Posted by Rampop II ![]() 8/23/2022 11:48 pm | #21 |
Jinnistan wrote:
Since none of that is on Youtube, I'll post these instead, since the incontinuity cat is out of the bag, two TV clips of "Stone Free", one from France on May 11 and the second from the same Beat Beat Beat German show from May 18.
I can't help but notice how the band seem to be taking matters into their own hands with the sound levels on the 18th, after that mix on the show the previous week, pee–yew! The following week Jimi and Noel are all over those volume knobs. Did I see Jimi make a "wtf" face?
"Are these guys crazy?"
Last edited by Rampop II (8/23/2022 11:57 pm)
Posted by Rampop II ![]() 8/23/2022 11:58 pm | #22 |
Speaking as someone who counts Jimi among his top five all–time personal heroes, I gotta wonder why in all that time nobody ever explained to Jimi about mic technique.
Or maybe Jimi was like, fuck mic technique.
I got to groove!
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 8/24/2022 12:53 pm | #23 |
crumbsroom wrote:
It would never even occur to me to watch that Hendrix film. The fact that it sounds even worse than I had imagined says something.
I'm going to go ahead and post this, because it's not that long and it's kinda hilarious if you look at more as a Spinal Tap satirical thing. Just awful, and all you need to know.
Some fact-checks: 1) Hendrix attended a listening party for Sgt Pepper a month earlier at McCartney's house, the idea he had to wait and go buy his own copy is laughable; 2) Jimi didn't use a "flying V" Gibson guitar on this, again I should stress, legendary show, but a Fender Strat which, like Monterey, he had painted with a sacrificial poem written on the back, almost like there's pictures that could be researched; 3) the audience reaction was the exact opposite of what's shown here (it was documented, people were there and they've talked about it!), but, again, the film needs to present this as some kind of bold sacrilege in order to portray it as iconoclastic conquest, rather than respectful homage.
Last edited by Jinnistan (8/24/2022 12:59 pm)
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 8/26/2022 6:05 pm | #24 |
Honestly, not a lot to offer today. I'll throw in this upgrade of the previous Popside TV appearance from Stockholm. But for the most part, the summer of 1967, for Hendrix recordings, splits into two neat categories: the Monterey Pop Festival, which is among the most iconic and recognizable and frequently utilized performances of his career; and everything else which, for some reason, no one bothered to record. So no gems to uncover.
And there's nothing really to add about Monterey, a very well-documented festival that may be a more definitive portrait of the 60s than Woodstock. Hendrix is arguably at his peak, if not performance-wise then certainly in terms of his confidence and charisma. Not necessarily stoned (definitely illuminated), but beautiful nonetheless. His (nearly) entire set has long been available on Jimi Plays Monterey, with the highlights (and some slightly alternate shots and edits) featured on the first, and still best, Hendrix doc, 1973's A Film About Jimi Hendrix. The audio cassette was actually the first Hendrix I owned, and a more than sufficient introduction. I've also since gotten a vinyl copy and the VHS. The audio is complete, but the video, due to camera issues, misses "Can You See Me" and only catches the first minute of "Purple Haze". I've always enjoyed the VHS' use of "Can You See Me", moving it to the opening credits and matched to a real-time painting by Denny Dent, but since the Estate are real pricks about Youtube, for whatever reason, it can only be found with some crappy cover (just turn it down, and enjoy the paint splay).
Oh, gee, I wonder what Monterey clips are on Youtube that everyone's already seen.
So that's Jimi's American debut as a rock god phoenix. For the next couple of months, Hendrix spent the summer playing around at lots of places, and it's insane that there has been virtually no recordings uncovered. The single tape that I can find evidence for would be from a July 20th NYC show at a Greenwich Village club called The Salvation, but it seems to only have circulated among the "collector's network", of which I'm sadly uninvited. Another gig, five nights at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, would seem like a opportune chance since owner Billy Graham was known for having his stages equipped with top-notch recording equipment (ala Winterland), but no recordings from these shows have surfaced. The ensuing result of of the first night is well known. Hendrix was the opener for Jefferson Airplane, but after the first night, the Airplane were terrified and announced some emergency studio sessions and had their slot filled in by Joplin and Big Brother for the rest of the week. And there was a July 5th concert in Central Park, the Rheingold Festival, which also doesn't appear to have been recorded but was, at least, documented by the future Mrs. McCartney, Linda Eastman.
Most notoriously, the Experience landed a gig on tour opening for The Monkees. Again, even though several Monkees sets were professionally taped (a box set of them was released fairly recently) and some filmed for their TV show, no recordings or footage of Hendrix during this tour have ever surfaced, including his final night when he flipped off the crowd while walking off-stage.
