Jimi Hendrix Both Sides of the Sky - new album coming March 9, 2018

My perception is that Kramer has not been thrilled with some of the recent product he has worked on; it was not hard to read between the lines from some of his interview content a few years ago. He may very well feel conflicted because he knows that he is being directed to manipulate recordings in a manner that both he and McDermott once denounced for commercial considerations, but also knows that the music will be released one way or another, so he would rather have a hand in producing it, than passing it off to someone less informed about Hendrix's music and creative process.

The biggest mistake EH has made is trying to create mainstream, commercial albums for studio fragments and scraps. This music just is not commercially viable in the way they want it to be. Don't get me wrong, there is compelling music and musical passages found on these single disc compilations, but they are disjointed and uneven. And the irony is that the songs EH tries to complete (for example Valleys of Neptune), still sound unfinished. These are not good albums as standalone releases. They contain some good music, but they do not represent Hendrix's legacy well.

 

Exactly. Well stated.

 

the conspiracy theorist me feels that experieince hendrix also owns a part of, or is in cahoots with, dagger.

 

Right. It would have been a bit more acceptable if they had put an "Archive Series" or "From The Vault" logo on there, to give an indication of the contents. It's just wrong the way that they put these albums up there alongside the other studio albums. Also, I would have preferred to see front covers more like what they did with the Dagger releases Hear My Music or Burning Desire - candid shots of Jimi working away in the studio.

 

Dagger is a sideline interest of Experience Hendrix! No mystery there.

 

A couple of things:

I expect no surprises. Should mirror what we already have, with little variation.

Will this be much different than the PH&A version? Probably not. Hard to imagine any studio version was going to match the intensity of the live versions. Had Hendrix lived and commercially released this track, I would not have been surprised if he had released a live take of the song.

It looks like this is going to a final Hendrix/Kramer mix from July 1970.

Agreed. Hoping this is an alternate.

Nice to have this officially back in print. It should not have taken EH 20 years to release this track.

Again? How about releasing a studio version of Machine Gun or a band version of Midnight Lightning in its place.

Looks like this is going to be a full-band version (which I have never heard). Still, I wish they were releasing a complete solo version; the fragment on Lifelines is wonderful.

 

Is that the case? I'd assume they were paid back in the day for their contributions, and get nothing now. They were employees and not profit participants. I doubt the Experience or Band Of Gypsys members/estates get any money from (or have any say about) what gets released. I'm sure Stills gets paid for his two contributions to the upcoming disc and probably Johnny Winter as well since they were signed to other labels at the time (who I'm sure needed to provide permission/receive remuneration to be included ), but Billy Cox? I highly doubt it, unless he worked out some kind of deal based on his continued involvement doing interviews/promotional/etc work for these new releases, but I'd guess he just gets paid a fee for that rather than any profit participation.

According to the book written by McDermot and Kramer, Cox got nothing for sales of the BOG live album back in the day, and the only reason Buddy Miles got any money from it was because of the publishing on the two songs he wrote that were included on the album. They were employees who were not contracted to the record label, and just like session musicians get paid for sessions only, and not in perpetuity as profit participants in album sales royalties.

 

Agreed. I think EH should have created an archive or anthology series over the years -- it something I have been voicing since the early 2000's. That sort of concept still would have been commercially viable, but it would have allowed for more comprehensive and better organized releases for the music. For example, the studio work from the BoG is scattered all over the place; why not release a 2-3 CD set comprised of their work in one place? Then the music is placed in a sensible, historically accurate configuration that helps provide clarity and organization.

 

Yup, the whole thing has been done without taste, intelligence or integrity.

 

Excellent summary of the situation.

 

Thanks - I just retrieved that disc from storage- forgot where I bought it.

 

I agree. I have also stated before that I thought they should have released a compilation of BOG studio tracks and a compilation of Experience studio tracks that did not make the officially released albums. It would be more cohesive instead of a hodge podge of tracks from different years with different backing musicians. They could even release a single disc BOG studio compilation and call it the "Lost BOG studio album" for marketing purposes.

 

My thoughts exactly. He probably sees what he's doing now as barrel scraping, but figures if he's not the one doing it, someone else most definitely will, so he rationalizes that at least he'll do a more sensitive job of it than someone who is just there to cash a check, and will do absolutely anything they are told to do, without question. I'm sure given his connection to Hendrix that his opinions are at least considered if not necessarily accepted. Plus, more cynically, I'm sure he gets paid quite well which helps to soothe any twinges of ambivalence/conscience about what he's doing.

At the same time I don't consider anything they've done so far as sinking to the same depths as what Douglas did at his worst. They haven't been overdubbing any modern musicians who have never even met Hendrix let alone ever played with him. At least this pro-tooled stuff is still all Hendrix performances, and this kind of stuff (like it or not) goes on all the time in modern recordings with artists who are still alive. Cutting/pasting/stitching together elements of different takes is just standard studio practice this century.

