Jimi Hendrix

I am partial to the versions on Crash Landing. I like the title track better than the one on People, Hell & Angels but, again, this is the version I have known since 1975. I also have the early 90's remasters of the "trio" and I like the sound of those better than the Experience Hendrix Remasters (but don't care for that new cover art so I flipped the covers over to the original artwork).

As for the musicians used by Douglas, those guys were pretty talented musicians. Bob Babbitt played bass in Motown's legendary house band the Funk Brothers, for Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, and many others. Allan Schwartzberg played drums for James Brown, Mountain, Kiss, Gloria Gaynor, and Roxy Music. Not too shabby if you ask me.

I don't know why Douglas redid the bass, drums, etc. Maybe it was to make it more complete at the time. I just know I like it all, from the first 3, all the ones in between all the way to Valleys...

Not trying to argue here at all I'm just saying I hear good music on all of them except the "Jimi Plays, Curtis Sings", etc.

I have one of those that is REALLY bad called "Jimi At His Best Vol 3" that is complete garbage. It's amazing what people would release in the 70's with his face and name on the cover (and if you are curious to hear how bad it is, PM me and I'll give you a link for the vinyl rip I made).

By the way I love this video, very cool.

I just have issues with a producer deleting perfectly good backing tracks, replacing them with hired studio musicians and being able to get away with it because the artist had passed away and couldn't defend his work.  

The posthumous albums that Eddie Kramer supervised are uniformly excellent; The Cry Of Love, Rainbow Bridge and War Heroes.  The tinkered-with concoctions put together by Douglas are another story.  While I can understand how many people were first exposed to those "enhanced" Douglas productions, I think most people going back and hearing the original backing tracks now would wonder why anything needed to be replaced.

S.D. wrote:

I just have issues with a producer deleting perfectly good backing tracks, replacing them with hired studio musicians and being able to get away with it because the artist had passed away and couldn't defend his work.  

The posthumous albums that Eddie Kramer supervised are uniformly excellent; The Cry Of Love, Rainbow Bridge and War Heroes.  The tinkered-with concoctions put together by Douglas are another story.  While I can understand how many people were first exposed to those "enhanced" Douglas productions, I think most people going back and hearing the original backing tracks now would wonder why anything needed to be replaced.

100% agree, it just seemed pointless for him to replace the original backing tracks. While its cool you enjoy those versions and I admit once in a blue moon I listen to 'Crash Landing' and enjoy it, more nostagic reasons then any other but it is a travesty.

Adding songwriting credits, IMO is b.s., and he knows it. That is why almost 40 years later he is back tracking.

In another thread I was saying I am pretty much done buying CD's. I will either buy digital downloads or vinyl. However, I did say if something caught my eye in the $5 bin at Walmart I would pick something up if it was a great deal. Well today I found South Saturn Delta! 5 bucks! I felt like I was stealing!

43(!) years ago today, the world lost a legend. 43 years from now, he will still be releasing albums.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

43(!) years ago today, the world lost a legend. 43 years from now, he will still be releasing albums.

As a matter a fact: Experience Hendrix LLC & Legacy Recordings Releasing Home Edition of Jimi Hendrix - Hear My Train A Comin' Documentary on DVD and Blu-ray

Jimi Hendrix Experience: Miami Pop Festival Available for First Time Ever on CD and Double 12" Vinyl Album

Jimi Hendrix American Masters Documentary Premiering Nationwide on PBS

You didn't know I was a clairvoyant, did ya?  

manny wrote:

S.D. wrote:

I just have issues with a producer deleting perfectly good backing tracks, replacing them with hired studio musicians and being able to get away with it because the artist had passed away and couldn't defend his work.  

The posthumous albums that Eddie Kramer supervised are uniformly excellent; The Cry Of Love, Rainbow Bridge and War Heroes.  The tinkered-with concoctions put together by Douglas are another story.  While I can understand how many people were first exposed to those "enhanced" Douglas productions, I think most people going back and hearing the original backing tracks now would wonder why anything needed to be replaced.

