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It would be incredible if you could produce music so perfect that
it would filter through you like rays and ultimately cure.
- Jimi Hendrix, Starting At Zero, page 181
Disc 1 (Mono)
ARE YOU EXPERIENCED
1. Purple Haze
2. Manic Depression
3. Hey Joe (feat. The Breakaways)
4. Love Or Confusion
5. May This Be Love
6. I Don't Live Today
7. The Wind Cries Mary
8. Fire
9. Third Stone From The Sun
10. Foxy Lady
11. Are You Experienced
Disc 2 (Mono)
HIGHWAY CHILE
1. Stone Free
2. Highway Chile
3. Red House
4. Hear My Train A-Comin'
5. Fifty-First Anniversary
6. Can You See Me
7. Remember
8. The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice
9. Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
10. My Friend
Disc 3
AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE
1. E.X.P.
2. Up From The Skies
3. Spanish Castle Magic
4. Wait Until Tomorrow
5. Ain't No Telling
6. Little Wing
7. If Six Was Nine
8. You Got Me Floatin'
9. Castles Made Of Sand
10. She's So Fine
11. One Rainy Wish
12. Little Miss Lover
13. Bold As Love
Disc 4
ELECTRIC LADYLAND
1. ...And The Gods Made Love/
Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)
2. Crosstown Traffic/Voodoo Chile
3. Little Miss Strange
4. Long Hot Summer Night
5. Come On
6. Gypsy Eyes
7. Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
8. Rainy Day, Dream Away/
1983.... (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)/
Moon, Turn The Tides.... Gently Gently Away
9. Still Raining, Still Dreaming
10. House Burning Down
11. All Along The Watchtower
12. Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
[All songs fading into each other were combined into
single tracks to avoid hard edits when shuffling]
Disc 5
HEAR MY TRAIN A-COMIN'
1. Midnight
2. Look Over Yonder
3. Tax Free
4. Hear My Train A-Comin'
5. Gloria
6. Red House (Live)
7. Little Wing (Live)
8. I Don't Live Today (Live)
9. Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) (Live)
10. Purple Haze (Live)
Disc 6
BAND OF GYPSYS
1. Who Knows (Live)
2. Machine Gun (Live)
3. Changes (Live)
4. Power Of Soul (Live)
5. Message To Love (Live)
6. We Gotta Live Together (Live)
Disc 7
CRY OF LOVE
1. Johnny B. Goode (Live)
2. Lover Man (Live)
3. Izabella (Live)
4. Hear My Train A-Comin' (Live)
5. Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)/
Star-Spangled Banner/
Purple Haze/
Villanova Junction (Live)
Disc 8
FIRST RAYS OF THE NEW RISING SUN
1. New Rising Sun/
Belly Button Window
2. Stone Free
3. Stepping Stone
4. Astro Man
5. Pali Gap
6. Power Of Soul
7. Come Down Hard On Me
8. Message To Love
9. Izabella
10. Midnight Lightning
11. Bleeding Heart
12. Drifter's Escape
13. Lover Man
14. Beginnings
15. Bolero/
Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)
16. Star-Spangled Banner
Disc 9
STRATE AHEAD
1. Ezy Ryder
2. Room Full Of Mirrors
3. Dolly Dagger
4. Night Bird Flying
5. Drifting
6. Freedom
7. Earth Blues (feat. The Ronettes)
8. Angel
9. Straight Ahead
10. In From The Storm
Disc 10
WAR HEROES
1. Trash Man
2. Somewhere
3. Midnight Lightning
4. Machine Gun
5. Blue Suede Shoes
6. Once I Had A Woman
7. Peace In Mississippi
8. M.L.K.
Disc 11 (Stereo)
ARE YOU EXPERIENCED
[same tracklist]
Disc 12 (Stereo)
HIGHWAY CHILE
[same tracklist]
Disc 13 (Mono)
AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE
[same tracklist]
Disc 14 (Alternate Mix)
AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE
[same tracklist]
____________________________________________________________________
Liner Notes
Table of Contents:
1. Compiler's Note
2. A Brief Description of Each Title
3. An Abridged History
4. Appendix
Compiler's Note
Ever since his family gained control over his estate 30 years ago, no official box set of the Jimi Hendrix discography has been made available to the public. Although Fire To Freedom is not an official release, my hope is that it will someday become the definitive collection of his primary work for all fans of his artistry. As shown by the tracklist above, it contains the four albums he authorized during his lifetime, each taken from the best sources currently available. Besides those, there are six others that I have assembled myself with the aim of bringing together the very best recordings that he never got the chance to release. This is an exercise in artistic curation, with each album being carefully assembled over the course of seven years through a process of endless relistening and revision. My only motivation was love. May this be a celebration of what he gave to the world.
A Brief Description of Each Title
Are You Experienced: The debut album that made Jimi Hendrix a star and introduced the world to his distinctively loose yet emotive singing and playing style. It may be psychedelic garage rock by the standards of his later career, but by the hour of his demise it was his best-selling disc. This is the original North American version of the album, and both the mono (recommended) and stereo mixes are included. As on the next few albums, Jimi Hendrix is backed by bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, under the name of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Highway Chile: This is a new compilation of non-album tracks recorded during or shortly after the Are You Experienced sessions. In contrast to that record, it places a much stronger emphasis on the blues. Both the mono (recommended) and stereo mixes are included, and the former contains the rare single mix of "Burning The Midnight Lamp." Axis: Bold As Love: The softest of the original albums, this LP showcases different sides of Hendrix's skillset. The opening skit was likely an influence on the later hip-hop tradition, and a new type of phasing was invented during the sessions; it can be heard on the title track. Featured here are the original stereo (recommended) and mono mixes, as well as the mysterious alternate stereo mix that was quietly released in Europe. Electric Ladyland: Subtitled "Letter to the Room Full of Mirrors," this is Jimi Hendrix's vast genre-blending opus of a double album, and his first with him in the producer's chair. Another new type of phasing was invented during its recording, and it was his only chart-topping album in his home country. He did not live to see it followed up. Hear My Train A-Comin': A new back-to-basics half-studio/half-live hard rock double album, and the final full record to feature the Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist and singer Noel Redding (as well as the last before Hendrix changed stylistic direction towards funk and R&B). It was recorded during and after the Electric Ladyland sessions, and several of the live tracks ("I Don't Live Today" and "Purple Haze") were mixed in the summer of 1969 for a live album that was never released.