Most of the terms for this match-up have been "odd", "bizarre", "surreal", etc. But it was mostly innocent and fairly easy to understand. It wasn't some feral brainchild of clueless yet greedy managers who just wanted to put on the hottest act coming out of Monterey, sight unseen, an ill-conceived marketing disaster, as it's usually been described. The Monkees had been hanging out in London, tripping with The Beatles. Maybe they temporarily lost track of exactly who their audience was. Mickey Dolenz was at Monterey (in chieftain headgear) and was fully in the groove of the Peppery times. Peter Tork was enmeshed with the Byrds/Buffalo Springfield LA canyon scene, where Jimi would party in his free time. "Hey!", I imagine they said, "How about you bring this outta sight blast with us on tour?" Jimi flashes that 'why not' grin of his.
Mickey Dolenz wrote:
I was very sorry to see him go. Before he did, we did have some great times. Running around the New York City psychedelic scene like kids in a candy store, tripping at the Electric Circus and jamming until all hours of the night in the hotel room with Peter and his buddy Stephen Stills.
(Hendrix getting high with Dolenz and Tork)
The most productive time spent that summer was in recording the new Experience 45 single, "Burning of the Midnight Lamp"/"Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice".
I'm not entirely clear on whether or not the original multi-track tapes still exist, or if they were available for later remixing. These were recorded at Mayfair Studios in NYC in July, and it was Jimi's first attempt at producing and mixing his own work, without the assistance of Eddie Kramer. "Burning" has always sounded a little muddy, with the drums more buried than I believe they would have been had it been recorded at Olympic. But otherwise, it's a tremendous song, epic in sweep and scale, and clearly a personal favorite for Hendrix. Even though the single was a surprise flop when it was released a month later, he held onto it to include on Electric Ladyland.
"Stars" fell off the radar, by comparison. It was used on the European version of Smash Hits, and later on the obscure Loose Ends (1974). It's now available on South Saturn Delta. The track is silly, and only really picks up steam in the second part when "The Milky Way Express" takes off and flings through a brief tour of the cosmos, losing an occasional overcurious passenger or two along the way, "that's the way it goes".
There's an instrumental acetate of "Stars" available, and a few experimental mixes, but very little in the way of outtakes from either. The most from "Burning" is an interesting 22 minute mixdown tape which has several attempts (but hardly any complete) as Hendrix tries to find the right balance of the individual tracks, and is fascinating from a process point of view. The relative lack of variations from the various releases, including the most recent 50th anniversary remaster of Electric Ladyland, is what makes me wonder if the original tapes are still extant. And since Mayfair Studios is not a studio that Hendrix would use again, I wonder if he might have just left them there (which wouldn't be unusual, as we'd see from later sessions in other NY studios).
Last edited by Jinnistan (8/26/2022 6:21 pm)
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 8/26/2022 6:55 pm | #25 |
I forgot to mention that among the "Milky Way Express" were Jimi's newfound friends in The Mothers of Invention, including Frank Zappa, invited to the studio to provide backing vocals and a party atmosphere and to be aware of any and all emergency exits. The day prior, The Mothers had invited Hendrix to take part in their parody of the Sgt Pepper cover, We're Only In It For The Money, making it the only time Hendrix appeared on another artist's record cover.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 8/28/2022 5:57 pm | #26 |
I must have missed a May 21st recording of "Wild Thing" in Copenhagen. Another casualty of not paying enough attention of my European Broadcasts 66-67 set. Radio broadcast of a reporter's handheld recording of the song, but it also includes a brief backstage interview.
Back in London in August, the first order of business was promotion for his newest hit single, which unfortunately stalled at #18, his weakest to date. He filmed a spot for Dee Time with live vocals, which is now included on both the 2010 BBC Sessions and 2013 JHE box as a bonus cut.
On August 27th, the band returned to the Saville Theater which was caught by an audience recording. The complete tape hasn't been made available, but a version with edited songs has come out, a "sampler" to entice buyers at an auction. Notably, this features the only Hendrix performance of "Summertime Blues" and the first live recording of "I Don't Live Today" available.
In September, the Experience made another trek through Europe, and a number of recordings were made in Sweden. From the 4th, two shows at the Tivoli Gardens, both audience, the first one incomplete. The 2nd show, the better sounding of the two, was released by the Hendrix fanzine Univibe on CD under the name EXP Over Sweden. On the 5th, Hendrix performed for Swedish radio a set that's been long available on bootleg (even on the mislabled Pipe Dream), and finally released (with slight track adjustments) as the Disc One of the live collection Stages (though this is long out of print). At this point, Jimi was still opening with "Sgt Pepper" frequently, and "Catfish Blues" would be a live staple through the rest of the year. This 5th performance of "Burning of the Midnight Lamp" is generally considered the first public performance of the song, since the previous television performances were partially mimed.
