Jimi Hendrix - Let's Talk About How We Would Have Put Together His Posthumous Albums!

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by hodgo, Dec 8, 2017.

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  1. crozcat

    crozcat Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    Jimi Hendrix - studio recordings August 1969 - August 1970
     
  2. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    I like the way it played out.

    It wouldn't be ridiculous to say that this is my #1 Hendrix album period:

    [​IMG]
     
  3. fredhammersmith

    fredhammersmith Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montreal, Quebec
    Is it possible that BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN is missing? Dec. 15, 1969, Record Plant?
     
  4. See Crozcat’s linked thread a few posts back.
     
  5. Colocally

    Colocally One Of The New Wave Boys

    Location:
    Surrey BC.
    I'll raise you Loose Ends and Voodoo Soup.
     
  6. fredhammersmith

    fredhammersmith Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montreal, Quebec
    Sorry, my mistake. So many tracks, so little time.
     
  7. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    It would be ridiculous to say that. It's the worst of all of the posthumous releases (not counting all the Knight, Youngblood and fake Hendrix albums).
     
  8. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    You're joking, right? (In other words, re intentionally turning the semantics of what I was saying on its head?)
     
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  9. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    It is a draw!
     
  10. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    Sorry, I don't know what you mean by that.
    "Midnight Lighning" is Frankensteined junk.
     
  11. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    I like the UK cover of LE, photos from the Ladyland sessions.
    [​IMG]

    Not so much the German one...

    [​IMG]

    But come on, Voodoo Soup is a psychedelic beauty..

    [​IMG]
     
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  12. Sorry, just not feelin' this one. Don't "hate" it, but it's never been one I've warmed to much.
     
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  13. jhm

    jhm Forum Resident

    I still like the orginal cover by Moebius:

    [​IMG]
     
  14. fredhammersmith

    fredhammersmith Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montreal, Quebec
    WOW!
     
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  15. Yes, and the book he put together "Starting At Zero" is one of the best too - a real tribute to Jimi by any standards. I think many people forget what Douglas was actually brought in to do in 1975. Armed with that unenviable task and what was available in terms of tapes and technology of the day, I think he did a much better job than some give him credit for. I care not one iota about removed backing tracks or over-dubbing under those circumstances. Tampering or unnecessary posthumous remixing for the sake of modernising music for the cookie cutter market, is another thing altogether. Douglas was a RECORD PRODUCER. People need to remember that when they're bashing him relentlessly. Purists need not apply.
     
  16. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    Weird. "It wouldn't be ridiculous" meaning that at times I feel it's my favorite Hendrix album. That you don't care for it, and that you share the far more common opinion about it, has no bearing on the fact that it's at least close to being my favorite Hendrix album.

    From an aesthetic assessment perspective, I couldn't care less how an album is put together. I couldn't care less who is actually playing on it, etc. All I care about are the sounds coming out of my speakers, and I love the sounds coming out of my speakers when I put on Midnight Lightning.
     
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  17. That's a refreshingly 'out of step' opinion (especially amongst the hoards of Hendrix fans) of this much maligned album. I share your perspective on listening to albums in general though and it is something I have often repeated here. With that said I don't think I'd ever feel Midnight Lightning was my favourite.

    I would argue for Voodoo Soup above The Cry Of Love, Rainbow Bridge or First Rays Of The New Rising Sun though!
     
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  18. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    I'm very sorry but it's akin to completing an unfinished Piscasso painting and putting pretty flowers or something on it. The Midnight Lightning album is an utterly crass product from a deluded, big-headed "producer" who thought he was it. The end result is terrible.
    I do care about ethics, the respect of an artists work. You don't, so lets leave it at that.
     
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  19. John Harchar

    John Harchar Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Just signed up today after lurking for six months so go easy :wave:

    It may have been a better idea for Douglas to have started off with a simple repackaging of the 4 posthumous albums as a double LP with just the 20 tracks recorded during the sessions for the next album (heck, EH should have done the same thing when they had the chance!). You listen to Crash and Midnight, then compare them to the original recordings...there's just not a whole lot of improvement there. In fact, on quite a number, there's absolutely nothing wrong with them as they were.

