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Previously Unreleased Hendrix Album Due in March
November 21, 2012
People, Hell and Angels, a new compilation of a dozen previously unreleased recordings by Jimi Hendrix, will be released by Sony Legacy on March 5, as part of a celebration of the 70th anniversary of Hendrix’s birth.
The album, which was produced by Eddie Kramer, Hendrix’s longtime engineer; Jamie Hendrix, the guitarist’s sister; and the Hendrix scholar John McDermott, is drawn from the copious amount of material Hendrix recorded between 1968 and his death in 1970.
At the time Hendrix was at work on what he imagined would be a double-LP, to be called First Rays of the New Rising Sun. Like the Beach Boys’ Smile, the project has long been the stuff of conjecture, but though plenty of music intended for the project has been released over the last four decades (including a 1997 disc using the project’s title), First Rays is even less susceptible than Smile to near-definitive reconstruction, not least because Hendrix was, at the time, reconsidering what his ideal ensemble should be.
Although the early sessions include recordings with the Jimi Hendrix Experience – the power trio that included the drummer Mitch Mitchell and the bassist Noel Redding – others include collaborations with the bassist Billy Cox and the drummer Buddy Miles (who became the rhythm section of Band of Gypsys) as well as the guitarist Stephen Stills and the saxophonist Lonnie Youngblood, among others.
Most of the material in the new collection is drawn from the First Rays recordings, although one track, “Mojo Man,” is actually a recording by Albert and Arthur Allen (who performed as the Ghetto Fighters), to which Hendrix added guitar lines. Several songs – “Hear My Train A Coming,” “Izabella,” “Earth Blues” and “Villanova Junction Blues,” among them – will be familiar to Hendrix fans from other recordings. “Villanova Junction Blues,” for example, was a centerpiece of his Woodstock performance, and several versions of “Izabella” have been released, including a single issued shortly after Hendrix’s death.
Other tracks, like “Crash Landing,” “Easy Blues” and “Hey Gypsy Boy,” were briefly available on LP in versions that included posthumous (and controversial) overdubs by studio musicians, but are heard here in their original form. Also included are “Somewhere,” a 1968 recording with Mr. Stills on bass guitar; “Bleeding Heart,” a 1969 studio recording of an Elmore James song that had become a staple of Hendrix’s concert sets and “Let Me Love You,” a 1969 collaboration with Mr. Youngblood, and “Inside Out,” an unfinished song built on the rhythmic figure that became the heart of “Ezy Rider.”
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Cool...but where is the "Royal Albert Hall" show and the "Miami Pop Festival" that were promised? | |
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Here is the complete track list for People, Hell and Angels:
"Earth Blues"
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Two or three potentially interesting curios there, but all I really want and need is some sort of respectful, released complete version of the Black Gold songs/ demos (one came out on the West Coast Seattle Boy Box the other year), a good comp of his acoustic/ semi-acoustic (actually low volume electric) demos and a 2 CD of the very best of his unreleased/ released but obscure jams.
A remastered full-length New Rising Sun Overture would also be cool as that is just beautiful.
I do question if the casual fan really needs yet another version of Hear My Train, Izabella or Earth Blues, good as they are. I doubt these are radically different versions to those already available. With the Hendrix Estate, it always seems to be the sales strategy of release one or two genuine 'new' curiosities per 'new' release and a load of alternate versions of familiar stuff. Understandable, I suppose, as they have very limited genuinely 'new product' available and tons of mostly ho hum session and jam tapes. Frustrating for the fan who is curious to hear the full extent of truly interesting unheard stuff Jimi recorded and who is not actually immortal ... [Edited 11/28/12 13:30pm] [Edited 11/28/12 13:34pm] | |
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