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I tried to look up Abe Fortas because I've never heard of him but couldn't find anything relevant. First Googs on his name revealed a bunch of stuff on a retired Supreme Court justice named Abe Fortas. So then I started to type Abe Fortas mix and it auto–filled with "mixed race" and "supreme court justice." So I assumed without confirming (one tangent at a time, please) that Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas was a man of mixed ethnicity. I tried Abe Fortas Hendrix, which just brought up hits about Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas and Hendrix College. Maybe he went to Hendrix College but again I was trying to restrict my research to one Abe at a time so I don't fuggin know. Finally I tried Abe Fortas Jimi Hendrix experience tour, but that just brought up the kind of random Internet barrel–scrapings that just happen to contain some of the same search terms but are even more useless than previous searches.
I just came back from that storm. badaboom.
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Ooops. Maybe I had SCOTUS on the brain.
I meant to say Abe Jacob, who's one of the most important figures in designing the modern rock concert PA systems, and worked with Hendrix directly during this tour to get the best sound at the venues he played.
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Jinnistan wrote:
The show following the Toronto bust (May 3rd) is surprisingly good, and (unlike many of these tapes) complete, with a rare detour into "Little Miss Lover" and the first try at "Room Full of Mirrors" from the tour. Another better-than-average tape from Providence (May 17) has the very first appearance of the brand new "Earth Blues" thrown into the "Spanish Castle Magic/Sunshine of Your Love" medley. A three-source matrix of the Madison Square Garden show (May 18) has an opening pairing of both "Lover Man" and "Come On". The show from San Jose (May 25) is excellent, with a monumental version of "Voodoo Chile" that goes all over the place, including new tunes like "Room/Mirrors", "Message to Love" and landing in "Sunshine" before heading back into "Chile" in apocalyptic fashion. This performance remains the favorite Hendrix show by collecter Carlos Santana, who was also there in person.
"OK man, you been talkin' a lot... hand em over!"
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Let's see what clips are available from this Spring 1969 tour.
From San Jose, there's some amateur footage:
And the full audience-recorded tape (graded G+), with that "Voodoo Chile" medley as the finale.
Madison Square Garden:
And some music clips...
Last edited by Jinnistan (1/14/2023 1:09 am)
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The band took a three-week sabbatical in June 1969, during which Hendrix dealt with his legal issues and tried to relax in LA. The Experience wasn't quite kaput just yet, as they had a couple more festival dates to go. And on the previous tour, the San Jose date was technically one of these festival dates, being formally the Northern California Folk Rock Festival which Santana also played. The band was next scheduled to attend the Newport Pop Festival* on June 20. Tensions were fraught. Hendrix wasn't having a great time dealing with technical issues or the crowd, telling them to "fuck off" multiple times and improvising new lines to "Hear My Train": "It's too bad you don't love me no more, people, too bad you have to act like a clown." This set did provide the only performance from 1969 of "Are You Experienced". The general rotten vibe is most likely why this multi-track recorded show has never been commercially released, and although the entire show was presumably filmed, only a few brief clips have ever surfaced in documentaries.
(*Not to be confused with the Newport Jazz Festival, from July 3-6 on the other side of the country, which was a more legendary event which saw the likes of Miles Davis, James Brown, Sly Stone and Sun Ra playing alongside Led Zeppelin and Frank Zappa/Mothers.)
Two days later, Hendrix took the stage at the festival again, this time with an ad-hoc jam band made up of Buddy Miles, Eric Burden and members of their respective bands (including future War harmonicist Lee Oskar) to perform what Jim announced from the stage as "Earth Vs. Space", a free-form jam that included strains of "Gypsy Eyes", "Red House" and snatches of new material like "Keep On Grooving (Stepping Stone)" and the very earliest identifiable nucleus for what would become "Machine Gun". Toward the end of the 90 minute show, Hendrix would also introduce his new "Power of Soul/Earth Blues" medley and steer them through runs of "Hear My Train", "Voodoo Chile", "Sunshine of Your Love" and finally throw in another "Star Spangled Banner" to finish. This is definitely the more interesting of the two Newport performances, and should get a commercial release eventually. It was also filmed, and a nice 20 minute chunk is available.
On June 29, the Experience played their last show at the Denver Pop Festival, with Jimi announcing the band's split from the stage. An audience tape is available, but it's about as good as one would expect from an open-air festival that ended in a full-blown tear-gas riot. The Experience was over.
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Gypsy Sun and Rainbows
"I can envision the day when all material things are pulled from me, and then the stronger my soul will be." -- Jimi Hendrix, summer 1969.
Without the Experience, which was the foundational enterprise of Hendrix's financial success over the previous three years, Jimi was taking the chance that he alone was the essential ingredient to his musical direction, which seems pretty obvious to most fans, and he was willing to wager the faith of his fans on his next step. Several concepts were bandied about, and he was already using names like Electric Church Music and Band of Gypsies to describe what was intended to be a more fluid, improvisational and eclectic project. Some critics may say that these concepts were never really fleshed out beyond their acid-flash inspiration, but one thing that is not in dispute, given the documented recordings, is that Hendrix was still bristling with musical ideas, new songs, some blues, some more open-ended jazz springboards, and a strong appetite to expand his palette and arrangements.
Sometime in June, Hendrix recorded an intimate tape with Taj Mahal, a friendly exchange with Taj supplying a background tape of cricket sounds, for ambience, swapping licks, sometimes a little banjo, a little bass. Some of the material shows what Jimi then had cooking in his stove - "Hey Gypsy Boy", "Izabella", what would become "Beginnings", "Message To Love", and the slow instrumental riffs that would be called "Villanova Junction" with which he would sign-off the up-coming Woodstock set.
Hendrix had also continued recording with Billy Cox, an early home recording of "Izabella" from this time is also available. Jimi notified Rolling Stone that Cox was his new bass player before Noel Redding had a chance to protest. Billy Cox was a stone-solid bass player in more of a funk/R&B style, and he was also chosen unmistakably for being a trusted ally from their Army days. In early July, Hendrix made a couple of TV appearances, first on the Dick Cavett show on the 7th, where he'd play a brief solo "Hear My Train". On the 10th, Hendrix formally introduced Cox on the Tonight Show, with guest host Flip Wilson and the house band's drummer sitting in, where they would play through "Lover Man" (including an interruption from a blown amp, requiring a restart). Both of Hendrix's 1969 Dick Cavett appearances have been issued on DVD. Sadly, when the Tonight Show moved from New York to LA in the early 70s, NBC destroyed the original videotapes, deeming a daily talk show as having no long-term value, so the only surviving form of this appearance is from recordings made directly from the TV speaker during broadcast.
Mike Jeffery was still scumming around. A lot of non-creative people tend to have gambler's superstitions about success. Don't mess with a winning formula. Jeffery seemed content to allow Jimi a little freedom, but as far as Mike was concerned all roads lead back to the power-trio blues-rock template. He'd tolerate this flirtation with a less commercial formula for now, and maybe only occasionally arrange to have Jimi kidnapped or some other head game.