Two more more or less complete shows were recorded on the 10th and 11th, the first with rare takes of "Mercy Mercy" and "Manic Depression", and the second with some (limited) footage and another "Midnight Lamp". Both of these shows are in decent sound for the time.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 8/28/2022 6:06 pm | #27 |
A slight correction: I've been mentioning the Tivoli Gardens. This is the name of an amusement park in Copenhagen, Tivoli being the name of the company that runs a number of amusement parks in France as well (the Jardin de Tivoli). The actual name for the Tivoli amusement park in Stockholm, Sweden is the Tivoli Grona Lund (Green Grove).
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/03/2022 9:38 pm | #28 |
I kinda skipped over one brief item. While Jimi was in New York in July '67, he dropped in on his old boss, Curtis Knight, and ended up sitting in with his band and jamming in the studio. Hendrix was aware, at least some of the time, that the tapes were rolling, which captured the folowing exchange with the producer, Ed Chalpin:
Hendrix: Edward, can you hear me? In other words, like you can't, you can't use my name for any of this stuff, all right? ... no, serious though, seriously.
Chalpin: Don't worry about it. I won't use it, don't worry about it.
Chalpin then immediately sold the tapes to Capital and put them out as "Jimi Hendrix and Curtis Knight", with one name noticeably larger than the other, as Get That Feeling and released at the end of 1967 to cash-in on Hendrix's growing popularity. The album isn't very good, and most Hendrix fans disown it because of the very cynical nature of its existence, but it does, technically, fall into the category of his professional recorded legacy. These tapes would be recycled endlessly through the years in shoddier and shoddier versions, cut and laced with a variety of recordings that have no Hendrix involvement. Personally, I refuse to own a copy (and I've found it many times for cheap).
"Eddy" Chalpin would become a well known thorn in Jimi's side. Chalpin had already gotten Hendrix's signature on a contract back in 1965 during an earlier Squires session, and so he would use the threat of a lawsuit against him and his new management to both release these subpar abominations with his name but to also eventually demand new material. This is why Band of Gypsies was released on Capital instead of his normal Reprise label. But Chalpin then claimed that Gypsies was subpar () and tried to squeeze even more out of him.
The above You Can't Use My Name bootleg only features a couple of these tracks, as well as the notorious audio quoted above, and is mostly a grab-bag of Ladyland outtakes and live tracks from Maui. So for a vinyl boot from the early 80s, it's pretty solid overall. Not quite a bootleg, but shady nonetheless, was the Audio Fidelity single "No Such Animal", released almost immediately after his death in 1970, which is an original instrumental from those original 1965 Squires sessions.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/03/2022 9:53 pm | #29 |
I think I've solved one issue with some of the mysteriously listed Experience outtakes. It looks like there was a CD bootleg in the 90s called Olympic Gold Vol. 1 & 2 which claimed to be from those Feb-April '67 Experience sessions, and have gotten listed as such elsewhere. In fact, that release mixed in a few recordings from some Feb. 69 sessions. This checks with "Gypsy Blood", which is listed with this correct date on the Dagger release Hear My Music. "12 Bar With Horns" is also from Feb. 69 (the horns being Chris Wood and others from Traffic), and so would not be the first attempt by Hendrix to record with a horn section. That would be "Taking Care of No Business" from May, but unfortunately the commercial release on the JHE purple box mixes out the tuba and saxophone and the other elements which gave it a New Orleans barroom feel. If you can find it, the original is the definitive version of the tune.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/04/2022 10:57 pm | #30 |
Axis: Bold As Love is a step up in overall quality and vision, imo. More sophisticated, more sublime. Experience was an eruption of raw talent, and here that talent starts to flower in both sonic texture and lyrical dimension. The collaboration between Hendrix and engineer Eddie Kramer is in full swing now, and the careful attention to detail is far more evident. It immediately subverts expectations, after the roaring whirl of "EXP", instead of an atomic explosion we get the smooth strut of "Up From the Skies". It's been widely noted the outspring of softer ballads and delicate, Curtis Mayfield-style guitar figures in classics like "Little Wing", "Castles Made of Sand", "Bold As Love" and, most underrated, "One Rainy Wish". Of course, the album has plenty of bravado as well, in "Spanish Castle Magic", "Little Miss Lover", "If Six Was Nine", "You Got Me Floating".
Most of the album was recorded in October 1967, in sessions that were still being squeezed into their busy schedules. There is some dispute recording one recording, an acetate demo for "Little Miss Lover", an earlier performance with slightly different lyrics. Since acetates for the other tracks of the time haven't surfaced, some speculate that this acetate is actually from the same summer sessions that produced "Burning of the Midnight Lamp". More likely, it may have been recorded as early as late August when they arrived back in London. (It is an EMIDisk acetate, so unlikely to have been pressed in America.) Among the other outtakes, there's grand instrumentals takes of "Little Wing", "Bold As Love" (JHE box) and "Castles Made of Sand" (WCSB), and two early runthroughs of "Sweet Angel", later to become simply "Angel", one of Jimi's most personal compositions. Both takes are featured on South Saturn Delta, but oddly, one take (with Mitch on drums) is listed as "Little Wing" (not sure what the nature of this confusion was about) and "Sweet Angel" (with a rudimentary drum machine) inexplicably has the first 20 seconds cut off. (The full version is on the JHE box.)