Hendrix's intended album cover for Electric Ladyland, with the band posed at
Central Park's Alice in Wonderland statue.
Band Of Gypsys: Hendrix's foundational contribution to the funk genre, recorded live by the trio of the same name. This is the only full Hendrix record to feature singer and drummer Buddy Miles, but is only the first to feature bassist Billy Cox, who would be sticking around. It was put to tape in New York City over the two days of New Year's 1969/1970, and was the final album that Jimi oversaw the release of. By the time he passed, it was his second most popular record. It must be noted that the word "gypsy" is now considered an ethnic slur against the Roma, although I have decided to leave the album and band name intact here, for the time being. Cry Of Love: This is a new live album highlighting Hendrix's third and final band, comprising of himself, Mitch Mitchell, and Billy Cox. All performances are taken from their famous set closing out the 1969 Woodstock festival, as well as from the 1970 concerts at Berkeley. The Woodstock show was Hendrix's only well-recorded performance with an expanded lineup, featuring a second guitarist, congas, and extra percussion. The title is taken from the name of the band's 1970 tour. First Rays Of The New Rising Sun: A new double album that finds a middle ground between the psych rock of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the funk rock of the Band Of Gypsys. Recorded over the course of nearly two years right up until three weeks before his September 1970 demise, this expansive record features all three of his backing bands, with special emphasis on the final trio. Two tracks, "Stepping Stone" and "Izabella," were put out as a single in April 1970; despite it being hastily recalled (and very rare today), this makes these songs the final studio recordings released during his lifetime. Although less polished than Straight Ahead, six of the songs featured on Band Of Gypsys and Cry Of Love appear here in studio form. Much of the album was put to tape at Hendrix's very own studio, Electric Lady, which remains in operation today.
An alternate Electric Ladyland cover made by his American label Reprise.
It came to be used as the back cover to the album in some regions and
the front in others. The actual American cover photo of Electric Ladyland,
was taken at a gig in the summer of '67; the only one of Jimi's gigs which
Lithofayne Pridgon, the girlfriend that he was most dedicated to, attended.
Strate Ahead: This is a new, polished, and extremely cohesive record culled from the same sessions as First Rays, representing Hendrix's intended and nearly finished follow-up to Electric Ladyland. Four of the songs were finished and played during his studio's opening party, with two being handpicked for the album's first single; Hendrix spun a test pressing of it to reporters. The album was so close to completion that he would in all likelihood have finished it before the end of October, but as it is, the songs were finished by drummer Mitch Mitchell and Hendrix's studio team in the months after his passing. The title is taken from one of Hendrix's unfinished tracklists, and is perhaps a reference to "House Burning Down"; the truth is straight ahead. War Heroes: In 1974 and 1975, producer Alan Douglas (who had produced Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, John McLaughlin, Charles Mingus, The Last Poets, and had worked with Hendrix) organized a team of musicians to re-record instruments on Jimi's unfinished leftovers so as to build them into finished, polished recordings. The resulting albums, Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning, were big commercial successes. While some of the songs were perfectly fine in the state Hendrix left them in and did not need to have parts redone, others were saved by Douglas from the scrapheap; it is the latter that make up War Heroes. This unique lineup of musicians also adds a distinct flavour to Hendrix's oeuvre, which at times verges on metal. Although the new musicians found these overdub sessions to be a spooky experience, the results are fabulous. Black Gold: There is one missing disc in this box set. In the winter of 1970, Hendrix wrote a semi-autobiographical song cycle intended to become the soundtrack to an animated film about an African-American rock star (based, obviously, on his own life). He recorded the full thing on acoustic guitar in his apartment, and it was to be called Black Gold. Except for the first song, which was released on a studio sessions compilation in 2010, it has yet to be heard publicly. If it is ever released, consider it part of this collection.
An Abridged History
In order to learn, in far greater detail, about Hendrix's tragic life, the author recommends a book by Jimi's good friend Sharon Lawrence, Jimi Hendrix: The Man, The Magic, The Truth; it's engagingly, beautifully, and at times crushingly written, and it's unlikely that a more sensitive book will ever written about him. Hendrix had a difficult childhood; the household was wracked with alcohol abuse, poverty, neglect, and even violence. The boy who eventually took on the name Jimi was shuttled between homes, relatives, and friends of relatives. It often fell to him to care for and feed his younger brother Leon, with whom his father had a far more loving relationship. Even from this young age he was highly artistic, and became profoundly obsessed with the guitar as a teenager to the extent that he'd skip class on a regular basis just to sit outside playing it. By late teenagehood, he'd crossed paths with the legal system and was thrown into the army; while training to be a paratrooper there, he got acquainted with bassist Billy Cox and they struck up a strong and highly musical friendship; in fact, Cox was the very first person to say that Jimi had talent (Lawrence, p. 24).
Being in the army ended up reaffirming his career aspirations, so he convinced a doctor to medically discharge him for a minor injury and then spent the next five years sidemanning a whole variety of different music acts that were busy doing the rounds of the segregated Chitlin' Circuit. Certain lyrics to "Highway Chile," among other songs of his, were written on scraps of paper that he kept in a duffel bag while criss-crossing the country trying to make any money he could (p. 33). In 1965 he met Devon Wilson, who became a long-time lover of his; she could score anything, and introduced him to all manner of drugs even though he hardly used any before meeting her (p. 35). It was during this time that he further honed his craft as a guitar player, songwriter, and frontman, all the while drifting in and out of extreme poverty. The way people looked at his disheveled, worn-down clothes crushed him, and he said of the loneliness that "it's so awful it's beyond words." Through all of that, he continued absorbing large and divergent palettes of music and ended up in Harlem, where others began seeing he was a true student of his instrument. A roommate of his, one of the Aleem brothers, noted how Jimi was the first real musician in study that he ever encountered.
