Jimi Hendrix

jstate wrote:

Anyone have the Target exclusive and how is the bonus song? Worth picking up at Target?

The bonus track is Ezy Rider/MLK Jam which was originally released on the Dagger Records album Burning Desire in 2006. It's an awesome 20 minute studio jam.

Avoid the 1970's releases such as " Crash Landing" "Nine to Universe" and " Midnight Lighting" unless you are a diehard ( ), this was trying Alan Douglas scrapping the bottom of the barrell by adding new musicians, and in some cases even taking songwriting credit!!!!!!!

It got so bad that Warner Bros refused to release " Loose Ends" in the United States because of they felt it was an inferior product and might hurt the sales of discography.

In mid 80's Douglas did better by releasing live albums and " Blues" album which is pretty good.

When the family took over with the estate they cleaned up the market, hired Eddie Kramer to over see the archives, and reissue the albums properly.

The boxset was great because it reissued the material that was included in " Crash Landing" etc and was issued with the original musicians etc, also alot of albums were released under Hendrix's name such as " Rare Hendrix" ( Its rare alright, its so rare he is not even on it!!!), and albums supposedly he did with Little Richard (only a couple of sides) and that is where 'West Coast Seattle Boy" came in.

IMO the Hendrix estate released all the material that had been released and been tampered with, and released it , in the original format and context. This was so fans who had owned those Alan Douglas albums ( remember alot of them went gold or platinum) and to hear Hendrix, not Douglas and his studio hacks.

Granted all the albums have sold well, but that is why wealth of material has been reissued but stamped with never released before label, because the reality is they had not been, at least the original recordings unhampered

manny wrote:

Avoid the 1970's releases such as " Crash Landing" "Nine to Universe" and " Midnight Lighting" unless you are a diehard ( ), this was trying Alan Douglas scrapping the bottom of the barrell by adding new musicians, and in some cases even taking songwriting credit!!!!!!!

Is this true. I heard awhile back that some of the Hendrix releases were tampered with to the extent that there was just enough Hendrix to avoid a lawsuit and that's it. At the time I found it hard to believe or maybe I just didn't want to believe it. I had all of those releases mentioned and many more, who's the sucker....me, I guess.

Just bought South Saturn Delta today, is it Hendrix...... I backed off buying Hendrix and haven't gotten any of the releases out in the last few years except to re-purchase the ones before he died. I'd like to change that, because I love Hendrix. I guess I did feel the sucker and decided to stick to the pre death stuff.

Now I'm on a roll... Did you ever wonder where Jimi found the time to record all this stuff and how come so many of his performances were taped. Most bands didn't/don't have the funding to record many shows. We are talking about a 3 year period and yet there is 3 studio and 2 live albums and a whole lot of touring. After he dies we find out that there was a ton of studio stuff and miles of concert tape, really. He must have been one of the most productive musicians ever. It's as if he knew he wasn't going to be around and decided to leave a musical diary/journal of sorts. Guess I'd have better luck wondering if 6 was 9.

During the latter part of his lifetime Hendrix owned his own studio (Electric Ladyland) and basically lived there, sometimes recording as much as 15 hours per day.

I knew a guy who worked at the Experience Music Project in Seattle and he said that there are literally thousands of hours of Hendrix studio recordings. Of course you can't release all of it because they are basically session reels where he might attempt a particular song 20 times in a row, but it's still a phenomenal amount of recorded music in a 3 year period.

I have a bunch of Hendrix studio bootlegs and even though Experience Hendrix has stated they won't be releasing anymore (except via Dagger Records)...there is still alot of stuff in the vaults. I'm surprised that experimental tracks like "Hear My Freedom" haven't been officially released yet.

There are also many high quality live concerts that haven't been officially released (but most likely will) including the LA Forum gig from '68, the Royal Albert Hall gig from '69 and several others.

[quote="journeyman"]

manny wrote:

Avoid the 1970's releases such as " Crash Landing" "Nine to Universe" and " Midnight Lighting" unless you are a diehard ( ), this was trying Alan Douglas scrapping the bottom of the barrell by adding new musicians, and in some cases even taking songwriting credit!!!!!!!