Hendrix decided to hole up around Woodstock, in Boiceville NY to be precise, at what became known as the "Shokan House", and brought in Cox and Larry Lee, another old chitlin accomplice, and a couple of percussionists in Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez to add an afro-chicano flavor that may have been inspired from Santana. At this point, there was only vague plans of any kind of Woodstock festival, and the primary motivation was to whip up a band in shape for a larger, more ambitious enterprise. Many recordings were made at the Shokan house, the initial ones being pretty primative until a rudimentary 4-track machine was installed (with Eddie Kramer's help). "Izabella" and "Message To Love" were clearly prioritized. One early run-through of "Izabella" drops into "Machine Gun" funk. Larry Lee takes a couple of vocals, because Jimi is exceedingly generous. A jam called "Dance on the Desert" shows promise, and, after Mitch Mitchell joins the gang, "Beginnings" ("Jam Back At the House") is fleshed out. Some tapes only feature Jimi with Mitch.
As the Woodstock show approached, and Hendrix intended to debut his new vehicle, he chose to preview this organic conglomeration at the local Tinker Street Cinema a week before the eventual festival (in near-by Bethel) where his band jammed on two tracks named "The Dance" and "Sundance" and an additional instrumental featuring Juma Sultan on flute and flashes of "Earth Blues" and the inevitable "Star Spangled Banner". These recordings are from an audience source, but there's long been rumors of professional tape, and even 16mm film, of this performance. The quality of the music is closer to jazz or African tribal music, similar perhaps to the kind of music that Sun Ra was lo-fi releasing on his own Saturn label at the time.
Juma Sultan has not been shy about speaking of the racism surrounding JImi's management: "They had a phobia". He's claimed that Mike Jeffery offered him a contract not to play with Hendrix.
The Woodstock show is legendary in itself. The band weren't enthused about being pushed back to play on a muddy Monday morning, but we all know the outcome. The Woodstock film was instantly iconic, and Jimi's definitive version of the "Banner" anthem is one of those tropes that even dogs understand. The sequel LP included some great stuff as well, including "Izabella", "Beginnings" and "Hear My Train". The Woodstock Nation bootleg double LP captured most of the show (except "Message To Love"), and pretty much all of the 90s CD editions drop the Curtis Mayfield cover "Gypsy Woman" and the Larry Lee original "Mastermind" (which aren't at all too bad), and have various edits and re-arrangements that serve to save space apparently. The definitive version has been released by the Estate as simply Live At Woodstock. One of the more knowing miracles of the show is that the film picks up "Voodoo Chile" exactly after the nadir of Larry Lee's absolute worst guitar solo to then go on into its eternal golden glory that we see on screen. Truly a phoenix in action.
A couple of hours of tapes from the Shokan House, recorded after Woodstock, came from a visiting keyboardist named Mike Ephron. These tapes are informal, one microphone in a room, as Jimi, percussion, flute and Ephron's clav-like keys meander around. There's about two hours total. These also have a bit of a Sun Ra vibe to them, when they're not falling into indiscriminate modes of bars and blues. About the most positive thing to say for them is that they weren't initially intended to exploit Jimi's tragic death, as they first appeared while he was still alive, as a bootleg called This Flyer... for brevity. Jimi may not have heard this release but he was aware of it ("It must sound terrible"). After Hendrix's death, these tapes did become quasi-legal releases, bootlegs by any other name, and even some of these poor-selling releases, on dubious labels like Joker and Saga, have become highly sought-after collectibles themselves. Most of these recycle the material under different names, different edits. One series gave them classical sounding surreptitiousness.
But Hendrix did manage to get this ragtag band into the studio by September, and they made some fine recordings. Again, the priority seems to have been on "Izabella" and "Message To Love" as the most eligible potential hits, but also "Stepping Stone" starts to emerge as a candidate, and picking back up on stuff like "Valleys of Neptune" and "Lover Man", a new funk number called "Lord I Sing the Blues For Me and You", a jaunty "Easy Blues" (first issued on Nine To The Universe and now on People Hell & Angels) and going full-throttle on "Beginnings" and the manifesting monolith of "Machine Gun". Alan Douglas had mangled the latter for his Midnight Lightning. This version of "Valleys of Neptune" is the title track of that recent disc. "Message to Love" was put out on South Saturn Delta, and "Izabella" has been released on the JHE box, and tends to be the preferential cut of that tune.
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As someone with enormous respect for Hendrix, even though I don't listen to him nearly enough, I feel particular grief over what was coming over the horizon with him. I think there really were no limits, and the more experimental and abstract he was likely to become, the more I'm saddened over what never happened. Ladyland was the beginning of the road of what I wanted to hear from him in particular and then he died. There are lots of artistic tragedies in the world, but I struggle to think of many as monumental as his death. I think the best was yet to come
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crumbsroom wrote:
As someone with enormous respect for Hendrix, even though I don't listen to him nearly enough, I feel particular grief over what was coming over the horizon with him. I think there really were no limits, and the more experimental and abstract he was likely to become, the more I'm saddened over what never happened. Ladyland was the beginning of the road of what I wanted to hear from him in particular and then he died. There are lots of artistic tragedies in the world, but I struggle to think of many as monumental as his death. I think the best was yet to come
Yes, many, many Hendrix fans share these sentiments.
Miles wanted to get with him. What would that have sounded like? Assuming Jimi could tolerate Miles, of course.
We have signs that Jimi would have collaborated with Sly and the Family Stone or at least jammed with them.
All signs suggest he was still brimming with creative ideas to expand beyond anything he had done so far, including his own statements about the matter.
He was 27 years old.
And he was a fucking nice guy.
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Rampop II wrote:
crumbsroom wrote:
As someone with enormous respect for Hendrix, even though I don't listen to him nearly enough, I feel particular grief over what was coming over the horizon with him. I think there really were no limits, and the more experimental and abstract he was likely to become, the more I'm saddened over what never happened. Ladyland was the beginning of the road of what I wanted to hear from him in particular and then he died. There are lots of artistic tragedies in the world, but I struggle to think of many as monumental as his death. I think the best was yet to come
Yes, many, many Hendrix fans share these sentiments.
Miles wanted to get with him. What would that have sounded like? Assuming Jimi could tolerate Miles, of course.
We have signs that Jimi would have collaborated with Sly and the Family Stone or at least jammed with them.
All signs suggest he was still brimming with creative ideas to expand beyond anything he had done so far, including his own statements about the matter.
He was 27 years old.
And he was a fucking nice guy.
I don't think my mind could have processed him with Sly, let alone with Miles. I can barely handle the greatness of Miles Davis all by himself, not making a sound, just glaring a hole into the ground.
I just really wish I could get more enthusiastic about Hendrix's first two albums. I like them both lots. But I've never gone apeshit over them, and when its an artist of his obvious magnitude, I want to be pummelled into the hardwood by what I'm listening to. And that just never happens to me with those, even though I can get why it does it for others.
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It's a long-standing fascination what Hendrix would have done had he made it through the 70s. Certainly would have been intrigued by the convergence of jazz-fusion and prog-rock, as well as the more conceptually mature soul music like Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye. Would have loved the sci-fi concepts of David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Parliment/Funkadelic. I can see him heading down the path of Headhunters and On The Corner. And he would have absolutely embraced the growing technological advancements. I wonder what he would have done with some dub mixes.
