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defrogIt may come as no surprise to any of you that I’m a Jimi Hendrix fan. Lots of really good guitarists get tagged as geniuses and innovators, but Hendrix really was the business. And he died young, which is the standard way of preserving yr legacy.
That said, I’m always skeptical when record companies start releasing “previously unreleased material” from the vaults of deceased musicians. No matter how good they were in their heyday, the odds are that, more often than not, the tracks were unreleased for a reason – namely, they either weren’t finished or weren’t good enough.
So when Experience Hendrix and Columbia issued Valleys Of Neptune, I approached with skepticism. And as it turns out, the claim that it’s an “unreleased studio album” is stretching it a bit – the songs are mainly rehearsal versions of songs that you may have heard on live bootlegs or whatever, but it’s not like this was supposed to be Jimi’s intended followup to Electric Ladyland (or even Band Of Gypsys). As such, I’m not even sure how to classify it – new album? Comp? Reissue? I don’t really know.
What I do know is that a lot of the tracks – which mostly feature the original Experience lineup, plus a few tracks with Billy Cox replacing Noel Redding – are really good. They may or may not signify where Hendrix intended to go next, and may not even rival many of the classics he’s best known for. But if the main attraction is just listening to the cat play, then this will do nicely.
Here’s the title track to make the case.
Rise on baby,
This is dF
That said, I’m always skeptical when record companies start releasing “previously unreleased material” from the vaults of deceased musicians. No matter how good they were in their heyday, the odds are that, more often than not, the tracks were unreleased for a reason – namely, they either weren’t finished or weren’t good enough.
So when Experience Hendrix and Columbia issued Valleys Of Neptune, I approached with skepticism. And as it turns out, the claim that it’s an “unreleased studio album” is stretching it a bit – the songs are mainly rehearsal versions of songs that you may have heard on live bootlegs or whatever, but it’s not like this was supposed to be Jimi’s intended followup to Electric Ladyland (or even Band Of Gypsys). As such, I’m not even sure how to classify it – new album? Comp? Reissue? I don’t really know.
What I do know is that a lot of the tracks – which mostly feature the original Experience lineup, plus a few tracks with Billy Cox replacing Noel Redding – are really good. They may or may not signify where Hendrix intended to go next, and may not even rival many of the classics he’s best known for. But if the main attraction is just listening to the cat play, then this will do nicely.
Here’s the title track to make the case.
Rise on baby,
This is dF
