complex arrangments and a rich sound created with
a lot of instruments; he got past from his image of furious guitarist, he became
a true musician. Are You Experienced is an album recorded to show the
ability of this guy in guitar playing; what guitarist can do a similar thing,
refuse to put apart his talent with guitar in favour of melodies and arrangments?
A bad guitarist or Jimi Hendrix! This is Hendrixopaedia, like it or not. I give
it a 10, even if there are some weak moments in "Voodoo Chile" (in the
sense they are a bit boring) and "House Burning Down" has horrible lyrics.
Send your comments and reviews of "Electric Ladyland"
This album was produced only to respect a contract the young Jimi signed with the PPX.The result is quite "grey".First of all the lineup: the Experience disbanded and Hendrix began to play with Billy Cox on bass (a friend in the army) and Buddy Miles on drums. Hendrix was angry with Noel and when he decided to substitute him with Cox, he said that Billy Cox has a "stronger" sound that would fit well with his music; to be honest, just from the first listen it's clear how Cox's "strong" sound tends to flatten Hendrix's one; plus this guy only seems to be able to play trite and extremely linear rhythm & blues bass lines; B. Miles is quite good as a drummer, precise and strong but often too monotonous. The result of this combination is that the simplicity and linear sound of the backing band (and this time, this is a real backing band) allows Jimi to be free to fall into indulgent jams. Yes, this is the main thing I reproach them; with Noel the song structure was more respected and the fact that Mitch treats his instruments as a lead one, force Jimi to be more linked to the song and the music ; not that with the Experience there weren't moments of improvisation, those guys can go on like the Cream, just listen to the live version of "Red House" played at the San Diego Sport Arena in the 69, but are improvisations by all the group's members not only by the guitarist. So this album has surely its good moments but also boring ones. But Band Of Gypsys is remarkable for the fantastic and extremely innovative and experimental use of the guitar; well, experimentation doesn't necessary mean good, but Jimi goes in so many directions in the same moment... you can't remain motionless toward his guitar playing; as Billy Cox said "...he used a fuuz-face, wah-wah pedal, uni-vibe and octavia and it was incredible....there were people in the audience with their mouths open..." and so he sounds nowadys on this record. I know it isn't a good argumentation talking about "musical influences" because it doesn't mean a lot, but here you can really notice the fusion mainly of rhythm & blues, soul and funky, you can't deny it; another thing is to say if these fusion of genres is a good thing, but I don't want to investigate in this direction. The strongest song here is without doubts "Machine Gun": here we can listen to experimentation, technical exquisiteness, improvisation and the gigantic Hendrix's fancy; the song, as the introduction suggests, is about the disorders in the U.S.A. rather than the war in Vietnam. "Who Knows" is a jam in which Jimi leaves space to the horrible voice of B. Miles. "Message To Love" is Hendrix's "All You Need Is Love" and with its funky sound it's quite catchy: on the same line also "Power Of Soul". To complete the album were used two Miles compositions, too generic for me: "Changes" and "We Gotta Live Together". Nothing to say about them, except for a fantastic guitar part near the end of the latter. Well, this album is not as bad as many say, if you like the jams you won't be disappointed by Band Of Gypsys; I'd indicate this album for all who want to know Hendrix the guitarist: here you can find fantastic improvisations and the entire catalogue of his tricks with guitar. This album is a perfect example of bad songs played extremely well.
Send your comments and reviews of "Band Of Gypsys"
Well, Jimi seems to one of the rockstars with the biggest
number of pirate cd-editions, bootlegs, endless production of collections and
greatest hits, not to mention videos, T-shirts and other stupid packages; luckily
his family remastered the more worth material and in 1997 released this album.