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Band Of Gypsies (part 1)
For whatever reasons, whether (per Juma Sultan) Mike Jeffery was successful in alienating the new members of Hendrix's outift, or whether Jimi himself felt that Woodstock and the succeeding studio efforts left something to be desired, the decision was made sometime in late September 1969 to pare the group down to another trio, with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles. The results were bound to be more focused on soul and funk, but with Hendrix keeping it far more footed in psychedelic rock than their peers like Sly Stone or James Brown at this time. The closest competition would be Detroit's Funkadelic, which was still largely a local secret, although gaining enough notoriety as to already inspiring Motown's Norman Whitfield to use a similar sound on upcoming Temptation singles like "Psychedelic Shack" and "Ball of Confusion".
At this time, Hendrix also began working full time with producer Alan Douglas. One of the first duties to undertake was the recording of an all-star jam, called "Live and Let Live" for what was assumed to be an upcoming album for Timothy Leary who was then running for governor of California before his prison sentence for marijuana cut his plans short. (Famously, John Lennon had also contributed a campaign song, "Come Together", before choosing to keep it for himself.) The LP You Can Be Anyone This Time Around eventually was released in April 1970, but other than a brief Rykodisc CD in the 90s, it remains hard to find. "Live and Let Live" featured Jimi (on bass) and Buddy Miles, along with Stephen Stills and John Sebastian. The exact recording date is disputed, but Aug-Sept '69 seems to be the most consistently cited, and it also conforms with other recording dates between Hendrix and Stills around this time. A version of "Woodstock", the Joni Mitchell song that would later be a hit for CSN&Y, was attempted by Hendrix, Miles and Stills on Sept. 30, along with another Stills original "$20 Fine". These tracks were released on Both Sides of the Sky, perhaps to answer for demand after the fraudulent Hendrix/Stills jams from '68 circulated in bootleg circles.
The first proper BoG studio sessions probably started on Sept. 24, which saw Jimi and Buddy informally jamming and running through several pieces, among them the many developed songs from GS&R plus many new ideas as well. The 16 minute Sept. 24 tape involves them working through rehearsals of "Power of Soul", dipping into some improv, and finishing off with a take of "Message To Love". On the 25th, a 13 minute tape has rehearsals for "Room Full of Mirrors" with brief flourishes of "Machine Gun" and "Stepping Stone". A nearly 6 minute edit from this was released on Morning Symphony Ideas. This provides a solid framework for what were to be the primary songs of focus for the band. "Earth Blues" and "Izabella" were also guaranteed to be integral material.
Taking the time to recognize these two excellent Dagger Records releases, both of these contain a good chunk of BoG sessions. Burning Desire contains the first (official) BoG recordings with the entire trio with "Izabella" and "Stepping Stone/Villanova Junction". On Nov. 14th, Jimi and Buddy were back putting down rough ideas. A version of "Lonely Avenue" turned up on West Coast Seattle Boy, although it's questionable whether this is actually the Doc Pomus song (and telling that it isn't cerdited to Pomus on the sleeve notes). Mostly what was produced at this session were three lengthy jam/medleys, two of which are included on Morning Symphony Ideas in their apparent entirety. The longest, at 28 minutes, is titled "Keep On Grooving" (as if Hendrix was still debating whether this title or "Stepping Stone" would be used), and includes forays into "Angel", "Power of Soul", "Bolero" (not the Ravel, but a new instrumental he would continue to work on), "Burning Desire", "Gypsy Boy", "Cherokee Mist" and finally "Stepping Stone", all caked with numerous improv splashes to tie them all together. The second piece, at 9 minutes, is called "Jungle", and runs through riffs from "Villanova Junction", "Ezy Rider" and "South Saturn Delta". (To add to the confusion, this session also had an entirely different jam, also called "Jungle", which is mostly based on "Stepping Stone", and neither of these "Jungle" tracks are reminiscent of an early GS&R jam called "Jungle Jam". We'll see that during this period, Jimi wasn't always sure of his titles, and would occasionally swap titles between different songs.) Another jam from this session, at 7 minutes, is only available on bootleg, and runs through "Calling All Devil's Children", "Stepping Stone", "Ezy Rider" and "Villanova Junction". In addition to auditioning his various musical ideas, and dipping into several left-overs from 1968, it seems that he was keen on seeing which pieces fit together with others. Perhaps he had a symphonic model in mind, as a way of culling all of these stray strands, but other than this particular session, it wasn't followed up on. On Nov. 21st, the band ran through a 38 minute session of 23 takes of "Power of Soul". Again, the titles can be confusing, as on the tape Jimi calls the tune variously "Crash Landing" and "Paper Airplanes", although it bears no resemblance to those other entirely different songs. And the boxes list "With The Power" instead. Alan Douglas would use one take for his Crash Landing release.
Some things were salvaged from these sessions, as Eddie Kramer was brought in for further mixing and editing. This Nov. 17th version of "Room Full of Mirrors" is the same basic track as what would be the standard commercial release, but it would see a number of overdubs right up through the summer of 1970. An alternate version, with some overdubs, from this mixing session saw the light of day on the Lifelines box (and dearly needs to be released elsewhere, it's excellent). A cut of "Stepping Stone" would also get some overdubs and would be released on Both Sides of the Sky. Also on Both Sides, a 3 minute edit of "Jungle" from MSI. I am also of the opinion that the version of "Power of Soul" on Both Sides is from this session, but the liner notes say otherwise.
No doubt through Alan Douglas, at some point in November, Hendrix and Miles hooked up with Last Poet member Lightnin' Rod to record "Doriella Du Fontaine", with Jimi playing guitar and bass, Buddy playing drums and organ, and Lightnin' Rod supplying the spoken poem overtop. This 8 1/2 minute number wouldn't be released until 1984 when the tape found its way into the hands of Bill Laswell, and put out on his Celluloid label as a 12" backed with an instrumental version and an additional Lightnin' Rod track called "O.D.".
By December, the plans for Band of Gypsies were more set in stone, as they were announced to play the Fillmore East, four shows, on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Sessions stepped up accordingly. A number of basic tracks were finished, although Jimi would continue constant overdubbing. By the time of the show, they had "Message To Love", "Earth Blues" and "Ezy Rider" in the can, in addition to "Room Full Of Mirrors", although they would all be subject to further work. "Earth Blues" in this state was issued on People Hell & Angels, and this version of "Ezy Rider" is on bootleg. One of the more frustrating puzzles from these sessions involve "Stepping Stone" and "Izabella", as there's widely divergent information regarding these recordings. There's some who say that this Nov. recording of "Stone" is the same as released on War Heroes and First Rays. Others say that it was rerecorded on Jan. 7th. Others will tell you that Jan. 7th is the date of the mix, not the recording. Similarly, there are those who don't think "Izabella" was rerecorded after the Aug-Sept GS&R sessions, and that this basic track is what was overdubbed for release on War Heroes and First Rays. Others say it was rerecorded during these Nov. sessions, although my discography doesn't show it. Regardless, both of these songs would be mixed and mastered for a single release in January 1970, only to be swiftly withdrawn because Hendrix was unhappy with the mix, calling it "muddy". ("Sure it matters.") Both songs certainly were also overdubbed through the summer of 1970 as well.