One prominent legend from these sessions is that one night after a long mixing session, Jimi accidentally left the reel for Side One in a taxi cab, forcing him and Kramer to quickly remix that side for release. Hendrix had always lamented this, claiming that the original mix was superior and that they were unable to completely capture the same feel. Perhaps he was romanticizing the moment, as Hendrix was known for having very quick changes of heart about these things, and it would become a cliche that he would never be entirely satisfied with any of his releases, always mentioning in interviews the various nitpicks. A reel of mixes around this time did show up for auction in the 90s, and it didn't take long before they were rumored to be the original "taxi cab" mixes. This is clearly not the case, as this reel also contained a few items from Ladyland as well, but there are a number of slightly alternate Axis mixes, all in excellent quality, and even a solid instrumental take of "Spanish Castle Magic". This reel has been frequently bootlegged in variations of The Sotheby Tapes.
Finally, one of the most distinct aspects of Axis is its bold use of ADT flanging/phasing effects. This technology was created at Abbey Road Studios at The Beatles' request to make it easier to double-track their vocals. It takes the audio signal, splits it in two, and mildly changes one of the signals in depth and speed while keeping the other normal. When played on top of each other, this creates a slightly warped sound, which can then be adjusted to lesser or greater effect. More subtly, it can provide a vibrato sound. More aggressively, it can create a washing effect as heard on the drums in "Bold As Love". The technology also paved the way for other signal manipulation such as the delay, echo-loop effect, which Hendrix would use prominently on "1983".
There remains a question as to how the technology escaped the Abbey Road Studios. Eddie Kramer has asserted that he came up with a similar effect "playing around" with tapes trying to achieve what Hendrix wanted as an "underwater" sound. That's perfectly likely. Or! Back in May 1967, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were engaging in their only known recording collaborations together, namely Lennon and McCartney provided backing vocals to The Stones' "We Love You" and "Dandelion" single, while The Stones returned the favor by providing backing vocals to their "All You Need Is Love" and "Baby You're a Rich Man" single. (And Brian Jones added a saxophone to "You Know My Name".) "Baby You're a Rich Man" would be the only song that The Beatles would record entirely at Olympic Studios, and the only song with Eddie Kramer acting as engineer. The recording has a piano part treated with ADT that causes a stuttering effect at the end of each verse. How did they achieve this, I wonder? Perhaps, in their impatience and lack of respect for proprietary capitalism, Lennon and McCartney chose to reveal to Kramer the basics of this ADT technology so they could just get on with the session and get the result they wanted. Anyway, the next major showcase of ADT phasing would be The Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park" recorded at Olympic shortly after this. That's probably just a coincidence as well.
Posted by Rampop II ![]() 9/06/2022 2:54 am | #31 |
Jinnistan wrote:
Axis: Bold As Love is a step up in overall quality and vision, imo. More sophisticated, more sublime. Experience was an eruption of raw talent, and here that talent starts to flower in both sonic texture and lyrical dimension.
Oh man, without question. Who (except maybe Chaz Chandler) can disagree? The distance from Are You Experienced to Axis: Bold as Love is an astronomical leap from what is essentially a smokin’ collection of radio–ready singles and into the decadence of full–on sonic concept surrealism. Rich with plenty of material for radio, and not quite a “concept album,” Axis was still announcing in no uncertain terms that Jimi’s priority would be making art, not just hits.
Last edited by Rampop II (9/06/2022 2:55 am)
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/07/2022 12:03 am | #32 |
Again, October 1967 was a busy time, and in between the hours Hendrix was able to squeeze in the studio, he still had a steady schedule for touring and promotional appearances.
In his first BBC session in six months, appearing on John Peel's new rock show on BBC Radio One called Top Gear, Hendrix approached the show more relaxed, focused less on promoting new material under the more laid back vibe of the ex-pirate radio host. One such impromptu moment was having Stevie Wonder sit in on drums for a recording of "Ain't Too Proud To Beg/I Was Made To Lover Her", a very loose cover of "Hound Dog", two versions of "Driving South" (an older instrumental credited to Curtis Knight), a smoking version of "Catfish Blues", and two new songs, the already-stalled single "Burning of the Midnight Lamp" and the freshly finished "Little Miss Lover". (All on BBC Sessions.)
(Some early vinyl BBC boots)
"Catfish Blues" is one of his signature stage performances at this time. A 1941 blues from Robert Petway, "Catfish Blues" was extremely influential to Muddy Waters, and Hendrix would fold elements of Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'" into his version. This BBC performance is perhaps the best, but two additional performances from this time - from L'Olympia, Paris Oct. 9 and Dutch TV, Hoepla, Nov. 10 - are also excellent. (The latter performance is on the out-of-print :Blues album; none of them on Youtube.)