Is this true. I heard awhile back that some of the Hendrix releases were tampered with to the extent that there was just enough Hendrix to avoid a lawsuit and that's it. At the time I found it hard to believe or maybe I just didn't want to believe it. I had all of those releases mentioned and many more, who's the sucker....me, I guess./quote]


An example of shoddy treatment his music was treated with was a tune called Jimmy Jam on " Nine to the Universe", where Hendrix was jamming and throwing some ideas on tape, when they released the version it was badly edited and put together by Alan Douglas, when you hear the original on tape, its clear it is not a completed song but it makes sense musically and you as a listener can hear it in the proper context.

"People, Hell & Angels" debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts selling 72,000 copies in the US during the first week of release.

S.D. wrote:

"People, Hell & Angels" debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts selling 72,000 copies in the US during the first week of release.

I really like this album. I wasn't sure what to expect and I'm pleasantly surprised. This clearly shows Jimi had quite a few interests he wanted to explore. My guest is he would have been involved in several side groups and/or collaborations.

S.D. wrote:

"People, Hell & Angels" debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts selling 72,000 copies in the US during the first week of release.

Is this available on vinyl yet ?

James B. wrote:

S.D. wrote:

"People, Hell & Angels" debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts selling 72,000 copies in the US during the first week of release.

Is this available on vinyl yet ?

http://www.amazon.com/People-Hell-Angels-Vinyl-Hendrix/dp/B00AA0U046/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363357787&sr=8-1&keywords=jimi+hendrix+angels

Thanks for the link Manny, just ordered it.

James B. wrote:

Thanks for the link Manny, just ordered it.

Anytime brutha, I will grabbing this CD after work today.

manny wrote:

James B. wrote:

Thanks for the link Manny, just ordered it.

Anytime brutha, I will grabbing this CD after work today.

I almost grabbed the cd myself, but I'd rather listen to it on vinyl (my 1rst choice if/when available)

I've had a long hard day. Now I can sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I recently picked up a new 180 gram 12" copy of "are you experienced".

Spinning now, while chilling with a big glass of milk and a few cookies my wife just baked.

Bliss.

What an amazing album. Hendrix wasn't always my cup of tea, but in the last year I have really grown to truly love his music.

Is South Saturn Delta worth picking up? I saw it in Best Buy in their $5 discount bin and almost grabbed it, but decided to hold off for now.

Most reviews I'm reading are saying it's a little all-over-the-place and reviews reflect that. It's both "super-awesome", "a boring, experimental mess" and everywhere in between.

So which is it?

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Is South Saturn Delta worth picking up? I saw it in Best Buy in their $5 discount bin and almost grabbed it, but decided to hold off for now.

Most reviews I'm reading are saying it's a little all-over-the-place and reviews reflect that. It's both "super-awesome", "a boring, experimental mess" and everywhere in between.

So which is it?

FANBOY ALERT!!!!!!! Its not a boring experimental mess nor its super awesome, its a great collection of songs and works in progress, overall its an excellent album that just falls slightly below super awesome. Well worth the 5 bucks

"Look Over Yonder", "Tax Free", "Midnight", "Pali Gap" (one of my favorite Hendrix tunes) and "Midnight Lightning" puts South Saturn Delta firmly in the MUST BUY category. The rest of the album is good as well.

I'll take both of those recommendations under consideration. Seeing how I've been making weekly treks to Best Buy recently (AIC, Megadeth, Sabbath tomorrow), I just might grab that one as well.

By the way, when I put South Saturn Delta back in the bin, it was because I found Deep Purple's Fireball and went with that one instead.

I really enjoy South Saturn Delta. Good album!

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I'll take both of those recommendations under consideration. Seeing how I've been making weekly treks to Best Buy recently (AIC, Megadeth, Sabbath tomorrow), I just might grab that one as well.

By the way, when I put South Saturn Delta back in the bin, it was because I found Deep Purple's Fireball and went with that one instead.

fireball is excellent. Get the Hendrix for $5. Well worth it.

Baby Hendrix


Private Hendrix


Hendrix and Mr. Spock

Cool stuff, thanks for sharing.

Very cool, thanks MG

I think Douglas takes a lot of heat. Here's what he had to say about the song writing credits.