Some other recordings from this December include yet another "Lover Man" (released on Both Sides of the Sky). It isn't clear if this was considered for a future LP, but nothing further appears to have been done with it. A cover of the Albert King classic "Born Under s Bad Sign" would be released on the :Blues set. A funky one-off called "Strato Strut" is included on Morning Symphony Ideas. A new song called "Honey Bed" was attempted, but unfinished, and a brief attempt at "Night Bird Flying" broke down in catastrophe. At least the latter would be resurrected at a later point.
Getting ready for the show, the band used the New York club, Baggy's, as a venue to rehearse, and recording much of the proceedings. Dagger Records released these Baggy's Rehearsal Sessions in 2002, although they're hardly complete. Obviously, you wouldn't want to listen to four or five takes of the same song, so it makes sense to focus on the best and most complete versions. In that regard, you could make a pretty good alternate Band of Gypsies album out of it - Message To Love, Ezy Rider, Power of Soul, Earth Blues, Changes, Lover Man. Then it gets thin. There's also a "Baggy's Jam", which is fine. There's also another new number, "Burning Desire", which isn't. It's an ambitious arrangement, and intended to be a major piece, but I don't think it's very compelling myself, and, at nearly 10 minutes, can be straight boring. Along with "Hoochie Coochie Man", a standard blues of which Hendrix performed a much better version for the BBC in 1967, these two recordings would make up most of the second side to what's probably the worst of the initial posthumous releases, Loose Ends. They honestly don't sound any better here than they did then. Why not use one of the versions of "Who Knows"? My favorite version of "Ezy Rider" from these rehearsals is a couple of minutes longer than the one they used, and, hell, maybe use them both. What else are you going to do? Oh! Another 7 minute version of "Burning Desire"? Whatever you do, don't include this!
As most of you are aware, the resulting Fillmore East shows proved to be a spectacular success. In addition to running through the new material, and adding absolute colossal epics of "Machine Gun" in each and every show, Hendrix would dip into his Experience repertoire occasionally, throw in a little "Auld Lang Syne", a cover of the contemporary R&B hit "Stop" and even a little gospel with "Steal Away", and jamming out on Buddy's "We Gotta Live Together" where Jimi can be heard at one point pinching Sly Stone's "Sing a Simple Song". There's the long-standing legend of Fillmore owner Bill Graham telling Hendrix after one show that he was just playing the same old cock-rock bullshit, and Hendrix responded by going back on stage and recording what would be the first side of the Band of Gypsies LP. That story is probably a little contorted. Likely, it was the beginning of the second day, not after a show, that Graham made his remarks, since it was the first set on Jan. 1st that produced the LP's first side. Either way, I don't know whether to thank him or kick him in the balls.
The initial LP was released in April 1970, and it was put out on Capital because Ed Chalpin was suing Hendrix for violating a contract he signed in 1965. It was hardly a throwaway effort however, as Hendrix and Eddie Kramer took a careful listen to the tapes and chose the best stuff. There was probably some concern not to use material that Hendrix was intending on using for his upcoming double-LP, and I imagine this is why stuff like "Ezy Rider", "Earth Blues" and "Izabella" was skipped, as he continued work on them. Noticeably, "Burning Desire" was neither used nor had continued work done, because (I'm telling you) *urgh*. And, if I had to take a guess, I wonder if even Hendrix figured that how in the world could he himself ever top that "Machine Gun". Despite all of the massaging and editing, it's worth pointing out that "Machine Gun" is a complete performance, requiring no doctoring whatsoever.
In 1986, Alan Douglas would release Band of Gypsies 2, with a side of unreleased Fillmore material - a fabulous "Hear My Train", "Foxy Lady" and "Stop". These would eventually be included as bonus tracks on the import CD of Band of Gypsies. Side 2 of BOG2 was a mix of Atlanta Pop and Berkeley performances. This release has become a sought after rarity, but even more rare is an alternate pressing with a slightly different selection on side two.
In 1999, the Estate would release a two-CD set, Live At the Fillmore East which would see the first major collection from these special shows. This had the same "Hear My Train", and extended "We Gotta Live Together", two additional (and extraordinary) "Machine Gun"s, and a ferocious 13 minute "Stone Free". A decade later, the WCSB box would add another, equally powerful 14 minute version of "Stone Free" (and it was still edited by 2 minutes). Everything was looking up, until....in 2016, the Estate issued Machine Gun which comprises only the first Fillmore show, and everyone started to worry that they were going to drip-drip this shit out for decades to juice every little penny from fans. Well, the reaction was harsh, and the Estate listened. No future individual sets would be released, and instead in 2019, we would receive the 8-LP set Songs For Groovy Children representing damn near the entire four shows. By "damn near", I mean the second set is missing "Stepping Stone", "Burning Desire", "Power of Soul", "Voodoo Chile" and "Purple Haze", and "We Got To Live Together" is edited from its full 18 minutes to just under ten. Oh well, I guess you're just going to have to hold on to your Box of Gypsies bootleg then.
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Band Of Gypsies pt. 2
January 1970 was a very productive time. Following the success of the New Year's Fillmore East shows, the Band of Gypsies enterprise was full-steam. Hendrix began working overtime in the studio to finish recordings for an LP while also bringing in Eddie Kramer to mix-down the highlights of the Fillmore shows for a live LP. By the end of the month, however, the band was defunct.
One of the first priorities was finalizing the planned upcoming single of "Stepping Stone/Izabella", which was finished by Jan. 17th. A couple of noticeably different mixes of "Izabella", which variations in effects, vocals and guitar parts, are sourced from this mixing session.
A studio jam from the 7th, "Cherokee Mist/Astro Man", marks the debut of the latter, and is included on the Burning Desire release from Dagger Records. Another new song attempted was "Send My Love To Linda", a slow, bluesy ballad. A 15 minute jam of this, usually called "Send My Love To Linda/Live and Let Live" (the latter named after the track he recorded for Timothy Leary the previous year) has been booted. A segment of "Linda" was initially included on the Lifelines radio show, and the most complete take was finally issued on Both Sides of the Sky. Attempted takes of another new number, "Burning Desire", debuted at Fillmore East, were put down around this time. Although the version of this song that was issued on the 1973 Loose Ends LP came from a BoG rehearsal at Baggy's, the true studio take was issued on the WCSB box, and another later take on Burning Desire. Work on setting down a finished version of "Power of Soul" began in earnest, with what's believed to be the entire 13 minute session tape from the 16th circulating on bootleg.
Jan. 20th-23rd was a more strenuous stretch of recording. Several recordings that had already been started prior to the Fillmore shows - "Earth Blues", "Message To Love", "Ezy Ryder" - were revisited and given extensive overdubs, while work also continued on overdubbing "Power of Soul" and "Burning Desire" as well. The first proper take of "Astro Man" was recorded on the 21st, and released on the JHE box along with versions of "Message To Love" and "Earth Blues" at the state they were in at this time. There are several alternate mixes of these songs that were done by Jimi and Eddie Kramer during these sessions. (All of these would see additional recording in the summer of '70.) Also on boot are a couple of experimental guitar pieces, both backwards, that last only about a minute each, with one of them apparently intended to be dropped into "Power of Soul" (but remained unused). The finished "Power of Soul" is available on South Saturn Delta, while a slightly alternate version is on Both Sides of the Sky. A slightly alternate "Message To Love" is on the WCSB box, while both of the last two were bastardized for Crash Landing.