The front and back covers of Electric Ladyland in the UK.
After leading his own group (with Spirit's teenage Randy California as second guitarist) for a while, the famous story goes that in September 1966, the Animals' Chas Chandler found out about him, was immediately struck by his musicianship, and took him under his wing and back to England. They shared a flat, and Chandler financed Hendrix as he found bandmates and formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience, got a decent record contract, and began to record music; only then did Jimi's name start getting around. He could outplay every guitarist on the scene and got put on quite a pedestal for it, first by British heavyweights such as the moptops and white blues boys, and then by the so-called "rock press" as a whole. This pedestalizing, rightful or not, is perhaps the single defining feature of all discourse about him right up until the present day. Released in December, his debut single "Hey Joe" was a sudden hit on the British charts, reaching #6.
Between constant gigging in Europe and cheap 'n' cheerful recording sessions in London, the Experience were extremely busy. Work on their debut LP Are You Experienced wrapped in early April, and it was released in Europe the following month with none of its singles included, as was standard practice in the UK. Their American record label decided, with some input from Hendrix, to reformat the album in preparation for stateside release so swapped out three tracks, replacing them with the singles "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," and "The Wind Cries Mary." Despite the band's vast successes in Europe, they were a virtual unknown in North America until they played their famous set at the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967: guitar, lighter fluid, flames, smashing, shock and awe, blah blah blah. Word of that well-timed stunt got around; the album was released stateside a few months later (with new and improved cover art), success was capitalized on, and now many a suit pocket were being lined from the popularity of this guy's art. In these early months of his solo career, the exploitation machine was already in full swing. He had one record in the shops, but dozens of others, painted in tantalizing freezeframes of concert, lay right beside them; despite using the Jimi Hendrix name and likeness, these were simply filled with recordings that he featured on as a sideman (that is, if he featured on them at all).
The original UK cover of Are You Experienced (1967).
.
The music flowed on red. Hot on the heels of his album in Europe, the trio put out a new single also in Europe, making use of more guitar pedals and lush overdubbing than they had ever done previously. After that, between gigs, they began recording the beginnings of their second album Axis: Bold As Love, before hunkering down and tracking the bulk of it in October 1967 at London's Olympic Studios. After labouring over the final stereo mix, Jimi did some drugs again and left the first half of it in a taxi—lost forever—and everyone was really happy at him about that. It was rush-remixed the following day, and if you listen carefully, you'll hear that the mixes get more complex on the second side of the record. The album's mono mix was then made, Hendrix's last, and the album was, at some point thereafter, mixed to stereo again (with some minor differences) and released in this manner in Europe. There was also a hiccup with the album art; Hendrix, part Cherokee, had asked for something "indian," but with the Beatles-infused zeitgeist of the time, the folks at the record label art department can surely be forgiven for airbrushing the band onto a common Hindu poster.
Axis was released December 1, and recording had already begun on the next one before the month was up. These sessions would get drawn out, only kicking into high gear in early summer. There, Hendrix began to express his newfound passion for relentless studio perfectionism in order to achieve the sounds in his head, which wrong-way-rubbed Chas Chandler, a record-it-quick-and-release-it-also-quick kind of producer, so Chas got up and left, and now Jimi was the producer and also the bassist because bassist Noel Redding couldn't find it in himself to enjoy doing 40 takes of the same song. Alas, such are the costs of perfection! Anyhow, after many months of recording (and partying while doing so), the guitarist and his band completed their final album together in the summer of 1968. When Electric Ladyland was released in the fall it topped the American album charts, a first for the trio, and one of the songs also became a Top 40 hit. As they often do, these newfound heights of success multiplied the pressures on the band, so the Experience announced that they would be splitting up in 1969. Despite this impending dissolution however, the three men continued recording new songs as a unit all the way up until mid-April of that year. But something had changed. The band's frontman was burnt out and admitted in interviews that he wasn't writing new songs, instead developing new material by jamming in the studio, on stage, and in his free time. In other words, a period of woodshedding had begun. With this, the band's gigs got significantly more stretched out, improvisational, and heavier, as was quickly becoming standard for rock shows at the time.
Smash Hits (1968), the first compilation album of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
But Hendrix was gradually finding a new musical direction, and he was the first to admit that this was part of what was pulling the trio apart. Discussing the departure of bassist Noel Redding upon the conclusion of their final American tour that June, Hendrix said that he "probably has reasons in the back of his mind, so I'm not going to down that. Noel and I are still friends, but he has his own ideas, and musically I want to go somewhere else. Plus I want to get into more of an earthier bass player" (Starting At Zero [Hendrix's posthumously assembled autobiography], p. 147). He found this new direction with his old friend from his army days, Billy Cox, who began playing bass in sessions with Hendrix one week after Redding stopped showing up for them. Some months later, the guitarist added that "the Experience got into a cul-de-sac. We played for three years and had reached the stage where we were just repeating ourselves. Mitch will be playing with me. He's never been better than he is now. Noel is definitely and confidently out. It was my plan to change the bass player even back in the days after the Experience when there was no band. It's nothing personal against Noel. Billy Cox has a more solid style, which suits the new group better. I'm not saying that anyone is better than the other, just that today I want a more solid style. There's no telling how I'll feel tomorrow" (Starting At Zero, p. 173).