"I took composing credits because that was a business situation - Jimi's publishing was owned by Mike Jeffery - Jimi thought he owned it but he didn't. Jeffery had made a deal with an attorney in New York, and in my opinion they were basically ripping Jimi off. Now both Jimi and Mike Jeffery were dead, so I was asked if I could put my name down as a writer, so we wouldn't lose the publishing to this attorney in New York. If I was thinking straight at the time I would not have done it, knowing what kind of repercussions I'd get. And so I did it, I got the repercussions, and I never did it again. I was trying to do someone a business favour, and if it's any consolation I never got paid, I got zero royalties. Everybody was screaming at me, and I have to say that they're right, they're justified ..."

On working with Eddie Kramer and Mitch Mitchell on Voodoo Soup:

Douglas: “I decided to use Voodoo Soup to make peace, bring everybody together, make everybody happy. I called Eddie Kramer, I called Mitch Mitchell, bring them in, and let’s all produce this thing of Jimi’s together. Because from my point of view this feels like the last one, I’d completed most of what I set out to do. Eddie Kramer came to see me, I said, you choose your songs, I’ll choose mine, the ones we agree on, those are what we’ll do. The lists were pretty close ...” Douglas dries at this point. “I can’t get into too much detail, because it’s going to sound nasty, but I called my engineer to ready the tapes we agreed on, and Eddie Kramer went over to listen to them. My engineer called me next day, told me Kramer had turned up with his friend, John McDermott, and they didn’t want to listen to the tapes I told him to play for them, and what’s going on? So I called Mr. Kramer, and he said, no, no, that’s not true, I’m going back tonight, it’ll be okay. But the same thing happened again, they didn’t listen to what was on our list, they had some agenda of their own, and Kramer went back to New York. So I wrote him a letter, politely telling him I didn’t think we’d be able to work together, thank you for coming, etcetera, and he wrote me back - and if I’d kept this letter I’d have saved myself a lot of problems - asking to come back to the gig. Now, McDermott - I know this guy. he used to be a collector in Boston, I used to give him stuff - he wrote his book, Setting The Record Straight, without talking to me, without asking me anything. I mean, why not? I was there, I was part of it, and I could have given him a lot of first-hand information. But he didn’t call me. So I can see a lot of mistakes, a lot of hearsay in that book.

“So anyway, Mitch Mitchell and I were good friends, we’d been hanging out together three, four nights a week when Jimi was alive, so I call him up, tell him I’m trying to get the whole family together again, and he comes over from Amsterdam or wherever it was he was living. And we’re in the studio, I put “Stepping Stone” up on the machine, with Buddy Miles’s drum track, the one Jimi stripped in but still wasn’t happy with. I said, the drums are all set up in the next room, you ready to do this? And he said ... No. I don’t think I can.”

At that time, Mitchell had a well-known drink problem that clearly distresses Douglas to talk about (he refers to it as a "health issue"), but it's central to understanding why Mitchell didn’t participate in the new mixes. For far too long Douglas has been lambasted for keeping Mitchell away from the project, when the reverse is the truth.

Personally I like Crash Landing, Midnight Lightning and Voodoo Soup. I enjoy it all, except for those albums that were released with Jimi's picture and name plastered across the album and they were either him being back up guitarist for someone else or not Jimi at all (the Pickwick crap and Spring Board releases).

Crash Landing was the first Hendrix I had ever heard. I was 5 years old and my brother was 15 and bought it brand new. The first Hendrix tune I ever heard was Peace In Mississippi. What a way to start off "experiencing" Hendrix! Not a bad tune on Crash Landing, I love that album and thats why I bought it again on vinyl a few weeks ago. Probably had not heard it in 25 years.

IMO those are not authetic Hendrix albums, granted 'Crash Landing' sounds pretty good, but while replace the original tracks and re-record them with session musicans who did not even know Hendrix?

Alan Douglas, can go on and try to justify putting his name on the songwriting credits, but the fact is, it was wrong. Hendrix wrote those songs, period.

He can whine, he did not receive any royalities from those songwriting credits, but what do you expect when you lie in bed with a pit of snakes.

A lot of people where introduce to Hendrix by those CD"s but when you hear the originals that have since been released, the real genius of the man comes out.

BTW he may not spoken to John McDermott, but in the book Alan Douglas comes across as a geniune friend to Hendrix, he gets critical of Douglas by how shabbily he treated the discography.

S.D. wrote:

Cool stuff, thanks for sharing.

manny wrote:

Very cool, thanks MG

No problem.

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