Jan. 23rd saw quite a few recordings. An attempt to funk-up "Blue Suede Shoes" was put out on the Loose Ends LP, a 4 minute edit from what was an 11 minute jam. The BoG also put down an original (relatively speaking) slow blues called "Once I Loved a Woman", which was included on the :Blues set. Both of these recordings were also bastardized for the Midnight Lightning LP.
Several recordings from the 23rd round out the Burning Desire release - a five minute "Villanova Junction Blues", an 11 minute jam called "Record Plant 2X", and a nearly 4 minute "Slow Time Blues". The JHE box has the first official release of "Country Blues", a rather middling jam that runs way too long. This version also mixes out the harmonica part, and cuts out the last couple of minutes which veer into "Astro Man" and a snatch of "Gypsy Boy". The complete recording is on boot. An edit that cuts the first half of the full 10 and a half minute recording would have been preferable. Another 22 minute jam was recorded, ostensibly titled "Highway of Desire", another blues original that Hendrix only fiddled with developing. Through this jam, separate segments have been identified as "Highway of Broken Hearts", "Highway of Desire (pt 1-2)" and "Seven Dollars in My Pocket". Some bootlegs include these separately.
But the most interesting of this day's jams has to be the 20 minute "Ezy Ryder/MLK Jam (Captain Coconut)". This full recording is on both Burning Desire and as a bonus track on the more commercial People Hell & Angels release. It was from this recording that Alan Douglas assembled what he called "Captain Coconut" on his Crash Landing collection. The rumor is that he couldn't figure out what "MLK", written on the tape box, was supposed to mean. Some boots have tried to restore, using the original recording, what the actual "Captain Coconut" would have sounded like without Douglas' further overdubbing, and obviously it sounds far superior as a result.
Somewhere during this time, Hendrix found the time to make another jam cassette with Taj Mahal in his NYC hotel room. The 56 minute tape is available on boot, and it shows Jimi going through several of these newer blues ideas. In fact, this Taj Mahal tape may have been recorded prior to the above session. It has the two going through a full half hour jam on the "Country Blues" theme. A 15 minute "Room Full Of Mirrors/Highway of Desire" medley follows that, along with a tighter 3 1/2 minute "Astro Man/Valleys of Neptune". The tape is topped off with a version of "Power of Soul" that goes through Berry Gordy's "Money" and what is my favorite bootleg name of "Tajimi Boogie".
Everything seemed to be set for January 28th, when Band Of Gypsies was set to play Madison Square Garden for the "Winter Festival For Peace", an all-star charity event that was being filmed for posterity. (No footage has ever surfaced.) There's a variety of takes on what exactly happened, but the outcome was unambiguous. The band played for a total of about 25 minutes, which consisted of two long, rather wild forays into "Who Knows" and "Earth Blues". Hendrix opened the show by dedicating it to "that girl in the yellow underwear stained with blood", and it got more morose from there. Inbetween the two numbers, Jimi reminded the crowd "that's what happens when Earth fucks with Space, never forget that". The performance is currently only available as a decent audience recording, but I think the guitar playing is actually quite good, but he does seem to leave his rhythm section behind trying to catch up, not due to speed but simply going off in jazzy tangents. After the second number, Hendrix just sat down on stage for a couple of minutes before walking (almost falling) off stage. Mike Jeffery immediately fired the rest of the band backstage while Jimi expunged his guts into a toilet.
Buddy Miles has long claimed that Hendrix's condition was caused by Jeffery giving him a couple of tabs of acid before the show, as a way of sabotaging the Band Of Gypsies. The problem with that theory is 1) Acid doesn't usually cause that kind of nausea; 2) Hendrix was quite adept at handling the experience of tripping on stage by this point; 3) Jeffery had paid for the film crew, so it would have been a very expensive sabotage; 4) Far more likely to have caused his symptoms would have been his having taken heroin, a possibility since nearly all of his confirmed heroin experiences were with his sometimes-girlfriend Devon Wilson, who accompanied Jimi to the show that night (Johnny Winter's description of Hendrix before the show correlates with a heroin stupor - "When I saw him, it gave me chills. It was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen. He came in with this entourage of people, it was like he was already dead....he came in with his head down, sat on the couch alone, and put his head in his hands. He didn’t say a word to anybody, and no one spoke to him. He didn’t move until it was time for the show." This would have been before Buddy claims to have seen Jeffery give Hendrix the acid).
And 5) The sad fact may have been that Hendrix himself was looking for an excuse to sack Buddy Miles. While mixing the Fillmore East shows, Eddie Kramer recalled, "Hearing Buddy's [vamping] seemed to bother him. We were sitting there and he was like. 'Oh man, I wish Buddy would shut the fuck up.' He would listen to him and say, 'Can we cut some of those parts out?'". Interestingly, with the "Stepping Stone/Izabella" single that Hendrix immediately had withdrawn, due to its unsatisfactory sound, both of these songs would be overdubbed later that summer with Mitch Mitchell replacing Buddy's drum parts. And Sharon Lawrence also recalled that around this time Hendrix began to become aware that Buddy Miles was charging his limos and fine dining to Jimi's own expense account.
Hendrix would insist on bringing Billy Cox back into the fold, and asked Mitch to return to drumming duties, forming what was informally announced at concerts as the Cry of Love Band (but for all practical purposes, the shows were billed and promoted as 'Jimi Hendrix'). This iteration of the band would continue to record sporadically through the spring, perform a major US tour from April-June, and finally settle into the newly constructed Electric Lady Studios that summer where Hendrix would enjoy unlimited time and tape to complete his long-awaited new double LP. He almost made it.
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I should probably just wrap this up. Should be able to do it in three or four more posts.
This next section represents a bit of a lull for Hendrix. Part of this may have been the disappointment in the collapse of Band of Gypsies, although Hendrix would still take great care in assembling the LP, released in April 1970. As mentioned, he would recall his "Stepping Stone"/"Izabella" single which was intended to accompany the LP, citing a "muddy" sound. Most of the rationale for slowing his recording activity was due to the ongoing construction of Electric Lady Studios, a project that would allow Hendrix virtually unlimited time and tape as he would have partial ownership of the facility and resources. The studio would barely open in his lifetime, but Jimi was given the keys to the castle in June and would spend the summer of 1970 working extensively on his never-released fourth album. Until then, it was reasonable that Hendrix would hold off on expensive recording in other studios until then, although occasionally inspiration would draw him back into NY's Record Plant for some work to tide him over. But for the most part, Hendrix didn't do a lot of recording during the spring of 1970.