    With so much water under the bridge, he really deserves the sessions treatment from Hey Joe through Slow Blues or Belly Button Window, which ever came last. It would've been nice to start that last year, but not yet anyway.
     
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  20. John Harchar

    John Harchar Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Listening to Voodoo Soup with 20 years in the rearview mirror, it's...ok, sort of. It's interesting to hear the different mixes. But at the time it was sold as THE replacement for Cry of Love (which had been in print and readily available a few years before when it was still at Reprise), and it's not. Then of course you have that interview where he dissed Dolly Dagger and Izabella because his daughter didn't like them...it left a very bad taste. Top it off with the unnecessary drum overdubs and it took 20 years for me to warm up to it. What I did is make a playlist of those mixes, took off Peace and Midnight, swapped in the Buddy versions of Stepping and Room, added Power of Soul, Dolly, Izabella and Hey Baby and it's not a bad listen.
     
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  21. jhm

    jhm Forum Resident

    Welcome John!

    You hit the nail on the head there. I suppose Douglas' choices on CL and ML could have been better justified if the orginal versions were unlistenable, but they aren't (I'll give him "Somewhere" though - Mitch just couldn't nail that one). The originals are almost uniformly superior.
     
  22. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    The Douglas "Somewhere" is my fave; it's the only version that works tempo-wise.
    Aside from that Douglas could mostlt have used the original versions, but the albums would have lacked any cohesion, kind of like the recent EH albums.
     
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  23. Roberto899

    Roberto899 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    If your first Jimi exposure was Crash Landing, or Midnight Lighting or even Voodoo Soup, I could see a nostalgia view of enjoying it and even enjoyment of still listening to it. But really, to argue those albums are superior to say Cry of Love or Rainbow Bridge really comes off as being contrary for the sack of being contrary and to me seems nothing more like an excuse to carry a condensing attitude that the rest of Jimi's fans "just don't get it." When AD had control it was a mixed bag. Some good some bad. Just kind of like now with the current regime. Some good some bad. Whoever is releasing the music will never satisfy everyone. I like what I like. What AD did with Crash Landing for instance was a joke. There is no excuse for erasing what Jimi did, and there is no justification for it. The cut and paste can certainly be argued against as much the same thing, but it's still Jimi and what he put down. Big difference in my view. Personally I think cut and paste results are mixed. For myself I thought Valley of Neptune came out okay, but I don't think it worked so well with Somewhere. But like most things , this just my opinion.
     
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  24. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    To be fair, even with the various issues and problems that have plagued some of EH’s releases and general release philosophy, there is no comparison between the EH and Douglas years. Douglas did not release that much from the archives and kept a lot out of print during his 20 year tenure. Through SSD, Purple Box, WCSB, VoN, PH&A, and the studio Dagger releases — EH has released substantially more material, often lacking obvious contemporary era manipulation. Most of Douglas’ archival releases contained live material and even there, EH has surpassed the Douglas regime.
     
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  25. Welcome to the forum first of all!

    The point about Douglas which I think many people miss is that he was brought in by the estate of the day to piece together "new studio albums" from fragments and sketches set down by Jimi prior to his death. This was to feed the market that existed for new Hendrix material. Blame the estate for that decision if you will. Douglas was not put in charge to reissue anything which had already been released. There would have been little point in that at the time. As far as Kramer et al were concerned the well was wrung dry by 1972. The album "Loose Ends" was only released in the UK and Europe as Reprise refused to release it in the States due to the terrible quality of some of the material. They were scratching around in the dirt of the cutting room floor at this stage. They had no more 'finished' and mixed, genuinely new studio material to release. Douglas was charged with readying new material to keep the flow of albums going. He rejected some of the backing tracks and brought in his own choice of musicians to re-record certain parts. Clearly this still offends the purists. With EH releasing much of the same material now, we don't have to choose between the "raw" and the "professionally polished" versions: thankfully we have both.
     
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