And it's a good compilation of outtakes; of course it's not the best place to
start with Jimi, in fact most of these songs show some aspects that in the studio
albums were only investigated in the surface. For instance Jimi had always had
a passion for jazz, but he never experienced a truly fusion song (only "Third
Stone From The Sun" on AYE come really close), while here there is
a typical jazz-rock song, the title track. And also he never goes so trippy
and 'acid' as he does in this album, with "The Stars That Play With Laughing
Sam's Dice" (called also "STP With LSD", the names of two powerful
drugs; it seems that Jimi take inspiration from "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"
by Lennon, in which the letters could form the word LSD) a good song, despite
the quite weak structure and melody, thanks to the cosmic and hallucinated solos,
the wise distorced percussions, the funny lyrics. And "Pali Gap" is
quite Santana-esque for his african rhythms and the kind of fluent and crystalline
soloing. You should also consider that most of the material comes from sessions
played after 1967: most of them were recorded in 1968 and after, when Jimi was
mature as guitar-player and also arranger; and at that time he was rich enough
to experiment with all the studio potential and tricks and own a lot of interesting
electronic devices for his guitar. I think that in order to really and deeply
appreciate some of subtleties and exquisiteness he plays here, you should have
listened to his previous four albums. For instance this was the first Hendrix
album I bought (the same day I bought also AYE): at the time I was quite
disappointed because I didn't find all that spectacular songs of his debut,
I couldn't remebmer a melody or a riff (apart the one of "Here He Comes"),
I wasn't able to find all that spectacularity of AYE. Well, it's common
to lose the sense of orientation with a compilation, especially with a compilation
of outtakes; howewer now I like this album very much, even if I have to admit
some of my old feeling: this album is not extraordinary and the song-writing,
without being bad, is generally average-good, but not outstanding. But there
is an outstanding thing: the arrangements are all wise, all the solos are in
their place (being improvised or not), the moods and the expressions he can
play with his guitar are unmatched and 'unmatcheable', the power, the fury and
the frenzy never overhelms a melody or a song and his self-loving style is always
subdued to the master of his live: music. Jimi and his guitar are unseparable:
his guitar is an extension of his body and mind, and he was an incarnation of
rock music. Each lick he plays seems to be so full of vital force, so natural,
so fluent... and here, since there are a lot of songs recorded live in studio
you can get a lot of this kind of 'visceral' sound.
Let's take a brief look to the songs, just to make you an idea of what you'll
get here. The album open with a rather unmemorable pop-rock song a la Small
Faces-Who, "Look Over Yonder": the riff is not really bad, but the melody
is trite, there is not much guitarfest in it, the vocals suck a bit (even if
Noel manages to pull off them nicely), and generally this is the song that if
you like the 60's, you've already heard a lot of times... hey, what a moment,
what's that finger-flashing metal solo after a minute?! Well, it's incredibly
fast and anticipates Ritchie Blackmore' style by a couple of years, but without
featuring the typical atonal speed of the usual metal solos. For what concern
violent, visceral, fast, noisy, psychaedelic licks and riffing, the best here
is "Here He Come"... ehm, it's just a rewrite of B.B. King "Rock
Me Babe", but it's filled with that energy typical of the first days of
life of Jimi Hendrix Experience, when the band was tight as a killer machine:
Redding on bass pulls out some fat and strong basslines, Mitch bashes the hell
over his goatskins (a bit too chaotic, and sometime he lacks of strenght or
better of 'groove': be full of fancy as you want, but don't forget to keep the
beat with power, please!!!). But the main shows here is Jimi's guitar: he plays
a 'classic' solo, his typical distorced rapsodic runs over the freatboard, endless
streams of allucinated notes, all played with frenzy and power: this is Hendrix
at his most uncompromised rocking side."Little Wing" is just a jam in
which found the inspiration for that song, but it isn't very related to the
classic "Little Wing" at all: it's even a bit bombastic and reminds
some of the jamming around the "Bold As Love" theme you can find on
JHE Boxset."South Saturn Delta" is a very good arranged fusion song,
especially remarkable in the part in which the guitars 'climb up' the notes
played by the brasses during a solo; there is also a short but tasteful drums
solo. Here you can find also some number present of BOG, and if they
lack the moody and neurotic solos of that album, here are surely better arranged
and permormed more tightly: I'm talking about "Power Of Soul" and "Message
To Love". Then Jimi tries again, with good results, the hard & heavy rock,
with the crunchy "Midnight". Howewer, I'm bound to admit that some of
the hard-funk material of the 70's (like "Bleeding Hearth") are pretty
formulaic for what concerns the way in which the solos are built and developed:
I dunno, but sometimes he sounds a bit like a heavy-metal guitarist (this could
be an offence to the couple of non-generic heavy-metal guitarists: so sorry
Satriani and Blackmore!); nothing really bad or generic, mind you, just a bit
formulaic. Dylan's "Drifter's Escape" is hardened a bit... what the
hell, is Jimi going to play heavy metal??? There is also the delicate and bluesy
"Midnight Lightining", with its smooth chords: its purpose is only to
relax you after all that super-aggressive stream of furious solos, and twisted
musical shift.
This album is certainly entertaining, due to the number of songs played live
with incredible power, but there are some fillers; plus some songs (say "Midnight",
"Look Over Yonder" and "Power Of Soul") are quite weak and only
the brilliant and professional playing save them. For me also the track lists
is not perfect, because I liked to have some more obscure material, especially
some live jams recorded with the Experience (very rare stuff), I don't like
very much the songs coming from the period in which Jimi saw himself as a prophet
and played that rather generic funk-mysty-blues (at the tail of 1970). And the
collection could have been more diverse if they didn't concentrate on Hendrix'
heavy side: ok, maybe the only and truly hard song is "Lover Man", but
"Midnight", "Look Over Yonder", "Tax Free" and "Drifter'
S Escape" has some injustified hard moments. Don't get me wrong, I adore
when Jimi plays hard-rock, I think it's the best hard rock ever played, but
I don't want an overdose of it. Howewer if you want a chronological description
of the non-official Jimi or a bunch of visceral, powerful numbers filled with
his magical and spontaneous guitar-playing, you'll be satisfied!