Hendrix and Cox were on to something and soon began looking around for other musicians to complete the new band. The guitarist had been wanting to expand the lineup from a trio for some time, and had experimented briefly with this at the Experience's Royal Albert Hall show in February 1969. Hendrix and Cox did sessions with a number of different musicians, including Mitch Mitchell from the Experience, Buddy Miles (a friend of Jimi's who had performed on Electric Ladyland), several members of the band the Cherry People, and others besides. Things were in flux, and as Hendrix said above, there was no set band for a while. For those who are interested, this web forum discussion, across several pages, contains an interview with Cherry Person Al Marks (who did percussion on some of those tracks); it offers an inside look into where Hendrix was at during this pivotal point in his career. Anyways, after taking a well-deserved summer holiday in upstate New York where he began writing songs again, a six-piece band with Mitchell and Cox was assembled to headline Woodstock that August (as well as play a few other gigs afterwards). Unfortunately, this expanded group didn't last, and an all-Black trio with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles was eventually decided upon as the way to move forward, a move that would hopefully help him pick up more of an African American audience.
Alternative cover art prepared, but unused, for Smash Hits' 1969 American release.
At this point now, it was coming to be a full year (and would eventually become over two) since Hendrix, now at the height of his fame, had released any new studio material; by the standards of the 1960s, this was a huge gap. When asked about why, he explained that he'd "been going through a lot of changes in the last two years. That's why I haven't released anything for a while. I'm very inconsistent, you know. It all depends on how I feel; there are no certain patterns I go by. Sometimes I write in a rush, but the things I'm writing now take a little longer to say" (Zero, p. 155). Hendrix ended up hunkering down in New York City's Record Plant Studios with this new trio for three full months to rehearse for a few upcoming gigs, as well as to jam, experiment, explore, and most importantly, develop new songs. Two numbers in particular, "Stepping Stone" and "Izabella," were prepared and released as the respective A and B-sides of a brand new single in April 1970, as mentioned earlier. A concise review of it in Record World went as follows: "After a year of woodshedding, the master has returned. Fantastic blues-rocker is a stone gas. Long (4:05) and good." It turned out, however, that the vinyl was pressed with the wrong mix; never charting, the single was quickly recalled and is now extremely rare.
When I wrote that they were rehearsing for a few shows, I meant it; the trio only ever performed five concerts together, four taking place on New Year's Eve & Day 1969/1970 at the Fillmore East. They were recorded to fulfill a contractual obligation Hendrix had to a different record label, and resulted in the fourth and final Jimi Hendrix-approved album ever released: the Band Of Gypsys LP, which actually includes live versions of two songs featured on this edition of First Rays: "Power Of Soul" and "Message To Love." Unfortunately, the trio's fifth and final gig at Madison Square Gardens on January 28th turned out to be a complete disaster; a possibly spiked Hendrix walked off after only a few songs, and drummer Buddy Miles was fired backstage. With that, this all-Black band died almost as quickly as it started.
Songs For Groovy Children (2019), a box set with three of the complete
Fillmore East concerts, and one in abridged form.
After a short-lived plan to regroup the Experience (which will be delved into later), Hendrix continued recording the odd session here and there—including doing some rare features on songs by Love and Stephen Stills—while in the meantime writing even more new songs and assembling his third band, which ended up including the drummer of the first, Mitch Mitchell, and the bassist of the second, Billy Cox. Long-time audio engineer Eddie Kramer discussed the direction he could see Jimi moving towards with this new trio in a later interview, saying that the way "he was headed was a more broad-based R&B, funky kind of thing with the rock overtones and then definitely horns, strings, big orchestral stuff..." He added that "Mitch became funkier as a result" of Buddy Miles' [very funky] playing. This third trio soon set off for the American leg of Cry Of Love tour, with shows being professionally recorded (as well as filmed) at Berkeley, the Atlanta and New York Pop Festivals, and even up on Maui's windy crater. Resultingly, this 1970 tour is one of the most well-documented periods of the guitarist's live performance, at least in terms of professional recordings.
Throughout the late-spring and summer months, the trio toured on the weekends while spending the week inside the finished room of Hendrix's then-under-construction Electric Lady Studios (which was among the first artist-owned ones in the world), at long last seriously hashing out the follow-up to Electric Ladyland; with Kramer's help, Hendrix began these sessions by trawling through a cupboard stocked full with years of his accumulated session tapes, searching for good material to work on from that extensive period of woodshedding. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the guitarist had lots to say about his new studio (which was actually built in a former nightclub he used to play at): "I've done great things with this place. It has the best equipment in the world [and is] capable of recording 32 tracks [a then-recent invention!], which takes care of most things. There's one thing that I hate about studios usually, and that is the impersonality of them. They're cold and blank, and within a few minutes I lose all drive and inspiration. Electric Lady is different. It's been built with great atmosphere; there are lots of cushions and pillows and thick carpets and soft lights. It's a very relaxed studio with every comfort, so it makes people feel they are recording at home. And you can have any kind of light combination you feel like; I think this is very important. I want it to be an oasis for all the rock and roll musicians in New York. Chuck Berry and Sly [of the Family Stone] have been down there doing a few things, and I'm working on a symphony production to be done there in the near future" (Zero, p. 179).
Live In Maui (2020), a concert recorded and filmed in Hawaii during the
Electric Lady sessions.
These orchestral plans were specifically a collaborative effort with famous jazz bandleader and arranger Gil Evans, for which the cover art was already prepared [used here on Highway Chile]. Hendrix said that he'd "like to get into more symphonic things, so the kids can respect the old musical traditions, the classics. I'd like to mix that in with so-called rock. But I want to get involved in my own kind of way, because I always want to respect my own judgments. I don't plan to go out there with a ninety-piece orchestra and play two and a half hours of classical music. I plan for both those things to be used without even knowing that it's rock and classical, with it being a whole other thing. It would be just like every step is, a mixture of the past and the future. When I finally get into it the whole world's going to know about it" (Zero, 181).