The full concert from the professionally recorded L'Olympia in Paris on Oct. 9th is also available, although irritatingly split. "Wind Cries Mary" and "Catfish Blues" are on the JHE box, while the rest of the set is included on the Dagger release Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968, paired with a brief early set from the Fillmore West, leaving it to fans to sequence and construct the original set for themselves if they want to hear the entirety. Some footage was also shot, with clips of "Wild Thing" used in Peter Clifton's doc Sounds of the City.
While in France, The Experience taped at least three lip-synched TV performances for "Burning of the Midnight Lamp".
Back in London by the 17th, Jimi played another BBC set, this time for legendary scenster/godfather Alexis Korner, where he opted again for an unconventional set: a cover of Bob Dylan's "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window", Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man" and another take at "Driving South". All three of this month's "Driving South" performances, like "Catfish Blues" provide a masterclass in the inventiveness and variety of Hendrix's guitar-improv skills.
After wrapping up production on Axis, the group taped the above-mentioned Dutch TV show on Nov. 10, which included takes of "Foxy Lady" and "Purple Haze" (several outtakes of the latter are also available) in addition to the superb version of "Catfish". The band then embarked on a dream tour - supported by Pink Floyd and The Move - and on Nov. 25th, they played the Blackpool Opera House in Lancashire. Peter Neal filmed "Purple Haze" and "Wild Thing" which he used in his film See My Music Talking (full 27 minute film). An audience tape also exists of their full set.
A return to John Peel's Top Gear on Dec. 15 featured Hendrix debuting his new "Radio One" theme song for the brand new rock-oriented channel, promotional versions of new songs "Spanish Castle Magic" and "Wait Until Tomorrow", a somewhat shabby take of The Beatles' "Day Tripper" (bootlegged incessantly and erroneously as a duet with John Lennon, as if all nasally-voiced Brits sounded the same) and also debuting his epic blues warhorse "Hear My Train A-Coming", with some fellow friends, like Stevie Winwood, providing some party atmosphere.
Peter Neal also filmed the iconic performance of "Hear My Train A-Coming" on Dec. 19, with Jimi playing the song solo on an acoustic 12-string guitar. Originally also part of See My Music Talking, it would become a highlight of the posthumous documentary A Film About Jimi Hendrix and used for the film's poster.
Finally, also filmed by Neal, The Experience played the "Christmas on Earth" benefit concert in London (with Pink Flord, The Who, Traffic and The Soft Machine) on Dec. 22nd, which is usually the footage used to tell the story about the June 4th performance of "Sgt. Pepper". In addition of footage of "Pepper" and "Wild Thing", "Foxy Lady" was also recorded.
Last edited by Jinnistan (9/07/2022 12:09 am)
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/07/2022 12:22 am | #33 |
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/07/2022 11:52 pm | #34 |
For those in the vinyl know (or me, merely in the envy), UHQR is a line of specialty analogue vinyl pressings from the company Acoustic Sounds which purport to use only the finest vinyl ingredients, slow-mastered from the original master tapes, finely crafted in rich Corinthian-leather boxes, and obviously only limited to a very rare and exclusive run of a few hundred, maybe a couple thousand if you're lucky, pressings. And they'll usually run you up to $150 per album after shipping, and lots, lots more after they're out of stock and the collecters start bargaining.
Hey, good luck. That's what I say. Personally, I have a perfectly good copy of the original American stereo Axis, and a bit rougher later 70s American stereo copy of Experience. I have a vinyl rip of the mono editions of each (from the newer Estate editions), and the mono Axis is certainly worth hearing for several more or less subtle variations in the mix balance. I'm not particularly interested in picking up a British copy of Experience, maybe for a fair price, because, frankly, I prefer the American track sequence, and also...that cover. But if I were to grab one, I would want it in mono, as, even in 1967 in Britain, mono mixes were still being given the priority care and attention. Sgt. Pepper and Axis were pioneers in changing that point of view. (Although many still prefer the mono Pepper....*shrug*)
Posted by crumbsroom ![]() 9/08/2022 3:15 pm | #35 |
I clearly should dust of my copy of Axis. I wouldn't be surprised if its been ten years since I listened to it, and it was never something that was in a regular rotation for me. My memories of it are that it was strange, but also so understated in many ways, it always lived in the shadow of Experienced's ferocity and familiarty and Ladyland's overt experimentalism.
I really should listen to his studio output more, just in general. He's one of those guys when I hear live recordings of him I'm 'Holy Shit'. And then when I hear the studio records I'm 'Where is that guy?"