The story of the Band Of Gypsies LP deserves repeating. I've mentioned Ed Chaplin, a producer that Hendrix met in 1965 and signed a preliminary recording contract during his journeyman session player days. After Hendrix was picked up by Chas Chandler/Mike Jeffery, they had attempted to satisfy any and all of such contracts before setting off to England. The legend is that Jimi didn't have the best memory for what he considered inessential details, but there's evidence that Hendrix did indeed alert his management of the Chaplin contract, and that Chaplin had brushed off the request (generally accepted as a gesture of resignation). After Hendrix blew up in popularity in 1967, Chaplin released the awful Get The Feeling LP using his prior contract with Hendrix as a legal shield. Up until 1970, this was considered all well and good. Chaplin gets satisfied by profits off product, and Hendrix is free to go about his merry way. But Chaplin began knocking on doors once again, demanding more product to satisfy Jimi's so-called contractual obligations, and as a result of this Hendrix responded by allowing Chaplin to release Band Of Gypsies on Capital in America rather than Hendrix's usual label Reprise. This doesn't necessarily mean that Hendrix saw BOG as an inferior effort, and he would still include "Machine Gun" and "Message To Love" as tentpoles in his live show. At worst what it signified was that this material would not be further worked on for inclusion on his next album. All too eventually, however, like a classic blackmailer, Chaplin was knocking on doors again, claiming to still be unsatisfied by what he considered to be subpar material.
In February, following the ill-fated final BoG concert, Hendrix went into the studio to add the final overdubs to "Power of Soul", perhaps still holding out hope ofr its eventual release on a future LP (the song isn't included on any of the handwritten track listings made by Jimi during those summer sessions). The earliest version of "Freedom" was also from these February sessions, with Mitch back on drums and Juma Sultan on percussion. This version, which is more informal and less structured, is included on the purple JHE box. Also during this month, on an unknown date, Jimi and Mitch jammed in his hotel room for a half-hour privately recorded tape. This includes bits of "Stepping Stone", "Sending My Love To Linda", "Freedom", "Cherokee Mist" and the riff from "Calling All the Devil's Children", as well as what sounds an awful lot like a section of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun". Like previous homemade tapes, they serve as notebooks, organizing outlines of potential material and showing that Hendrix was always savvy to incorporate unused guitar pieces to see what works with other pieces. This tape is only available on bootleg.
On March 17th, during a quick visit to Britain, Hendrix attended a session with Arther Lee and the current incarnation of his band Love while they were recording their album False Start. Hendrix would record a lead guitar part for its opening track, "The Everlasting First". (The album would be released in December 1970.) Jimi and Love would also record several other things, and a surviving acetate includes two takes of "Ezy Ryder" and a instrumental jam labeled "Loon".
Later in March, Hendrix recorded two more tracks. "Midnight Lightning" had been a thematic title used for a couple of blues riffs that he'd used in the past. Here, he taped the performance that inevitably ended up South Saturn Delta, a solo take on just electric guitar, a stark and signature piece. The complete performance on bootleg runs twice as long, at six minutes. The next day, Jimi brought in Cox and Mitchell to record the fast rock version of "Bleeding Heart", which is the version heard on War Heroes and South Saturn Delta. There are a couple of booted alternate mixes with various extra guitar and percussion parts.
In April/May 1970, Hendrix and his Cry of Love trio went on another American tour. Sometime in May, they did find time to record some more at the Record Plant. Perversely, the only thing released from this session in the immediate posthumous releases was the rather pathetic "Peter Gunn/Catastrophe", which is just a bit of studio silliness inbetween takes, but was included on War Heroes, maybe to show some of Jimi's sense of humor, and for whatever reason the Estate felt it necessary to include on the WCSB box as well. I mean, it is what it is.
Also from this session was another take of "Freedom" (also on WCSB) and a track misleadingly titled "Lower Alcatraz". The latter is actually just a medley of "Midnight Lightning" and "Stepping Stone", and the spoken title at the beginning appears to have been another of Jimi's spontaneous inventions. Another take of "Valley of Neptune" from this date has elements that were slyly incorporated ("flown in" is the engineering slang) onto the earlier BoG version to make up what was eventually released on the Estate's Valley of Neptune release. Also on boot is an instrumental of "Freedom" and a take of "Lover Man".
So another post on the final American tour and festival appearnaces, the extensive Electric Lady sessions, and the ill-fated final European tour and I think I'm about done with it, and you all can stop pretending to read it.
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One slight omission from the last post: While Hendrix was in London playing on Love's "Everlasting First", he also stopped in on a Stephen Stills session where he recorded "Old Times Good Times" which was released on Stills' debut LP later that November.
(Funny that both of his guest recordings during his London trip were with American artists.)
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Hendrix kicked off the new tour on April 25th, again at the L.A. Forum. By this point in time, the nascent American bootleg industry had officially blossomed. In autumn 1969, three bootlegs in particular (Dylan's Great White Wonder, Beatles' Kum Back and the Stones' Live R Than You'll Ever Be) sold well enough to send shock waves through the industry, getting the attention of the press (Rolling Stone posted reviews of all of them as if they were any other release) and the artists (the Beatles and the Stones both investigated their entourages for the leaks - in the former case, it turned out to be John Lennon himself, who hated the Get Back acetate so much he gave it away to a fan in Toronto, and it was playing on national radio stations within a month). Privately-recorded tapes of live concerts had progressively been getting more sophisticated - better mics, high-end tape recorders with VU monitors - but while some of them had been traded among collectors, the majority were solely made as private souvenirs. A couple of guys who called themselves Trade Mark Of Quality (TMOQ) had access to a pressing plant, so they upped their gear to include a Sennheiser shotgun stereo microphone - capable of a precise and clear sound from afar with minimal peripheral noise - and two reel-to-reel tape decks which could record continuously without a break from switching out reels. They had been the ones' responsible for Live R, a record that sounded good enough to make Keith think a roadie taped it backstage, and to make manager Allen Klein suspect the band might be trying to make some independent tax-free income on the side. TMOQ soon made it their business to tape as many California stadium rock shows as they could afford to attend.
For Jimi's LA Forum show, TMOQ were there, as was a new rival who also employed a shotgun mic technique, calling himself 'Rubber Dubber'. Both of them had their double LPs on the streets within two weeks. (These initial vintage boots didn't have much budget for graphics, but the above Enjoy Jimi Hendrix is a preferable 1981 edition of the Rubber Dubber.)
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Hendrix most likely never bothered to listen to these or any of the handful of his own bootlegs released in his lifetime, but he made no bones about warning his fans away from them, "they must sound awful". A perfectionist isn't going to be the target audience for such things.
It remains uncertain whether any superior professional audio of this concert exists, but there's some reasons to hope. Sound man Abe Jacobs has claimed that he believes that Hendrix did make a "semi-professional" tape with a Nagra (reel-to-reel) machine, but most likely not a quality multi-track. More intriguingly is that this concert was one of the first to include a large screen above the stage which showed video footage of the band as they performed. Whether or not this was a raw video signal or whether the feed was taped live and preserved, nobody seems to know, but certainly no such tapes has surfaced. However, most promisingly, Hendrix archivist John McDermott (catalog director for the Estate) has claimed to have found a 16mm film of the concert shot by Chuck Boyd.