Anyways, huge amounts were recorded at Electric Lady, and Hendrix spent an entire week near the end of August giving rough mixes to the songs, even finishing a few of them entirely. By this stage the album had gone through at least three tentatively unfinished tracklists, and cover artwork had been commissioned from two separate artists, Henri Martinez of New York [First Rays] and psychedelic artists Mouse & Kelley of Frisco Bay [Strate Ahead]. Here's what Stanley Mouse had to say about it on his website: for the "upcoming record album by Jimi Hendrix, Kelley and I got the job to do the cover. We were working in Cambridge at the time right after Woodstock, where Kelley did the signage. I came from London to help him. We airbrushed this amazing art nouveau scarab, but upon finishing it got news that Jimi overdosed. The project never saw the light of day. Back in Marin [California], we morphed the concept into Journey covers."
Evolutions of art: (1) the original Mouse & Kelley artwork (with text
superimposed by me with help from John Busey-Hunt). (2) Ted Lucas'
amazing self-titled album from 1975. (3) Journey's Greatest Hits (1988).
Discussing his vision for the album as a whole, Jimi told an interviewer that "The First Ray Of The New Rising Sun is my new life. It will be about what we've seen and will simplify it all to bridge the gap between teenagers and parents. It's going to be a double set again and have about twenty tracks on it. Some tracks are getting very long, but you see, our music doesn't pertain to one thing. You don't have to be singing about love all the time in order to give love . . . [We] have one called "Astro Man." Talk about living in peace of mind, well Astro Man will leave you in pieces [that's one of its' lyrics]. We have the theme from "The New Rising Sun," this little bolero type of thing. It's kind of nice, but then it breaks down into a very simple pattern, asking this one question: where are you coming from and where are you going to?" (Zero, p. 179-180).
Those finished songs ("Ezy Ryder," "Straight Ahead," "Dolly Dagger," and "Night Bird Flying") were played on loop to great acclaim at the studio's opening party on August 26, 1970. On the stairs outside, Jimi chatted with a young Patti Smith before the trio flew off for a reluctant European tour that was needed to pay off the studio's construction debts. Since his record payments were all frozen and tied up in legal disputes, he was strapped for the dough that only gigging could bake (after all, Hendrix was one of the highest-paid performers of his day). But this European leg of Cry Of Love tour turned out not to be one of his best. Its first show at the Isle of Wight festival on August 31 had the biggest audience of Hendrix's career. He performed sick, jetlagged, and unrehearsed in the dark early hours of the morning. However, it was still Jimi Hendrix, and he did the best he could. This show proved to be the only professionally recorded performance from that entire leg of the tour and, as a result, his last. I've seen lovers of jam bands cite it as their favourite Hendrix concert.
The official release of the entire Isle of White show, which was both
filmed and recorded.
The man showed his reluctant attitude towards these financially obligated performances in interviews, stating at one point that the Isle of White gig "might be the last or second to the last before I form my big new band. If the kids really enjoy it, then I might carry on a little longer. But I will only carry on that way if I'm useful. You've got to have a purpose in life. But I'm not here to talk, I'm here to play. I want to show them all over again what it's all about." (Zero, p. 186). In some ways he was right; the rest of the tour went just swimmingly. At one show, he collapsed onstage from exhaustion, and the whole leg ended abruptly only a few concerts later when bassist Billy Cox flew home to his parents following an awful bout of spiked-acid-induced paranoia.
With the leg halted in its tracks, a burnt-out Hendrix took a much-needed rest in London away from both the gigging and the stressful New York atmosphere (which he said was driving him crazy) before what seemed like a very busy time ahead. His financial situation depended on him delivering the new album as soon as possible, so after releasing that first single, he would have been back at work on it for the rest of September and October at his newly opened Electric Lady Studios recording new songs and finishing others. A number of tracks required only a couple more overdubs and a final mix. The length of the album was unclear, but Billy Cox stated in an interview years later that their record label had the final say on the matter; considering the two-year gap in releases, they would undoubtedly want a single disc so it could hit the shops in time for the ever-profitable Christmas market. Judging by the massive reception of his live album from earlier that year (which had reached #5 and #6 in the US and UK, respectively), his new record would undoubtedly have been one of the biggest and most anticipated albums of either 1970 or 1971, and its follow-ups would surely have fared really well too.
Another filmed-and-recorded concert from the 1970 tour was at the
Atlanta Pop Festival.
While in London, he requested the tape of his 1967 b-side "Highway Chile" to be brought to his studio; while the intention behind this is uncertain, it could be that a reissue of his numerous older non-album tracks was on the cards, as lots of those songs were rarities in his home market. Or perhaps they intended to rerecord it instead, as had been done with "Stone Free" for the US Smash Hits album, although the original version was used instead. Either way, he also asked for his recent tapes to be flown over to England so he could work on them there, but engineer Eddie Kramer rebuked him; after all, he had only just opened his very own studio in New York, which was to be the guitarist's musical home base for the foreseeable future, if not the rest of his career. Thus, flights were booked for a return to New York a few days later.
But he had lots to do even after submitting his upcoming album for release. A tour of Japan, Australia, and then the UK was set to begin in November, December, or January of '71, after which he was obligated to supply the soundtrack for the hippy-dippy Rainbow Bridge movie premiering that fall, which his manager (who had a financial stake in it) had roped him into taking part in. There's also the fabled Miles Davis collaboration which many fans sincerely wish could have taken place; I'm not really sure where the hype ends and the facts begin on that one, although the two definitely chatted backstage about it at the Isle of Wight festival. Besides all this, lots of live 'festival flashback' albums were heading to market that Jimi had no control over whatsoever, including the Woodstock and Monterey Pop LPs from 1970, as well as Woodstock 2 and Atlanta Pop and Isle of White Festival ones from '71.
The official release of the Woodstock show, which leaves out a few songs
that Hendrix didn't sing.