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/08/2022 11:10 pm | #36 |
crumbsroom wrote:
I clearly should dust of my copy of Axis. I wouldn't be surprised if its been ten years since I listened to it, and it was never something that was in a regular rotation for me. My memories of it are that it was strange, but also so understated in many ways, it always lived in the shadow of Experienced's ferocity and familiarty and Ladyland's overt experimentalism.
I really should listen to his studio output more, just in general. He's one of those guys when I hear live recordings of him I'm 'Holy Shit'. And then when I hear the studio records I'm 'Where is that guy?"
Part of the reason why I wanted to do this thread was to emphasize Hendrix's talents as a composer and studio artist, since, as someone who couldn't read music, his palette was the tools and effects at his disposal. And if his Estate hadn't scrubbed virtually every studio recording he made off of Youtube, I could probably have made a stronger demonstration for that. But, given what I got to work with, I have to sprinkle in whatever live cuts happen to be available. (Not that I mind, as long as the sound and/or visual quality is acceptable.)
His prowess as a dynamic performer is pretty well established, even assumed, but if we consider the approximately 14 months that the thread has so far covered, I believe that his highest artistic achievements remain the recordings of "Are You Experienced?", "I Don't Live Today", "If 6 Was 9", "Burning of the Midnight Lamp", "Little Wing". I like his cock-rock FM staples as much as anyone, and any rock star would be thankful for a roster including "Purple Haze", "Foxy Lady", "Stone Free", "Manic Depression", "Fire", "Spanish Magic Castle", "Little Miss Lover". And his blues evolution is also a major plank of the electric rock of the era - from "Rock Me Baby" and "Catfish Blues" into "Red House", "Lover Man", "Hear My Train A-Coming". But the previous five tracks are transcendent, imo, true masterpieces. And all of these strains will fuse and mutate in the coming years, into yet another transcendent category of "Voodoo Chile" and "Machine Gun". The man was a fertile creator.
Also, clearly, Hendrix could really only sing in the studio, and when he could sing, he showed his secret weapon ("Electric Ladyland", "Drifting").
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/15/2022 12:44 am | #37 |
It would be common for Hendrix to have a spurt of recording creativity shortly after finishing up his latest album project, in the restless acceptance of moving on with more to say. In the weeks between the release of Axis and The Experience embarking on a series of tours through Europe and America in 1968, with most free time being devoted to recording what would become Electric Ladyland, Hendrix would spend what would be his last residing days in London for the rest of the year by recording what would become his next two singles and important tentpoles for his next double album, "Crosstown Traffic" and "All Along the Watchtower". During these Dec-Jan sessions, two important guests would be integral, Dave Mason of Taffic and Brian Jones of the The Rolling Stones. For "Traffic", Mason helps out on backing vocals, multi-tracked and spanned across the stereo field. An overall fun song with catchy hooks and a droning, slowed down piano chord (almost identical to what was used on the chorus of "Spanish Castle Magic"). It was a bright inaugurating spark of side one of Ladyland, but a failed single.
"Little One" is an interesting instrumental recorded around Christmastime, has a slightly spaghetti western swagger, with Brian Jones on sitar, Mason on acoustic and Jimi on electric guitar over top Mitch's shuffle. It's available on West Coast Seattle Boy.
There was some push to offer more spotlight opportunities for Noel and Mitch around this time. Noel had managed to get an original on Axis, and they recorded another of his tunes, "Dream", around this time. Typical laid-back psychedelic rock, somewhat reminiscent of The Beatles' "Rain". Noel would overdub a vocal onto the "Little One" track as well, and Mitch recorded a vocal atop the older "Cat Talking To Me" instrumental recorded back in May. None of these made the cut. The most interesting of these experiments was a Hendrix original, "Dance", featuring a Rocking Mitch vocal. Mitch isn't much of a vocalist, but the tune turned out to be the earliest incarnation for what would evolve into "Ezy Ryder".
It's been said that initially after Hendrix picked up the new Dylan record, John Wesley Harding, his first instinct was to record a version of "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine", one of the most mysteriously moving songs on the album, but ultimately he felt that this was too personal to Dylan, and opted for the immediately succeeding track "All Along The Watchtower" instead. There's wisdom in the selection, as the structure affords a classic rock refrain (Am-G-F) that would be resurrected in the climatic conclusion of "Stairway To Heaven", and, of course, many many others, an important bough binding the roots of folk blues with power chords. It remains one of Hendrix's most admired and recognizable recordings, not least of whom Dylan himself consisted. Dave Mason supplies a 12-string acoustic backbone, Brian Jones supplies percussion (again with a slight Morricone flavor), and Noel Redding notoriously walked out of the sessions in disgust, leaving Jimi to handle the bass parts. A rough, early mix appears on South Saturn Delta, and there's a bottlegged mixdown tape, with multiple tries at mastering the increasingly intricate guitar sections that Hendrix would continue to adorn to the track throughout the sping/summer sessions for the future album.