As for the show itself, sadly neither one of the two bootleg sources come out very well. One is dominated by guitar. The other, from a further distance, has a more balanced rhythm section, but the vocals are still thin. There's a common version that mixes these two together which helps a little bit. Performance wise, though, it's top notch, especially one 20 minute medley (used for a single side on both bootlegs) which runs through "Room Full Of Mirrors/Hey Baby/Villanova Junction/Freedom", that's a highlight of the entire tour, and this particular arrangement would not be repeated at any other show.
The basic set list of the tour throws in some new songs - "Ezy Ryder", "Room Full Of Mirrors", "Freedom" - which would be brand new for the audience, "Machine Gun" and "Message To Love" from Band of Gypsies, "Hear My Train A-Coming" is the standard blues showcase (though sometimes "Red House" is included), mixed in with dependable favorites - "Fire","Foxy Lady", "Lover Man", "Spanish Castle Magic", and most of the shows would end with "Star Spangled Banner", "Purple Haze" and "Voodoo Chile".
Generally though, this tour is probably the one in which I have the weakest collection in terms of audience tapes. In addition to the LA Forum show (both sources and composite), I only have Madison and St. Paul, from May 2nd and 3rd, Baltimore from June 13th and Boston from June 27th. For Madison I have two of the source tapes and a composite of the three known sources. The latter is very well done, and quite listenable. In addition to these, the other available tapes are from Sacramento (April 26), Milwaukee (May 1), Norman, OK (May 8), Ft Worth (May 9), San Antonio (May 10), Philadelphia (May 16), Tulsa (June 7), Evansville IN (June 10) and San Bernardino (June 20). Out of those, two (Norman and Philadelphia) rate "Good" according to my guide, putting them on par with my copies of Baltimore and Boston. The rest rate less.
By Philadelphia, Hendrix started throwing in some extras, opening the show with "Sgt. Pepper" and "Johnny B. Goode" and including the jam "Keep On Groovin'". "Johnny B. Goode" would become a legendary highlight of the May 30th Berkeley shows. The second set at Berkeley really started expanding the back bench, kicking off with "Pass It On" (a new song, soon to be retitled "Straight Ahead") and "Hey Baby", and throwing in oldies "Stone Free", "Hey Joe" and "I Don't Live Today". The Tulsa show shuffles these around some more, adds a flamenco improvisation to the Star Spangled banner and closes with the theme from Dragnet. The San Bernardino show opens with what I believe is the very first live rendition of "All Along the Watchtower" of the tour, and the earliest recorded version of the song in America. Despite it being his biggest American hit single, Hendrix had only ever performed "Watchtower" a couple of times in Germany during the 1969 tour.
On May 4th, there was a benefit concert at NYC's Village Gate for Timothy Leary, at the time languishing in federal prison for possession of two reefer sticks. Apparently, the entire concert was filmed with full audio on B&W video. The Estate has a twenty minute tape of Jimi's set, which may be his entire performance (I can't confirm his full set list), but only a small portion of silent color footage has been released, in the Blue Wild Angel documentary.
Archivst John McDermott has also allegedly discovered a full professionally shot film of the April 26 Sacramento show, and a full professional video of the June 5th Dallas show. Since no one else has seen either, no word on the quality or condition of these documents.
Don't think I'm about to skip over the May 30th Berkeley shows without more detail, because, after all, they remain the most substantial of all performances from this tour, namely being the only one ever released in commercial quality. Now that quality has been quite frustrating at times. The original film only ran some 55 minutes. It mixes concert footage with verite backstage glimpses and rehearsal clips, as well as montages of the then-ensuing campus protests/riots inspired by the recent Kent shootings just weeks prior. This footage aides "Machine Gun" quite well, in that context, as a time capsule curio. Other times, I'm not so sure, such as that moment where it looks like someone forgot which side of the camera is up. And with the blu-ray, we got about 15 extra minutes, and good ones, but here's the thing. It says here that both concerts were shot in their entirety, so with this blu-ray technology, it sure does feel like getting two full length sets (approx. 3 hours) shouldn't be too much of an ask, and you'd still have enough room to add on the original cut of the film as an extra (aka, curio). Now maybe the original footage has been damaged, but no one has said so, and they say the blu-ray was mastered from the original negatives so I'm really hedging my wits here.
The blu-ray also adds a 5.1 mix of the second set. Great. Where's the first fucking set?!?! Wouldn't it be awesome if somehow we could get a nice Berkeley package with the film on a disc, and 5.1 of both sets on two additional discs. I don't see this as college-level math. You can even through in the rehearsals, audio-only if you didn't film them all. Got that new funky arrangement of "Blue Suede Shoes" that they used on Hendrix in the West, plus some Band of Gypsies numbers that they weren't playing live at this point ("Earth Blues", "Power of Soul"). From whence this cruelty?
The first set has never been commercially available, and it simply makes no sense. It was professionally recorded in multi-track, and a couple of its performances have long been issued in other formats. "Johnny B. Goode" is a classic. "Purple Haze" was also included on the Jimi Hendrix soundtrack. And "Hear My Train" was the first to be issued, on Rainbow Bridge, and let me just say that there's a reason why that performance was chosen as the first and representative version of the song worth committing to wax. But these tracks already being available shouldn't preclude the release of the rest of the set. After all, a number from the second set were released on various LPs (albeit somewhat more obscure ones) like Jimi Hendrix Concerts, Johnny B. Goode and Band of Gypsies 2. The only rationale that I can think of is that maybe the Estate feels that the first set is tainted by the fact that it also happened to be one of the best-sounding and most popular of the original generation of vinyl bootlegs, Good Karma Vol. 1-2, which was taken from the professional soundboard. Kinda like how when the Stones finally released their classic Brussels '73 show, they chose to release the unbooted 2nd set instead of the 1st one which everyone already had. Well I'd like to upgrade my boots, please. Take my money!
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Technically, the Cry Of Love Tour didn't really ever stop. But by July 1970, it had slowed down considerably, as Hendrix intensified his work at Electric Lady Studios, with a total of six shows spread throughout the entire month, half of them festival appearances. There are three primary recordings among them, two of which have been commercially released.
The tour had the built-in hype of riding on the heels of the release of the film and soundtrack of Woodstock which inarguably established Hendrix's iconography most profoundly in the cultural currency, so the promise of Hendrix performing his newly iconic "Star Spangled Banner" on the 4th of July would be irresistible, and Jimi delivered at the Atlanta Pop Festival. Even though the festival, like so many festivals in Woodstock's wake, was filmed and professionally recorded, it seems to have been neglected for many years, the earliest non-boot Hendrix performances appearing on a little-noticed budget-priced "mini-LP" in the mid-80s, Johnny B. Goode, which collected a handful of these summer concert recordings, which was actually a nice gem for certain young fans who may have been prone to picking up 3$ cassettes at the local grocery store. A more complete version of the concert was included as the fourth disc of the Stages set in 1991 (oddly omitting "Watchtower though), and now the entire concert was released as Freedom by the Estate in 2015 with an accompanying documentary Electric Chruch, which is a little heavy on non-Hendrix festival coverage probably due to limited footage of the main event. But what's there is worth watching. Imo, this may be the definitive concert from the Cry Of Love Tour, more complete than Berkeley, and without the fatigue that would be associated with the later Isle of Wight. Some people don't like this version of "Banner", it is a bit uglier, more violent maybe, than the classic Woodstock version, but Jimi ain't a jukebox, folks.