On top of all that coming up, Hendrix had made clear in interviews his intention to enter the world of cinema (among all sorts of other creative ventures) under the banner of Heaven Research, Unlimited—the name he had produced Band Of Gypsys under. He had a screenplay in the works for a film called Moondust, and had already written a whole semi-autobiographical cycle of unique songs called Black Gold, recorded to cassette in his Greenwich Village apartment; he handed it to drummer Mitch Mitchell backstage at the Isle of Wight Festival, wrapped in a headband, for suggestions and arrangement ideas. This music was going to soundtrack an animated film about an African American rock star; the finished soundtrack album would likely have begun production sometime in '71, but the film would surely have taken several years to complete. What should be clear from all this is that Jimi Hendrix was just getting started—and he said as much in interviews. In September of 1970, he was on the verge of blossoming from a simple rock star to a well-rounded, world-class creative, one of the true greats of his generation.
But despite all these grand plans, the home front was giving way. During his brief British holiday, he did a few interviews, attended parties, and even phoned his ex-manager and producer Chas Chandler to ask his opinion on his new material, as he was apparently uncertain about it. He also spoke to his friend Sharon Lawrence, who wrote in her book that "Jimi tracked me down, detailing his pressures and discussing the 'so-called friends'. He was jittery and angry. "I can't sleep. I can't focus to write any songs" (p. 202). He had been swearing and throwing furniture around while on the phone with her. She spoke to him several times in the surrounding days, and came to the conclusion that he was midway through a mental breakdown. All hell was breaking loose for him, but just about nobody, least of all his uncaring manager, actually cared enough to notice (p. 203).
Verse 2 of "Midnight Lightning" from the Isle of White:
I get stoned.
I can't go home.
I'm calling long distance
on a public saxophone.
My head is dizzy and shaking.
Lord, my whole soul is so tired and aching.
Feel like I got run over by public opinion and the past,
and a dog named Rover.
Hendrix tried to jam with the band War, fronted by his friend Eric Burdon, onstage but showed up too drugged out to play (they told him to return the following day, and he did as such; the crowd enjoyed it). Less than 48 hours afterwards in the early hours of September 18th, after having some loud arguments with Monika Dannemann (one of his many girlfriends) at a party, they retired to the hotel room she was staying in. He sat at the table writing and writing before finding her prescription-strength sleeping pills, Vesperax, in the bathroom cupboard (Lawrence, p. 213-214). They came in packs of ten, but Dannemann's doctor had told her never to take more than half of one. Jimi took 9, his special number, and lay the pages he'd written by the bed (p. 215). The pills mutilated his brain as he slept; in a matter of hours, sick was coming out of his mouth and he was lying in it. Monika noticed he didn't look right and poured some red wine down his throat because she thought it would help (p. 264). She phoned Burdon, who insisted that she call an ambulance immediately. Dannemann instead went out and bought a pack of cigarettes, before calling him again and only then finally got an ambulance. There was an empty seat when the plane took off for New York a few days later. Jimi Hendrix had committed suicide.
Patti Smith was in France when she heard, and Bob Dylan burst into tears. Decades later, Jimi's clothing designer Michael Braun remembered three separate cries for help that he gave him during those final months, which Braun, just like the others, had brushed under the rug.
Cover art for the official album Cry Of Love (1971), repurposed here for
Hear My Train A-Comin'. Cover artist Nancy Reiner sat next to him at his
Canadian drug trial, where they wrote poetry together. She was his
manager's wife. Check out her writings about her time with him at
The task of assembling the unfinished album fell to Eddie Kramer and Mitch Mitchell. They got to work surprisingly quickly, adding a few intended overdubs, polishing up some of the rough mixes from August, and mixing several songs anew. Soon enough, the first posthumous album had been assembled, named Cry Of Love after that final tour. With such a huge amount of excellent material to pull from, this could have been a really strong eulogy to Hendrix. But in order to keep solid material for future albums, his financially focused manager removed two would-be highlights from the final master, saving them for the next release. As a result of it missing those songs, the album really sags in the middle and doesn't pick up until the end of the record. It was only downhill from there, as each of the following three albums of studio material became grab bags of random material nabbed from the vault, with sequencing any sense of stylistic cohesion worsening with every release. By the end of this four-album run, Hendrix's US label wouldn't even release what was submitted to them.
This manager then died in a plane crash, leading to a big change in terms of who ran these posthumous-release projects. The Hendrix estate fell into the hands of jazz producer Alan Douglas, who had worked with the guitarist from the fall of 1969 onward [and later spearheaded the assembly of the book Starting At Zero]. He oversaw a variety of releases over a 20-year period, some of the most interesting being two albums of re-recorded leftovers (one of which reached #5 in the US and Canada). Many of his releases have been superseded by more comprehensive versions from the Hendrix family, even if Douglas' The Jimi Hendrix Concerts (1982) is unquestionably in the running for the best posthumous Hendrix live album. Between the two of them, the purist attitude of the Hendrix family lends itself best to plain-and-simple archival releases, whereas Douglas, being a record producer by trade, had a much better sense of how to actually put albums together. Indeed, both of them attempted to replace 1971's Cry Of Love with their own stabs at "the fourth album;" while Douglas' Voodoo Soup (1995) is an excellent record on its own terms (with a cool cover by iconic BD artist Moebius to boot), it leaves out significant amounts of essential material and doesn't use any of Hendrix's carefully-crafted mixes. The Hendrix family's First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (1997), on the other hand, contains quite a few more songs (in his mixes) while being simultaneously marred by atrocious track sequencing and godawful CGI artwork. So when it comes down to it, none of these three official attempts at assembling the album do the art of Jimi Hendrix justice, and the mirth of hundreds of other posthumous releases doesn't help anything. Hopefully Fire To Freedom will clean up the mess.
The Hendrix family's First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (1997).