100% agree, it just seemed pointless for him to replace the original backing tracks. While its cool you enjoy those versions and I admit once in a blue moon I listen to 'Crash Landing' and enjoy it, more nostagic reasons then any other but it is a travesty.

Adding songwriting credits, IMO is b.s., and he knows it. That is why almost 40 years later he is back tracking.

i agree completely and can't for the life of me figure out why he did it. Just doesn't make sense. Given Jimi's sustained popularity, you'd think it would have been a priority to perseve his legacy.

manny wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

43(!) years ago today, the world lost a legend. 43 years from now, he will still be releasing albums.

As a matter a fact:   Experience Hendrix LLC & Legacy Recordings Releasing Home Edition of Jimi Hendrix - Hear My Train A Comin' Documentary on DVD and Blu-ray

Jimi Hendrix Experience: Miami Pop Festival Available for First Time Ever on CD and Double 12" Vinyl Album

Jimi Hendrix American Masters Documentary Premiering Nationwide on PBS

Almost picked up Miami Pop on vinyl but do I really need another live album? I decided not to get it. Recently picked up People, Hell & Angels on vinyl and I must say I really enjoy it more than I expected. After hearing his later stuff I think I like it much better than anything The Experience did. I enjoy the first 3 albums but his later stuff was much better. Band Of Gypsys, First Rays, Cry Of Love, etc... And I really love Valleys Of Neptune. I've said it before but I really love Crash Landing. My brother had it when I was 5 or 6 and it was the first Hendrix I was ever exposed to.

Did they ever release a studio version of Machine Gun besides the one on Midnight Lightning? I would like to hear it.

And the only thing disappointing about P, H & A is that it doesn't contain the bonus Target track. I would love to hear that.... Looking at the vinyl there is a lot of dead space at the end of each side. They could have easily taken one of the shorter tracks and put it on Side C to free up more room on Side D for the MLK/Capt. Coconut bonus track.

I would say tracking down the Target bonus track is completely worth it if you can find it for a good price. I'm not much for long extended jams but it's 20 minutes of killer work.

Thought this was very interesting. Watching a new episode of Pawn Stars (which in reality was over a year old) a guy brought this guitar in and was asking $750,000. Jesse who is featured in this video, estimated the value at around $750,000-$1,000,000   

Rick offered the guy $600,000 and the guy said "no thank you" now upon further investigating, it seems the guy, then contacted Jesse to represent the guitar and auction it. He is hoping to get around $1,200,000 WOW!!!

MetalRob331 wrote:

Thought this was very interesting.  Watching a new episode of Pawn Stars (which in reality was over a year old) a guy brought this guitar in and was asking $750,000.  Jesse who is featured in this video, estimated the value at around $750,000-$1,000,000    

Rick offered the guy $600,000 and the guy said "no thank you" now upon further investigating, it seems the guy, then contacted Jesse to represent the guitar and auction it.  He is hoping to get around $1,200,000  WOW!!!

Very cool thanks for sharing. Makes me wonder who has Black beauty which was Jimi's favorite guitar.

mikeinfla wrote:

MetalRob331 wrote:

Thought this was very interesting.  Watching a new episode of Pawn Stars (which in reality was over a year old) a guy brought this guitar in and was asking $750,000.  Jesse who is featured in this video, estimated the value at around $750,000-$1,000,000    

Rick offered the guy $600,000 and the guy said "no thank you" now upon further investigating, it seems the guy, then contacted Jesse to represent the guitar and auction it.  He is hoping to get around $1,200,000  WOW!!!

Very cool thanks for sharing. Makes me wonder who has Black beauty which was Jimi's favorite guitar.