So IMO its shades of grey. They may be slippery sloping it towards Douglas-ness, but they've still got a fair way to go yet before they reach those depths.

 

Jimi's posthumous catalog has been handled poorly since the very first releases. EH is simply following the same path, which IMO is too late to correct.

 

Experience Hendrix created and wholly owns Dagger. And this is far from a secret or "conspiracy theory".

 

One thing's for sure, Hendrix would be livid about this stuff being released. I guess if you want to protect your legacy, don't die at 27. Or at least, have a better contract when you do!

 

Lot there, but here's what I've got on this.

Noel Redding signed over his rights in the mid 70s, not realizing that the CD revolution was just over the horizon.
EH ended up paying him, what I don't know, to get him back on board despite years of estrangement and a bit of bitterness between Jimi and Noel over work habits and what Noel could get on record back in the day.

I believe Mitch was onboard with EH from the beginning, I think mainly due to Mitch's mental state, keep him busy and to keep him in front of Jimi's fans. He was part of the first EH tribute tour.

Billy Cox was in a different boat.
Never playing on a commercially released studio album back in the day, BoG, as acknowledged was just a project to get Jimi out of a contract jam, and in no way did any of them want to be associated or doing business with who ended up with that album.
Billy's stature has advanced a bit, simply due to the fact he's the last musician living to extensively play and create with Jimi.
I'd assume, that word, that he's given a bit more to tour with the EH tribute tours, and was allowed to sell his own merchandise at the shows.

As far as any input into the music, and today's business affairs, well of course they have no say.
One signed his rights away, other was simply not together enough to really help curate anything, and Cox basically had no contract with anybody and seem to be around and with Jimi because Jimi like hanging with him. Now 2 of the 3 have passed, do u really want the estates of Mitchell-Redding involved in what's released by EH? I'm thinking No.

All of them ended up benefiting, and were paid by the current business, whereas 20 years earlier, they had nothing from all that. Zero.

 

I don't know about Jimi being livid, I think he would be humbled that after all this time people are still interested in hearing his craft.

 

Well, his craft as he presented it to the world, yes. But not half baked sketches never meant to see the light of day. Jimi was a perfectionist and only became more so as time went on. Chas bailed on EL due to this. Jimi had nearly two years to make a followup to EL and couldn't do it.

 

I liked Valleys Of Neptune quite a bit in that it had some space in there, thought People Hell and Angels was mostly a waste...I think I listened to that twice...

 

Well said.
Only thing I'd add is that obviously EH has a contract, MCA then Sony, to release a certain amount of albums to fulfill those commitments.

While I'm not wild about the frankensteined albums, and think they could potentially confuse anybody new to Hendrix, I think it's more than balanced by releases like WCSB and Machine Gun. I think Kramer cleaning up some of the live stuff, putting Bernie on the vinyl mastering, and the overall packaging, liner notes, etc keeps me interested in what EH is doing.

Fwiw, I didn't feel the need to buy VoN or PHA.....but WCSB, Machine Gun, Miami Pop? I was all good throwing my money at them for that.

 

I have every official EH release. I 've played about 80% of them just once.

 

Unless it is the remaining BOG live material, I am more interested in studio material at this point. If if the new release has only a few interesting tracks, I will just combine them with the more interesting tracks from the other posthumous releases and burn myself a cdr.

 

I like your post, but there's more to Cox thank being the last guy to play with Hendrix. He was in some of Jimi's first bands in the army, played at Woodstock, toured with Jimi all through 1970 and played on all of Jimi's 1970 studio tracks (as well as perhaps writing some of the riffs and helping with the arrangements).

 

I wouldn't really consider 'Georgia Blues' a repeat so much as a replacement, since the disc it was on is now OOP, so it really did need to be included somewhere on this or whatever disc(s) they release in future. As far as the other tracks you mention, patience...patience....

I'm sure these will come out at some point. If this third licensing deal is set up like the previous two, then we still have a 4CD boxset and another single disc of studio material to look forward to in the next few years.

Another way to look at it I guess is take each disappointing tracklist of any upcoming releases as reassurance that they aren't done yet and fully intend to keep releasing them, as I'm sure such items are not stupidly overlooked omissions that will be destined to stay locked in the vault forever, but rather intentionally held back as cornerstones of some future releases.

Knowing what still hadn't been reissued by EH from the Douglas days, as well as some of what was left in the vault (via bootlegs) was a big part of the reason why I KNEW that Kramer was talking BS when he said there's be no more studio releases, since a lot of the things they hadn't yet released were far better than a lot of things they had released - which was (to my mind) proof that there'd definitely be more unreleased studio material coming out despite what Kramer said - and I was correct.