To close things off, here are the last bunch of illuminating pages from Starting At Zero. It seems that as his time came, Hendrix was reflecting on his life and work up to that point and, like a bluesman, found himself at a crossroads. "Billy Cox has split, so I don't know what to do next. I don't know what my music will be like. It's really hard to know what people want around here sometimes. I'm just going to go on and do what I feel, but I can't feel anything right now because there's a few things that just happened. So I just have to lay back and think about it all. It's got to be quiet for a while. I'm so tired of everything. I lose myself, I can't play anymore. I've been working very hard for three years. I sacrifice part of my soul every time I play. Certain things recharge me in an instant. I might get work out in an instant too. It all depends . . . Direction is the hardest thing for me to find right now. I can't even try to think how this life has affected me. Somehow I must have changed, but I can't know how. That's the problem. I've turned full circle. I'm right back where I started. I've given this era of music everything, but I still sound the same and I can't think of anything new to add to it in its present state. Sometimes I can't stand to hear myself because it sounds like everyone else and I don't want to be in that rat race.
The trouble is that people won't let me change. I tried a couple of years back, but it didn't work then either. You're still supposed to entertain, no matter what's happening to you as a musician. I wrote "Foxy Lady" so long ago by now that she's going to have three kids . . . I still can't figure out what directions my writing is going at the moment, but it'll find a way. All I write is what I feel, that's all. And I don't really round it off too good. It's almost naked. The words are so bland that nobody can get into them, and when we play—flip around and flash around—people just see what their eyes see, and forget about their ears . . . I've got to try something else. I'd like to get something together, like with Handel and Bach and Muddy Waters and flamenco - that type of thing. If I could get that sound, if I could get that sound, I'd be happy.
Voodoo Soup (1995)
I think I'm a better guitarist than I was, but I've never been really good. Every year, like my writing, it slips further and further away. The music I might hear, I can't get on the guitar. It's a thing of just laying around and daydreaming or something. You're hearing all this music, and you just can't get it on the guitar. As a matter of fact, if you pick up your guitar and try to play, it spoils the whole thing. I think of tunes. I think of riffs. I can hum them. Then there's another melody coming into my head, and then a bass melody, and then another one. On guitar, I just can't get them out. I can't play guitar well enough to get all this music together. I want to be a good writer, and I'd like to be a good guitar player. I've learned a lot, but I've got to learn more about music because there's a lot in this hair of mine that's got to get out. There's so many songs I wrote that we haven't done yet, that we'll probably never do.
I won't be doing many live gigs because I'm going to develop the sound and then put a film out with it. In five years, I want to write some plays and some books. I want to write mythology stories set to music, based on a planetary thing and my imagination. It wouldn't be like classical music, but I'd use strings and harps, with extreme and opposite musical textures, even greater contrasts than Holst's Planets. Then I would like to write a story for the stage and compose the music for it. Take Greek mythology, for example, or your old stories about the Vikings and Asgard. I'd like to present that on stage with lights and lots of sound. Or perhaps a space war between Neptune and Uranus. My initial success was a step in the right direction, but it was only a step. Now I plan to get into many other things. I'd like to take a six-month break and go to a school of music. I want to learn to read music, be a model student and study and think. I'm tired of trying to write stuff down and finding I can't. I want a big band. I don't mean three harps and fourteen violins, I mean a big band full of competent musicians that I can conduct and write for.
One of the very best Jimi Hendrix live albums would be Alan Douglas'
Jimi Hendrix Concerts. Despite being long out of print, I've heard that the
French Castle CD mastering is the best one digitally. The cover painting
is by Jean Messagier, who studied under Picasso.
I want to be part of a big new musical expansion. That's why I have to find a new outlet for my music. We're going to stand still for a while and gather everything we've learned musically in the last 30 years, and we are going to blend all the ideas that worked into a new form of classical music. It's going to form the background of my music. Floating in the sky above it all will be the blues—I've still got plenty of blues—and then there will be western sky music and sweet opium music (you'll have to bring your own opium!), and these will be mixed together to form one. And with the music we will paint pictures of Earth and space, so that the listener can be taken somewhere. You have to give people something to dream on... It seems to me like music goes in a big cycle. The circle is completed and I'm starting back already. My goal is to be one with the music. I just dedicate my whole life to this art. You have to forget about what other people say, when you're supposed to die, or when you're supposed to be living. You have to forget about all these things. You have to go on and be crazy.
Craziness is like heaven. Once you reach that point where you don't give a damn what everybody else is saying, you're going towards heaven. The more you get into it, they're going to say, "Damn, that cat's really flipped out. Oh, he's gone now." That's what they call craziness. But if you're producing and creating, you're getting closer to your own heaven. When the last American tour finished, I just wanted to go away and forget everything. I just wanted to record and see if I could write something. Then I started thinking: thinking about the future; thinking that this era of music sparked off by the Beatles has come to an end. Something new has got to come, and Jimi Hendrix will be there. The moment I feel that I don't have anything more to give musically, that's when I won't be found on this planet, unless I have a wife and children, because if I don't have anything to communicate through my music, then there is nothing for me to live for. I'm not sure I will live to be 28 years old, but then again, so many beautiful things have happened to me in the last three years. The world owes me nothing.
The Douglas-helmed improvisation album Nine To The Universe (1980).
When people fear death, it's a complete case of insecurity. Your body is only a physical vehicle to carry you from one place to another without getting into a lot of trouble. So you have this body tossed upon you that you have to carry around and cherish and protect and so forth, but even that body exhausts itself. The idea is to get your own self together, see if you can get ready for the next world, because there is one. Hope you can dig it. People still mourn when people die. That's self-sympathy. All human beings are selfish to a certain extent, and that's why people get so sad when someone dies. They haven't finished using him. The person who's dead ain't crying. Sadness is for when a baby is born into this heavy world, and joy should be exhibited at someone's death because they are going on to something more permanent and infinitely better.