Another festival appearance two weeks later was less successful, the New York Pop Festival set at Randalls Island, one of the many cheerful East River isles like Rikers, and poetically situated between the Bronx Kill strait and the Hell Gate Bridge. In addition to a notorious sanitarium, Randalls also had a stadium, so it seemed as good a place as any I guess. Hendrix's set was professionally recorded and partially filmed, with seven minutes of Hendrix appearing in a tellingly hard-to-find 1977 doc The Day The Music Died. The audio is easily found on bootleg, with only a version of "Red House" yet released on Jimi Hendrix Concerts, but probably preferable is the kiss-my-ass finale of "Voodoo Chile".
At the end of the month of July, the band swung through a couple of west coast gigs, Seattle and San Diego. An audience tape of the former is available, as well as brief silent 8mm footage of both. Seattle may have some biographical interest in that it would be Jimi's last visit to his hometown, although the trip didn't go well, ending with a blow-out argument with his father. Al Hendrix never escaped the working-class presumption that Jimi wouldn't be able to sustain a career on his talent and (not exactly incorrectly) fretting about his spending habits.
Seattle was just a pit-stop for the band's commitment to fly to Hawaii to take part in manager Mike Jeffery's vanity project, Rainbow Bridge. If you've seen the film, it's evident that Jimi had little interest or motivation to do any more than he absolutely had to do to show up and make good on whatever promise, and generally treated the excursion as an extended vacation (indeed, even adding on a couple of extra weeks to heal a surfing injury that may or may not have occured). But productively, the band was able to film a boutique set on July 30th (called "a vibratory color sound experiment concert") staged on Maui near the Haleakala volcano for a relatively elite crowd of a couple hundred hippies. Nature intruded somewhat with a stubbornly overcast sky and steady windflow. The footage shows massive wads of foam strapped on the microphones to help best the windy beasts, but Mitch Mitchell would eventually re-dub much of his drum work later in a studio. (A half hour tape from this overdub session has been booted.) The Estate released the audio tapes as Live in Maui in 2020 along with a documentary called Music Money Madness: Jimi Hendrix in Maui. The original film of Rainbow Bridge, released in 1971, is probably available somewhere in some form.
The show isn't bad, and starts off with a wonderful medley of "Hey Baby/In From The Storm" that would later be issued on the purple JHE box, clearly a highlight. In addition to "Storm", Hendrix would introduce "Dolly Dagger", among the newly recorded material, and resurrect "Jam Back At The House" from Woodstock as "Beginnings", which he and Mitch had also recently laid down in the studio. The show ends with a good but somewhat less-stellar medley of "Hey Baby/Midnight Lightning".
This recording became another popular and relatively quality-sounding vinyl bootleg item in the 70s, in a variety of edits and editions under names like Incident at Rainbow Bridge and Unknown Wellknown, but unfortunately one of the bootleggers (which was inevitably copied) decided to add some seagull sounds to the "Villanova Junction" instrumental. But that's all part of the kitsch, I guess.
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While recovering from his mysterious foot injury, Hendrix would record a 20 minute tape which would be released as "Scorpio Woman" on Morning Symphony Ideas. The tape was sold to the Estate by said Scorpio woman, Melinda Merryweather, who had been Jimi's companion during this recuperation. The tape includes the embryonic title tune flowing into a number of different other directions, including another solo "Midnight Lightning", "Heaven Has No Sorrow" which he had worked on at Electric Lady, and several other unidentified scraps, including a lovely Mayfield-sounding soul ballad with his sweet intimate falsetto.
A larger myth was brewing at the time, which was the elusive Black Gold cassette. There have been many varieties of tales concerning this object, including that it was stolen from the same London apartment that he would die in months later. A small mountain of bootlegs have made claim to being the real Black Gold tape, but all of them tend to just be one of his many privately recorded demos. "Scorpio Woman" was one candidate for the real thing, as it became clear that the concept has a connection with this Hawaiian vacation. Archivist Steven Roby tells in his book - Black Gold, naturally:
In 1970 when production began on the film Rainbow Bridge, Hendrix was the first to arrive on the island of Maui. When Mitch Mitchell arrived, Hendrix took him aside and gave him seven cassette tapes wrapped in a headband, asking Mitchell to take good care of them. Mitchell thought this was rather exceptional; Hendrix often gave him the odd demo tape to listen to for new song ideas, but he had never given such explicit details about what to do with them. Mitchell put the tapes in his suitcase and later brought them home, leaving them untouched for twenty-two years.
Mitchell assumed the tapes had already been bootlegged, but in 1992 he allowed another archivist, Tony Brown, to review them and take notes. Based on Brown's notes, these seven tapes are not only unreleased but rather random as well. Most of them are understandably the same kinds of privately recorded demo tapes that Hendrix usually made, with one tape explicitly being labeled "suite...Black Gold" and "B. G." on its spine. The contents on this specific tape, by Brown, lists:
Side A: November Morning; Drifting; Captain Midnight 1201; Local Commotion; Local Commotion 2nd Part; Here Comes Black Gold; Black Gold; Stepping Stone; Little Red Velvet Room
Side B: The Jungle Is Waiting; Send My Love To Joan Of Arc; God Bless The Day; Black Gold; Machine Gun; Here Comes Black Gold; Trash Man; Astro Man; 2nd Part of Astro Man; I've Got a Place To Go
The first track appears to be the same as "Suddenly November Morning" that was used as the final track on the West Coast Seattle Boy box, and presumably is taken from the above tape. If so, it's the only appearance anywhere of these recordings.
The other six "headband" tapes are more erratic, but most of them are similarly solo intimate recordings. One tape is the summer '69 Taj Mahal jam. Another is (apparently, according to Brown) simply Noel Redding and roadie Eric Barrett talking while watching television. (Could be a mix-up here, but it makes one curious what they were discussing, doesn't it?) One tape is an unidentified live Experience recording that is notable for having the only known full-length live rendition of "Third Stone From the Sun". Again, I can't attest to any of this, but my understanding is that these tapes are in the Estate's possession.
Some may see Hendrix's behavior here as a bit prophetic. It strikes me as possibly relevant to mention a passage from one of the very best Hendrix biographies, 2005's Room Full Of Mirrors by Charles R. Cross, that at this time in Hawaii, Hendrix was also taken to studying a copy of the Book Of Urantia and telling people that he'd be leaving his body soon with the UFOs. Anecdotally, the common refrain from those around him was "exhaustion". And he had some kind of glandular issue that was never properly diagnosed, but most likely lifestyle-related.
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Here's an interview I forgot to include. This interview is a little awkward. Shortly after the Band of Gypsies were disbanded, Mike Jeffery staged this Rolling Stone interview with John Burks for what was supposed to be a newly reformed Experience. Of course this never happened, but Noel doesn't seem to know that yet.
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Coming 'round the bend.