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That' s an amazing boxset : it avoids the typical boxsets' faults, namely the fact they contains an half-mixtures of great hits and obscure material, making displeased both the beginners and the experts, and the track selection, which is good and expecially listenable ( and this means the record label didn' t put into the boxset a lot of crap, of takes full of mistakes and so on, calling them 'obscure material' ).Of course the hits are present, but they are live or there are some outtakes in which the hits are so rearranged that they sound completely different from the typical version ; sometimes the only thing that change is a solo, but in a Jimi' s song this is essential!The panoramic on Hendrix' s career is quite complete and exhaurient : the boxset consists in four cds, each of them lasts about one hour ; each cd is dedicated to a different period of Jimi' s musical life : the early days 1966-67 ( 'till the Monterey Pop Festival ), the psychaedelic hard rock period 1967-1968, the artistical maturity and instrumental peak represented by the end of '68 and the early months of 1969, just before Experience disbanded and the last period, that present us Jimi as the prophet of cosmic love, 1969-70. Why this boxet is so great?For me it' s for the great track selection : take for instance my favourite cd, the third in which there are FIVE live songs recorded with Experience ( very rare stuff to find on bootleg, at least, rare to find and high quality bootleg ) during some of the most exciting concerts Jimi ever did : the best is surely the amazing and extended version of "Red House", transformed for the occasion in a sourt of power-blues-ballad : the slow intro, the guitar arabesque all over the song, the crescendo which explodes into an hard rock session with Jimi going mad on his guitar, in a frenzy typical of some Page' s solos, and bursting out some of his most powerful power chords ( Jimi is a great rhythm guitar players and surely one of the heaviest, not to mention grooviest ).
But let’ s go with order.The first cd is rather unimpressing mainly for two reason : first of all Jimi wasn’ t still mature at that time and despite the fact the early live are full of energy and wilderness, the performances are not so tight when the band played live at Paris.It would be much more interesting if they put a more accurate panoramic of the german tour, which took places just before the band recorded AYE, and it’ s usually considered to be full of kicking ass performances.Second, in the first cd the material is rather hard to be defined ‘obscure’ : “Hey Joe”, “Killing Floor”, “Foxy Lady” ( which is a very early and rough version ), “Rock Me Baby” are all very famous and two of them are included into Live At Monterey.And also, it contains Jimi ‘rantings’ with harpsicord in search of inspiration for “Burning of the midnigh lamp” ( still I’ not sure this tracks contains the real moment in which Jimi invented the riff ).Of course in this ways the first cd can serve as a sourt of greatests hits of the early days for the unexperienced listeners.
Things completely change with disc two, in which an Hendrix beginner will be surely embarassed, because, apart for the nearly by the book rendition of the classic ( in this case, “Little Wing” and “The Wind Cries Mary” ), also the already known songs are completely transformed.For instance “Bold As Love” is more ‘Jamming around the axis’, I mean it’ s an outtakes from which some guitar parts were taken to build the solo in the studio version of the song ; the track is spectacular, of course because of the fierce guitar playing and it’ s a great example of Jimi- s ability of improvised on fixed scales, underlining all the subtilities and different moos a tune can express.”Have You Ever Been To Eletric Ladyland” is still completely different from the original track and it feature some gloomy and smooth chords a la “Little Wing”.And if you are interest in the axe-man side of Jimi here you are : a solid live rendition of “Fire”, plus Van Morrison’ s “Gloria” and a bold interpretation of “Room Full Of Mirror” in which the most impressive parts come from a ferocious guitar-drums interplay, with both of the instruments recorded paying attention to the heavy side.
The fourth cd ( I’ ve already speak of the third ), is quite uninteresting, but in a better way than the first because here at least there his some obscure material, sort of…I mean, Jimi as a prophet of cosmic blues is a bit ridiculous, at least because it isn’ t that musically convincing, due to his genericity.So it wasn’ t a great idea to put songs like “Night Bird Flying” or “Hey Baby” ( for a more precised analysis of this musical style, wait for my review of First Rays Of The New Rising Sun ).What saves this cd is surely the ass-kickin’ version of “Johnny B. Goode” : if you haven’ t heard that, you haven’ t live.It’ faster and heavier than the original, plus there are the right mixture of noise-making and technical virtuosims in the solos.Jimi is great when he plays old rock’ n’ roll cover.
In conclusion : a great buy, but first complete your collection of Jimi’ s studio albums.
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