Get ready to re-experience Jimi Hendrix with new album

[Newsbot]

Nearly 40 years after his death, Jimi Hendrix remains not only rock's most iconic and influential guitarist but perhaps its most prolific ghost.
Valleys of Neptune, containing a dozen previously unreleased studio tracks recorded mostly in 1969, arrives March 9 to kick off Sony/Legacy's massive reissue campaign.

The legend's 11th studio album — the eighth to be issued posthumously and first since 1980 — boasts his Experience trio's final studio recordings, his earliest sessions with bassist Billy Cox and the long-shelved Mr. Bad Luck, intended for 1968's Axis: Bold as Love.

Also included is a frenzied Fire, the long-coveted title track (out globally Feb. 2), a sprawling cover of Cream's Sunshine of Your Love and such retooled originals as Lover Man, Red House and Crying Blue Rain. Throughout, Hendrix displays confidence, humor, spontaneity and his trademark virtuosity as he undergoes a shift from psychedelia and unbridled soloing to R&B structures.

"It's wonderfully fresh material," says longtime Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer, who originally recorded, and newly mixed, the Neptune tracks, employing high-tech digital and analog gear to cleanse the audio. "You hear the pure essence of the band, an in-your-face vibrancy. There were only four tracks and no overdubs, with Jimi singing as if he's in a concert. He's at the top of his game."

Just as 2009's Beatles reissues ignited sales across generations, Neptune and the upgraded Hendrix catalog are expected to lure rock fans of all ages. The March 9 batch includes deluxe editions of Are You Experienced, Axis, Electric Ladyland and First Rays of the New Rising Sun, each with a bonus DVD documentary.

"We're going to generate a ton of excitement about Hendrix," predicts Adam Block, senior vice president of Legacy Recordings. "Today we experience Hendrix on rock radio, movies, soundtracks, TV. That really reflects the timelessness of this material. And beyond the recordings, there's the spirit of Jimi and what he represents: uncompromising originality. That's so rare, and you can't underestimate how that contributes to his current relevance."

Hendrix left a wealth of pristine studio and live tapes.

"There's a strong vault, a lot of live stuff, that we have yet to tap into," says Kramer, marveling at what the storied ax man might have achieved had he not died in 1970 at age 27.

"I'm sure he would have incorporated the past and hip-hop and dance and all the modern technology. He would have gone into symphonic jazz with a huge horn section. He'd be a huge force."

Well, more huge.

Take that, Tupac.

[Ran]

Well, looks like I know what the next CD I'm buying is.

[mabudon]

Sounds fairly promising- I have heard just about everything ever released, officially or otherwise, and the shit he was laying down in 69-70 was truly insane, I have a feeling that jazz/rock fusion music would have been really different overall if he had lived beyond his untimely demise- hell he might have been able to prevent disco entirely.

Anyone here ever heard "Three Little Bears" originally released on the album "War Heroes" (which was a posthumous release as well I think, it was mostly B-sides) The song is remarkable for being recorded for some kind of kids album, and Jimi sounded pretty damn high on the vocal tracks- not enough to make an embarassing mess or anything, but too high to get around how utterly inane the lyrics to the song are, to the point where throughout the song he keeps saying shit like "this is SO silly man, I really don't think I can go through with this" and by the end he is yelling "Stoppit!! Stop that shit!!" in this goofy voice. It's god a good hook to it as well, and some sweet licks, but the protesting is what makes it a really unique piece. I know it's on the interwebs somewheres

[anarky]

I already pre-ordered this mammajamma.

"Three Little Bears" is also on the Christmas single his estate put out in the late 1990s.

[Ran]

I got the album but haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.

[anarky]

Mine's the slowest-moving shipment ever sent by Amazon and I've not gotten it yet.

[anarky]

Found it waiting for me when I got home. I'm here to report that it's nothing special. Bear in mind, however, when I say that it's nothing special, it's still unreleased Hendrix, and therefore gold. At least four (maybe more) are alternate versions of previously released tracks. None of the twelve is the crazy jazz fusion stuff he was getting into. I've not read the liner notes, but I get the impression this is stuff from throughout his career, never intended for release. The last track, an instrumental called "Crying Blue Rain," is the best one.

[Ran]

I got it from Target, so my version has 14 tracks.

[anarky]

I need to go to iTunes to get the other two.

I really wish that labels and artists would promote in advance who gets bonus tracks. And stop the bullshit where multiple stores get different bonus tracks.

[mabudon]

A few weeks ago I listened to the whole thing on a free preview-type week-long streaming thing. I was pretty damn disappointed with it, overall. "The Cry of Love" (which is looong OOP) contained "Mr. Bad Luck" under the title "Look Over Yonder", so I heard that 20 years ago. The one tune "ships passing in the night" seemed to be something new, judging by the title (and keep in mind I never saw the liner notes on this release) but when I listened to it, it was obviously a rough version of "Night Bird Flying" only with improvised bullshit lyrics as placeholders for when he got around to writing actual (tho still pretty goofy) lyrics. The other stuff is all stuff I've heard before- sure it's decent renditions of Hendrix standards, tho I am pretty sure I have heard pretty much all of them before on various bootlegs etc.

Overall a solid collection, but certainly NOTHING actually groundbreaking for long-time, rabid Hendrix fans.

To this day one of my fave performances of any of his tunes is, oddly enough, Hey Joe- the one on the LuLu show is just flat-out fucking awesome, with all them hammer-ons, how he actually drops his tuning into the first "real" note of the song on the fly, and finally how he says "that's enough of this garbage" and with some predetermined yet inaudible signal the whole fucking band snaps right into what is probably the most smoking instrumental cover of "sunshine of your love" ever imagined -at the time he was doing completely different stuff music-wise but the producers demanded he perform "hey joe", which he was sick of, and the performance is one of the greatest "fuck you"s ever articulated with music- in the video, the crew is desperately trying to get them to stop playing as it was live TV, unscripted and the credits were rolling, eventually the power had to be shut off to stop them, which is fucking awesome...

The other Hey Joe that still gives me fucking goosebumps just thinking about it happens to be the first-ever North American performance he ever gave, at the Monterey Pop festival. It's a pretty exciting rendition and throughout the song he's working out on the fucking thing in a manner that, even to this day, seems somewhat unearthly and frightening, but for the time it must have been blowing peoples' fucking minds- and then he hits the first solo- the sense of "I am going to blow the fucking roof off of this place and this shit will be unforgettable" is palpable-not only is it possibly the most soaring and insane take on the solo ever put down, but he plays it with his fucking teeth, which gives it a tonal quality that is just devastating while showing that he could play better with his face than most other people could even dream of doing with 4 hands. As if that weren't enough, the second solo (which is an altogether different attack but still musically challenging and excellent), not being one to repeat himself, was played with the guitar resting on the back of his neck while he made crazy guitar faces at the audience, almost saying "Oyes I fucking AM doing this shit"


Thinking about this being pulled out the first time you saw the guy live freaks me out, fuck was Jimi ever something