Another track, deceptively peripheral, was "Tax Free", a blues-rock riff that Hendrix had picked up from Swedish duo Hansson & Karlsson that he had played with during his previous September tour of that country. It isn't difficult to see why Jimi was attracted to the groove, and he would add it to his act throughout his 1968 concerts, always crediting to those "Swedish cats". The basic studio track for this was recorded along with "Watchtower", with Brian Jones supplying percussion, and would be later overdubbed when work commenced on the record in New York studios later in 1968. This track was released on War Heroes, one of the strongest of the immediate posthumous records, and now on South Saturn Delta.
There are a few other recordings around this time, usually with generic names like "Jazz Jimi Jazz" and "Electric Lady Blues" which may or may not be from these sessions or later New York sessions. But the fact that these appear on the Sotheby auction tape, alongside rare mixes of Axis material, suggests that they're from London studios.
Finally, there was a slightly novelty project from January 1968, which was Paul McCartney's production of his brother, Mike, and his band's sessions as McGough and McGear. This was more of a party atmosphere, with McCartney and Hendrix joining the band along with friends like Graham Nash, Dave Mason, Mitch Mitchell, John Mayall, Spencer Davis and who knows who else to record bits for a couple of tunes.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/21/2022 1:10 am | #38 |
Hendrix's quick tour through Scandanavia in late Januaray 1968 was fairly uneventful, except for having his first arrest for trashing a hotel room and a concert that sports one of the classier bootleg titles.
The recording isn't too bad, probably taped from a PA leak, a tape deck surreptitiously plugged in, but the vocals are just lost. The show is also notable for being the earliest extant live performance of "Spanish Castle Magic".
Off to America, The Experience spent much of the next two months touring the theaters and colleges, the last time before moving onto bigger venues by the summer. From Winterland in San Francisco on Feb. 3, there are three different tape sources for the show, as well as a master matrix - an equalized combination culminating in an optimal representation. Such matrix recordings have been traded for free online by tireless audiophile saints with better software and patience than I have. The results are frequently impressive, so-called 'spectral' mixes which layer frequencies like finely spun silk. This particular show is not the best example however, but one of the sources did capture an epic 11 minute "Like a Rolling Stone". There's also a recording captured from a sound check during their Winterland stint of "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?"
The next night produced a more exceptional tape. The story goes that when the venue closed in the late 70s, a soft-drink vendor was given a tape as a farewell gift. It was a Hendrix set from Feb. 4th that featured a unique performance of Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy" among his standards. This tape has been released by the Estate's Dagger Records as the second half of Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968.
From the rest of the tour, I have a few more shows - Dallas (16th), Houston (18th), Chicago (25th) - but probably not all of the available audience tapes. The Dallas show, at the State Fairground, is interesting because it very well might be the earliest recording of Jimi doing the "Star Spangled Banner". And this Dallas show has also inspired an especially classy bootleg, based on a quote from the show.
I also have an audience tape from a Hunter College show on March 9th, and Dagger Records has also released a brief set from Clark University on March 15th with backstage interviews.
Four days later on the 19th, there was a firey recording of an Ottawa show that has been frequently bootlegged and also released by Dagger Records. The tape is hot, recorded personally by Hendrix using his newly acquired tape machine, and slightly distorted, likely also plugged in directly to the venue's PA system. The tape contains the entire second set of the night, but three tracks from the first show have also been released on Dagger's Paris & Ottawa 1968 disc.
Hendrix's personal tape machine would bear more fruit through the spring as he demos his new album and documents some late night club jams.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/23/2022 1:45 pm | #39 |
One of the more debauched items in the Hendrix catalogue is this notorious recording from either March 7 or 8 (or maybe sometime other), a late-night private jam at The Scene in NYC. It's the first of three such nightclub jam sessions personally recorded by Jimi on his new reel-to-reel tape machine. Unlike the other two, the participants here are uncertain beyond the tell-tale drunken growls of one Jim Morrison, a singer who by all indications was not invited. The rest of the band is unclear. Most sources say that it's probably The Scene's house band, The McCoys, with Rick Derringer on guitar. Many releases claim Johnny Winter, but he's definitively denied it. The harmonica is most likely Paul Caruso, a NY rock scene hanger-on who had befriended Hendrix the previous summer and was a constant companion during his '68 stint in the city. This recording has been released in a wide variety of forms, the above being the first (even though most of its info is incorrect), but its more legendary issues are the "X-rated" disc from Nutmeg Records, High Live 'N' Dirty, and, most commonly, Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead. (The picture disc below is the copy I have.)
As for the performance, well....it gets better. Few people probably make it past Morrison's "Fuck you in the ass!" entreaties, before tumbling off the stage (it sounds like - or maybe it's the sound of someone knocking the mic away from him), but side two does eventually have its moments. But mostly it's known as the one Hendrix bootleg that's as perversely ubiquitous in the record bins as it is hated by fans.