I tell you, when I die I'm going to have a jam session. I want people to go wild and freak out. And knowing me, I'll probably get busted at my own funeral. The music will be played loud and it will be our music. I won't have any Beatles songs, but I'll have a few of Eddie Cochran's things and a whole lot of blues. Roland Kirk will be there, and I'll try and get Miles Davis along if he feels like making it. For that, it's almost worth dying. Just for the funeral. It's funny the way people love the dead. You have to die before they think you are worth anything. Once you're dead, you're made for life. When I die, just keep on playing the records" (Starting At Zero, 189-195).
The story of jesus
So easy to explain
After they crucified him,
A woman, she claimed his name
The story of jesus
The whole Bible knows
Went all across the desert
And in the middle, he found a rose
There should be no questions
There should be no lies
He was married ever happily after
All the tears we cry
No use in arguing
All the use to the man that moans
When each man falls in battle
His soul it has to roam
Angels of heaven
Flying saucers to some,
Made easter sunday
The name of the rising sun
The story is written
By so many people who dared,
To lay down the truth
To so very many who cared
To carry the cross
Of jesus and beyond
We will guide the light
This time with a woman in our arms
We as men
Can't explain the reason why
The woman's always mentioned
At the moment that we die
All we know
Is God is by our side,
And he says the word
So easy yet so hard
I wish not to be alone,
So I must respect my other heart
Oh, the story
Of jesus is the story
Of you and me
No use in feeling lonely,
I am searching to be free
The story
Of life is quicker
Than the wink of an eye
The story of love
Is hello and goodbye
Until we meet again.
Appendix
A. Hendrix's Tracklists
The second of Jimi's extant unfinished tracklists for the fourth album, titled Strate Ahead.
The third of Jimi's extant unfinished tracklists.
B. Recording Studios And Dates
Are You Experienced: October 23, 1966-April 4, 1967, at London's CBS, De Lane Lea, and Olympic studios.
Highway Chile: November 2, 1966-March 13, 1968, at London's CBS, De Lane Lea, Olympic, and Bruce Fleming (photo) studios, as well as New York City's Mayfair and Sound Center studios.
Axis: Bold As Love: May 4, 1967-October 29, 1967, at London's Olympic studios.
Electric Ladyland: July 6, 1967-August 27, 1968, at London's Olympic studios, and New York City's Mayfair and Record Plant studios.
Hear My Train A-Comin': Studio Disc: January 26, 1968-April 7, 1969, at London's Olympic studios, Los Angeles' TTG studios, and New York City's Olmsted and Record Plant studios. Live Disc: February 24, 1969-May 24, 1969, at London's Royal Albert Hall, the Los Angeles Forum, and the San Diego Sports Arena.
Band Of Gypsys: December 31, 1969-January 1, 1970, at New York City's Fillmore East.
Cry Of Love: August 18, 1969, and May 30, 1970, at New York's Woodstock Festival and the Berkeley Community Theatre.
First Rays Of The New Rising Sun: October 23, 1968-August 25, 1970, at New York City's Record Plant and Electric Lady studios and Los Angeles' TTG studios.
Strate Ahead: November 17, 1969-November 20, 1970, at New York City's Record Plant and Electric Lady studios.
War Heroes: March 13, 1968-July 14, 1970, at Los Angeles' TTG studios and New York City's Hit Factory and Electric Lady studios. Posthumous elements recorded elsewhere 1974-75.
C. Source List
Are You Experienced (Mono): Prof. Stoned's fan vinyl rip (2020 remaster edition).
Are You Experienced (Stereo): The 2020 SACD.
Highway Chile (Mono): Prof Stoned's fan vinyl rip (2020 remaster edition), the 1994 Blues CD [Track 4], and the 2014 Cry Of Love CD [10].
Highway Chile (Stereo): Prof. Stoned's fan vinyl rip (2020 remaster edition) [Tracks 1, 5], the Jimi Hendrix Experience CD box set from 2000 [2], The Ultimate Experience HDCD [3], the Blues CD [4], the 1997 Are You Experienced CD [6-7], the Japanese Loose Ends CD [8], the original 1980s US Electric Ladyland CD [9], and the 2014 Cry Of Love CD [10].
Axis: Bold As Love (Stereo): The 2018 SACD with stereo channel realignment by yours truly.
Axis: Bold As Love (Mono): The 2018 SACD.
Axis: Bold As Love (Alternate Mix): The original European Polydor CD from the 1980s.
Electric Ladyland: The original US CD from the 1980s.
Hear My Train A-Comin': The South Saturn Delta CD [Tracks 1-3], the Valleys Of Neptune CD [4], the Jimi Hendrix Experience CD box from 2000 [5-10] although I edited the studio chatter off Track 5.
Band Of Gypsys: The 1997 CD from the master tapes.
Cry Of Love: The 2011 Hendrix In The West CD [1], the 2003 Live At Berkeley CD [2], the 1999 Woodstock CD [3, 5], and the 2014 Rainbow Bridge CD [4].
First Rays Of The New Rising Sun: The Voodoo Soup CD [Track 1], the Jimi Hendrix Experience CD box set from 2000 [2, 13] but I edited the studio chatter off the latter, the Voodoo Child: The Jimi Hendrix Collection CD [3, 9], the 2014 Cry Of Love CD [4], the 2014 Rainbow Bridge CD [5, 15 (second half), 16], Both Sides Of The Sky CD [6], the Japanese Loose Ends CD [7], the West Coast Seattle Boy CD box set [8, 15 (first half)] although I added fade-outs to both tracks and edited out the post-intro section on the latter, the South Saturn Delta CD [10], the 1997 First Rays Of The New Rising Sun CD [11, 14], and the Electric Lady Studios (A Jimi Hendrix Vision) box set [12] but I edited the studio chatter off the front.
Strate Ahead: The 2014 CDs of the Cry Of Love and Rainbow Bridge.
War Heroes: The 1988 European CD of Crash Landing, and the 1989 Japanese CDs of both it and Midnight Lightning.
CD-quality down-low'd linc's here.
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