Posted on 09/26/2021 7:41:55 PM PDT by DoodleBob
Here are ten essential songs from Jimi Hendrix released after 1970 that clearly demonstrate why he remains the world’s most influential guitarist.
In 1971, The Cry Of Love showed that death was only a minor obstacle to Jimi’s continuing output. With the pick of his vaults to choose from, it was the first posthumous Hendrix record, and unmatched until 1997’s First Rays Of The New Rising Sun made a more accurate job of approximating what would have been his next album.
It peaks at the off with Freedom, a thrill-ride rocker that rattles along on chippy riffs, falling-down-the-stairs drums, a hot-buttered funk breakdown and cries of ‘Freedom!’ pinballing around the mix like an Arab Spring revolution. Released as a single, Freedom scraped inauspiciously to US No.59, but it’s Hendrix bobbing near the top of his game.
It’s fair to say that Earth Blues has been around the block, with its pugnacious riff cropping up on beyond-the-grave compilations from 1971’s Rainbow Bridge to 1999’s Live At The Fillmore East. All have their merits, but in the desert-island scenario, you’d pick this newly exhumed version, representing Take 15 from a December 1969 session at New York’s Record Plant.
It was recorded against a backdrop of litigious strife, as Hendrix laboured to work up material for an album owed to Capitol Records, but you’d never guess that from the spring-heeled bounce and infectious howl of bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles’s backing vocals.
Don’t bother with the demo that limped on to 1990’s Lifelines box set; the full-band title track from the 2010 release Valleys Of Neptune surely comes closer to realising the song Hendrix spent the last year of his life chasing down.
Recorded at two separate sessions at the Record Plant in New York (in September 1969 and May 1970), it’s a superior psych-rocker, with Jimi’s jazzy guitar intro breaking into a strut that’s anchored by Mitch Mitchell’s gunshot drums, Billy Cox’s wandering bass and the percussion of Juma Sultan. The lack of a guitar break suggests that perhaps Jimi still had something up his sleeve, but of course we’ll never know.
While the definitive take of Angel is the one recorded on July 23, 1970 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, with drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox, the first recording of the song was a demo recorded at Olympic Sound Studios in London on October 14, 1967.
Jimi wrote the first draft of the song’s lyrics, inspired by a dream he had about his mother, Lucille, in early ’68. Interestingly, Angel was originally titled Little Wing, before briefly being renamed Sweet Angel as it gradually developed into the beautiful final version. The ‘other’ Little Wing (on Axis: Bold As Love) became Jimi’s best-loved ballad.
The writing of Ezy Ryder (sometimes known as Lullaby For The Summer) was influenced by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern’s 1969 movie Easy Rider (The Jimi Hendrix Experience had contributed If Six Was Nine to the film’s soundtrack), and was recorded at two sessions at the Record Plant.
A basic track was laid down on December 18, 1969, and it was finished on January 20, 1970. Joining Jimi on the sessions were his Band Of Gypsys: bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. Percussionist Juma Sultan, who had performed with Hendrix at Woodstock, played on the recording, and Traffic’s Steve Winwood and Chris Wood provided the backing vocals.
Hendrix loved Bob Dylan. He also liked to use BBC radio recording sessions as opportunities to studio-jam on songs outside the Experience’s standard repertoire, be they venerable blues standards like Catfish Blues or recent hits such as The Beatles’ Day Tripper.
Here he and the Experience career delightedly through a Dylan semi-obscurity (the 1966 follow-up single to Positively 4th Street, and similarly uncollected on album at the time). Hendrix’s vocal delivery becomes more and more Baaaaaaab-like as the song progresses – it’s almost as much fun to listen to as it must’ve been to play.
This throbbing slab of psychedelic blues was cut by Jimi and the Experience during a session at TTG Studios in Los Angeles on October 22, 1968. It was actually ex-Animals vocalist Eric Burdon, by this time firmly entrenched in LA, who introduced Jimi to the studio, and by all accounts he, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding were blown away by the sound there.
Look Over Yonder burns with some of Jimi’s most incendiary guitar playing ever captured on tape, with sheets of feedback, wild vibrato and extreme whammy-bar dives. Only his Woodstock Star Spangled Banner freak-out matches it for sheer Strat abuse.
Recorded at Electric Lady studios on July 1, 1970, Dolly Dagger sounds like a cool throwback to Jimi’s R&B circuit days. Rock gossip has it that the song was inspired by the shenanigans of Jimi’s on/off girlfriend Devon Wilson.
The story goes that she threw a birthday party for Jimi, and invited Mick Jagger, who she also apparently had a ‘soft spot’ for. When a wine glass broke and cut Mick’s finger, Devon began sucking on the bloody digit. Hence Jimi’s line in the song: ‘She drinks blood from a jagged edge.’