A couple of weeks later, on March 17th, Hendrix joins the current iteration of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band at NYC's Cafe A-Go-Go, where Jimi busts out with a lively "Little Wing". A much better performance, and the least available and known among the three.
The final club jam, from April 15, is more famous because it has the mighty B.B. King sitting in with the Butterfield Band at The Generation Club, along with Al Kooper, and being the sole recording of King with Hendrix automatically puts it into an air that Morrison probably couldn't muster even if he weren't obnoxiously wasted. Unfortunately, no photographs of the performance appear to have been taken.
A recent release, Stills' Basement, claims to be a jam session of Hendrix and Stephen Stills from May 1968, but it's been proven a fake. Stills did record with Hendrix, formally and informally, during this time however. On March 13, Hendrix commenced the first NY session for his new album, and taped "My Friend", with Stills on piano and Caruso on harmonica, and given a similar barroom feel as the earlier "Taking Care of No Business". This is a light-hearted tune that probably was unlikely to be released by Hendrix himself, but was selected for the posthumous Cry Of Love for obviously sentimental reasons (and they also needed to save some of the good tracks to spread out over another couple of releases). Stills also plays bass on a track called "Somewhere", a reasonable rocker that would've been a good alternate for side two of Ladyland. This track first appeared on one of Alan Douglas' monstrosities, where he would overdub everyone else but Hendrix with 70s studio hacks, and adding insult to injury listed the song as "Somewhere Over The Rainbow". More recently, the track has been largely restored and placed on the JHE purple box and a different take was placed on People Hell & Angels.
The Stillsless tracks from this session also included early runs through "Little Miss Strange" and "1983". The sessions would pick up steam during April and May.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 9/23/2022 3:36 pm | #40 |
The two previous posts should illustrate just how busy Jimi was at this time, with a steady touring schedule, squeezing in sessions for his new double album, playing around in nightclubs with virtually anyone who would have him on stage.
So I saved this category of recordings because 1) there's no precise way of determining the dates they were created; and 2) they represent his more personal work when he could afford some free hours. For the former, it's generally accepted that these were taped at various times during March and April 1968. I think it's more likely that they were all from March. They're short-handed as "The Drake Hotel Tapes", although at least some of them were recorded at the Warwick. It still isn't clear how many separate tapes were recorded, or on how many occasions, so it can only really be dealt with by taking them on all in one batch. In brief, these would be the demos for Electric Ladyland.
The history of these tapes runs roughly thus: The 1989 2-CD bootleg Acoustic Jams features a boatload of similarly privately recorded demos, but it's a mix of several different periods. These Ladyland demos are the first instance of Hendrix using private recordings as a compositional tool, a way of shaping, editing and structuring his ideas as a weigh station to the studio. They amount to 'notebooks' for a musician who couldn't transcribe his music by pen. After this, there would be several such tapes, many of them lost, given away, stolen, but definitely poorly archived, and many of them reaching almost mythical status (the elusive Black Gold cassette). After Acoustic Jams, several snippets were used in the Lifelines radio show (which was also sold as a 4-tape/CD set, but being a radio show had no uninterrupted performances). But in an odd twist, the perfect pearl dropped in a small plastic sleeve inside a graphic novel of Hendrix's life by a terrific comic artist, Bill Sienkiewicz, which added, as a bonus, a half-hour CD of Jimi's hotel Ladyland demos in sterling, unedited quality.
This collection may still represent the best of the batch, all played on a dry electric guitar - "1983", in sublime simplicity; "Angel", which may be Hendrix's most intimate performance; a blues amalgamation (below) with pieces of "Voodoo Chile", "Hear My Train", "Cherokee Mist" and "Gypsy Eyes" popping out like inspired spores. The 2018 deluxe edition of Electric Ladyland has as its supplementary At Last, The Beginning (an early working title for the album) which includes all of this as well, plus most of the remaining known recordings like workouts for "Long Hot Summer Night" and "My Friend" and even a previously unknown 45 second snippet of something called "Snowballs At My Window".
There's also private hotel room tapes with Paul Caruso on harmonica. One tape has takes of "All Along The Watchtower" and "Bright Lights Big City", another has samples (another auction tease) of unidentified jamming. There's also a rather lovely take of Dylan & the Band's "Tears of Rage", with Jimi handling the high Richard Manuel harmonies, a song he must have only recently learned from the circulating "Dwarf Music" publishing acetate trying to entice cover versions (like Manfred Mann's "Mighty Quinn"). This version of "Tears" was a pleasant surprise on the West Coast Seattle Boy box.
More esoterically, there's also an "insult" tape of Hendrix and Caruso giggling back and forth, and an extended piece which has Jimi reciting (improvising?) a rendention of a poem version of "Room Full of Mirrors" over an Eric Burden record (The Twain Shall Meet) in the background. Some have put the date for the latter tape at Feb. 1969, but I'm comfortable calling it for the spring '68.