Uli Jon Roth has it

Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster brought in by Dweezil Zappa
https://youtu.be/i2OtCllDjFc

Buy your own for only $32,000!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1968-ORIG-WHITE-MAPLE-CAP-NECK-FENDER-STRAT-Jimi-Hendrix-Owned-1969-Wah-/350748775429?pt=Guitar&hash=item51aa419405

I was reminded that initially in Grade 9, I was a loner.
All my old school-friends were too cool to even acknowledge they knew me in highschool,, so I immersed myself even further into late night FM radio and reading all that I could about rock nroll, especially the mid-late 1960s blues,psych, and the acid rock scene turning into heavy metal.
I was REALLY into Electric Ladyland on my Walkman radio everyday but slowly kept noticing afterschool everyday in 1983 from the Buffalo,NY station WUTV, between 3 - 5 or 6 pm, the TV station started playing rock music videos after every TV program instead of TV commercials.
happened, and every day I would see Neil Young - Hey Hey, My My, John Lennon's Stand By Me, then these crazy new bands like,  Quiet Riot's "Metal Health", Ratt- "Round and Round", and whatever the first ZZ TOP video was from Eliminator,  Sharp Dressed Man or Legs.

Ok, why the long story?

I think older rockers/metalheads had it better. The music scene kept changing, getting heavier, and as listening fans, we kept adapting and were kept excited.

I remember around 1999 I went onto some IRC black metal channels and everybody was an idiot. They hated everything that was from the past. It took years to learn that the metal scene had become infested with 12 year old kids whose first "musical" reference point was death/black metal, and they obviously had no clue about what real music was - like JIMI HENDRIX.

The man behind some of Jimi Hendrix's later recordings has died. Alan Douglas, who was 81, passed away peacefully at his home in Paris.

Douglas met Hendrix not long after the guitar icon's performance at Woodstock and he came under fire from the rock community for introducing Hendrix to the world of jazz and The Last Poets.

The Last Poets movement was a collection of musicians and poets whose work is said to have been the roots of early rap and hip hop.

On Jimi's later work, Douglas once said: “Jimi was being pigeonholed into the rock thing. I got a lot of heat for showing people this different side of Jimi but it didn’t matter. It was what he wanted to do. So, together we tried out all kinds of things – but, tragically, he died before we could do anything super special.”

In 1975, Douglas was put in charge of releasing Hendrix's archive material and again he was criticised for dubbing in some new musical parts, replacing work that was deemed substandard.

Alan Douglas was a talented man, who made some IMO unwise decisions with some of the Hendrix albums he was involved with. 'Crash Landing', 'Nine to the Universe' and 'Midnight Lighting' all had some great gems that were flawed because for some inexpiable reason Alan Douglas replaced some of the original backing tracks played by original musicians with session men. Took a co-songwriting credit on a couple of tunes, which was some trick since at that point Hendrix had been gone 5 years.

It was not til the 90's when he started releasing archival live material did he start doing some justice to the Hendrix legacy.

When Hendrix's family won the rights back to his musical legacy, every album with the exception of 'Blues' that Alan Douglas worked on, was deleted from the catalog.

His opinion that the backing tracks were substandard proofed to be a bit puzzling, since the family has released a lot of the tracks Douglas doctored with the original recordings with the original backing musicians, and both fans and critics have raved on the performances.

I have recently started tracking down the Alan Douglas stuff that I am missing. Recently ordered a better copy of Midnight Lightning on vinyl. The one I had was in pretty bad shape and I found one cheap in VG++, now waiting on it to ship.

mikeinfla wrote:

I have recently started tracking down the Alan Douglas stuff that I am missing. Recently ordered a better copy of Midnight Lightning on vinyl. The one I had was in pretty bad shape and I found one cheap in VG++, now waiting on it to ship.

I have 'Midnight Lighting' and 'Nine to Universe' on vinyl, I know 'Midnight Lighting' was pressed on CD but not for very long, as was 'Crash Landing' which I have a CD copy of, but now commands some crazy ass prices for.

I was looking for some latter day interviews with Noel, Mitch and Billy Cox. Here are some interesting articles I found.

http://jasobrecht.com/noel-redding-his-letter-about-the-jimi-hendrix-experience/

http://jimihendrix.forumactif.org/t743-mitch-mitchell-billy-cox-interview-2005

Did anyone see on YAHOO news - July 3rd - ( RIP Morrison )
the worst National anthems ever performed-
yup - a photo of Hendrix and Roseane Barr in one frame -
- couldn't bring myself to read the article -

I actually enjoy some of Kanye's music, but LOL. He is arrogant as shit.