Jimi took his first stab at this 1961 Elmore James blues classic in the mid‑60s as a member of Curtis Knight & The Squiers. He later recorded a slow blues version (available on the Blues compilation) with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles on March 18, 1969, at the Record Plant.
But it’s the funky-as-hell version he recorded in the same studio on April 24, 1969, with Billy Cox and stand-in drummer Rocky Isaac, that comes closest to matching the intensity of the Elmore James original. Sonically cleaned up by producer/engineer Eddie Kramer, it was released as a single in March 2010.
Second only to Angel as a prime example of the ‘gorgeously yearning psychedelic ballad’ section of Hendrix’s track stockpile. Drifting is Hendrix at his most delicately melodic and exquisitely melancholic, from its chiming intro with one backwards guitar floating lazily overhead into the seascape (‘of forgotten teardrops’) depicted in the lyric, delivered in Hendrix’s softest, warmest tones, and sailing gently through an entire oceanic waterworld of intertwined processed guitars.
One of Hendrix’s most thoroughly dreamlike pieces, and certainly one of his most rhapsodically beautiful, it’s also blessed with a serpentine melody and guitar-orchestra textures to sink into and drift away on.
Not a great top ten. Missing: Pali Gap, The New Rising Sun, In From The Storm.
Definitely- wish he hadn’t died so soon- as someone mentioned, he had tons of stuff he was working on but not finished- He didn’t strike me as being a deep part of the hippie stuff/anti-war movement like other artists at that time- he was kinda doing his own thing- more into psychedelic stuff (which i guess was kinda hippie-like-) but different- he marched to his own beat I think-
Shame, lots of black folks back then loved America, (but just hated the racism they were truly a part of during those times, but we as a nation were coming out of it, and i think a lot of minority groups sensed ot and appreciated it and the nation, and the opportunistic to all who went for them- even though the wounds of what they and their folks went through were still fresh-)- but now so many black folks are really angry- kneel in protest of the anthem, sing their own anthem- etc-
The left are driving the races apart- So many minority groups and folks are just really angry these days- Jimmie was above all that- and like he said, even though it got him down at times, he loved America- Wish more folks would feel that way
Hendrix's brothers aren't even part of EH. Eight family members sued unsuccessfully to overturn Al's will (it was an ugly family fight claiming that Janie took advantage of the old and ill Al). Maybe she's the one who stayed sober and kept things together. Or maybe she's in it for the money.
What IS true, is that outside of people over 40 or classic rock stations, Jimi's isn't played or covered and that's a problem. In some ways, EH reminds me of the Zappa Family Trust which for years squandered time and failed to keep Zappa's name and music alive and relevant for the next generation.
While EH has a band of touring musicians covering Jimi's music, there should be releases from the vault, movies, and conferences and more to secure his legacy. Otherwise, notwithstanding Jimi's awesome talent and gifts, Jimi Hendrix could become like Elvis - known by an aging generation only and unknown to kids who'd rather listen to terrible pop music.
In a way, it's like how liberty and freedom could have been snuffed had Hillary won in 2016. Trump's election helped usher in a revival of old classically liberal ideas beyond Tea Party members and with younger Americans, and derail the McCain/Willard vision of appeasement. While Bidet won* the fire remains burning. Hendrix (and Zappa for that matter) need a Trumpian revival.
I suspect in 20 years NOBODY will buy Elvis albums. At that point Elvis will cease to matter. This is the possible future of Jimi. I hope I'm wrong.
/rant
Dolly Dagger my fave.
Saw Jimi 2x, Sun Devil Gym just after he left the Monkees, and Veterans Coliseum, where Vanilla Fudge opened for him (and blew him off the stage. People were screaming for the Fudge 10 minutes into Hendrix’s set).
At Sun Devil Gym, he was on another planet musically. Fantastic. But a year later, he was drugged out, couldn’t tune his guitar, was struggling.
Imagine trying to do that now!
Anyway, it wasn’t long after the cassette tape tangled up on me.
I made the mistake of saying, “oh well”, and tossing it…
It will happen. The market for Big Band and postwar orchestra was my parents’ generation, and they’re vanishing. Most don’t spend time listening to their old favorites, or even have a way to do it.
When I was young and pretty, and had my first apartments, I’d take daily walks and encounter 78 rpm records and albums, in garage sales and estate sales (often the same thing). A local collector told me, if I figured out how to sell 78s on eBay and have them get there in one piece, tell him what it is. :^)
Landfill. Once an artist dies, it’s just a matter of time.
For really prolific in the guitar virtuoso realm, check out Buckethead. He released over 300 albums in 2015 alone.
"Once an artist dies, it’s just a matter of time."Silly nonsense. 300 years and the clock hasn't even started ticking on Bach, Beethoven & Mozart. 😂
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.