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

Do you mean the Jan 23 session?

Yes. It is frustrating how that has been cut up. Even,
the songs that have been released have been edited.
"Country Blues" (released on the Purple Box) goes
on for 2 1/2 minutes longer into a jam of "Astro Man".
"Blue Suede Shoes" hasn't been available since Loose
Ends.

I don't know if we would ever get a full version of
Highway of Desire/$7 in My Pocket. The 14 minute
version floating around on boots is pretty rough.
It might be something EH can try and bury in
the next box set. Or, they can try and edited it
down for a more commercial release. Especially,
since it is similar to "Valleys Of Neptune" and has
not been heard by the masses. If EH try to market
it as a lost Hendrix "masterpiece", they will have
definitely "jumped the shark"

 

Anyone else besides me wish they'd released (somewhere - even buried on a box set) the 02-May-68 South Saturn Delta jam that Jimi and Mitch launch into after Three Little Bears? I've always liked that jam along with the slow ending part where Jimi plays those Curtis Mayfield style phrases. I guess I've always been a sucker for that "Have You Ever Been...", "Hey Gypsy Boy", "Hey Baby" style/theme of playing.

 

I'll take that, and I want all of Jimi's potty mouth complete on Three Little Bears!

 

EH needs to release more jams period. One of the reasons Dagger's "Burning Desire" and "Hear My Music" are so popular is because of the jams, the opportunity to hear Hendrix stretch out in the studio and develop ideas. Hendrix used to work on various ideas within the confines of individual jams and it would be a fantastic opportunity to hear Hendrix take some of these musical explorations to their natural conclusion. For example, at the tail-end of the 11/7/69 Record Plant version of "Izabella" from the "Burning Desire," one can hear Hendrix start to head into "Machine Gun." Who knows where it goes, but it would be very cool to hear some expanded sections from the session reels.

 

One of those is the Room Full of Mirrors from I think Mornong Symphony. It starts off with a semi Machine Gun riff, then fades. I recognized it, checked my other stuff and it was one of the nebulous Stepping Stones, so I merged them together. Cherokee Mist from the purple box goes into Valleys of Neptune (different from the cd version). Country Blues either goes into or out of something as well.

 

i really like this idea
imagine something like this on a nice heavy vinyl record with a cover similar to the live album.

id also love an album of bits of music like Hey Baby and captain coconut (yes i know its bits chucked together, didn't stop a 12 year old me loving it)

 

It may have been wrong, but Jansen did a nice job on it, flows very well. Still would like to know where the first little bit came from.

 

This is the likely recording order of the Jan 23 sessions. EH sure made a mess of that one on Burning Desire, chopping up a big jam into small pieces, like regular bootleggers!

MLK/Exy Ryder Jam/Cherokee Mist/jimi breaks a string (fades in, maybe the operator switched on the tape there) 20:06
Villanova Junction Blues (incl. Record Plant X2/Slow Time Blues - EH made up titles?) 28:41
Burning Desire 9:49
Medley: Blue Suede Shoes 13:32...morphs into
...Highway of Desire 23:34...morphs into...
...Country Blues/Astro Man 10:46 (Sounds like Jimi starts playing Hey Baby at the end)
Once I Had A Woman 10:29

Enough for a double cd!

 

Chopped it up AND put it on out of order! I'm still missing bits and pieces of it here and there (mainly the full Once I Had a Woman), that's why I want the whole thing in one place. It's a whole lot better than the Experience's final session (HMTAC and some overdubs)

 

Yeah, what were they thinking. Very odd decision!
I had to paste together the complete Once I Had A Woman from 3 different sources.
It's an interesting tune, hard to believe Jimi just improvised that on the spot.

 

Actually, I changed it a bit. I had forgotten how Astro Man and Country Blues from January 21st were great.
Now it goes like this:

Gypsy Side
Ezy Ryder (Record Plant, New York, NY, 1969.12.18, v2) Cry Of Love
Stepping Stone (single, 70-01-07 studio, 70-02 mix) Voodoo Child: The Jimi Hendrix Collection
Izabella (v3) (single, 69-11-21 studio, 70-02 mix) Voodoo Child: The Jimi Hendrix Collection
Astro Man (Record Plant, New York, NY, 1970.01.21) Purple Box
Power Of Soul (Record Plant, 21 janv 70) South Saturn Delta
Message To Love (Record Plant, 1969.12.19) (Mix 2) The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Blues Side:
Lonely Avenue (November 1969 jam with Buddy Miles) West Coast Seattle Boy
Bleeding Heart (1969/5/ 21) People, Hell And Angels
Once I Had a Woman (Record Plant on Jan. 23, 1970) Blues
Hear My Train A Comin' (1969/5/ 21) People, Hell And Angels
Country Blues (Record Plant, New York, NY, 1970.01.23) Purple Box
Burning Desire (Record Plant, 16 janv 70) West Coast Seattle Boy
Earth Blues (Record Plant, NY, 1969/12/19) (V2) The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Crazy what they came with in such a short time.

 

Imagine a studio Gypsys album in late 1969 , would there be the live album from the Fillmore shows ?

 

Short answer is no, but lots of moving parts there. If the three decided to use the studio tracks for the Capitol album, then they likely wouldn't have booked the Dec 31/Jan 1 concerts and we wouldn't have that version of Machine Gun.

They basically had one completed side (Message/Power/Stepping/Izabella/Earth), plus Ezy Ryder and Mirrors were good enough for most folks to release. Put some vocals on a take of Burning Desire, album's done. Deliver it to Capitol in Feb 1970, they're happy, Jeffrey's happy it's out of the way, Chalpin complains it's not the Experience...does Machine Gun ever come out? I have to think he included it in the sets from that point forward since it was so well received on the BoG album (Message had been evolving for over a year, so he'd been playing it before).

 

The 1/1, 1st show performance of "Machine Gun" is astonishing. The other three performances of the song from the Fillmore run are disjointed and less cohesive than the aforementioned album master; not that they are not very good in their own way with some fantastic passages, but none of them are nearly as consistent as the master. It is no surprise that Hendrix and Kramer earmarked the 1/1, 1st show version for the album -- it must have been pretty obvious from their review of the tapes that the band nailed that particular performance. I doubt Hendrix ever could have topped this version "Machine Gun" in the studio.

 

Absolutely. That was it, it never got any better than that. Other versions have interest, but this is how the song is meant to be heard.

Jimi didn't really have a chance to listen to the Berkeley tapes, but I wonder if he had, maybe he would've come to the same conclusion about Hear My Train A Comin' and found a place to release that as the definitive version.

 

was there ever a studio Machine gun session?

 

The Woodstock band cut at least two versions in Aug 1969 at the Hit Factory, one of those was used as the basis for the one on Midnight Lightning. Some interesting parts between the two, but generally unfocused. This is an instance where I could see making a composite version of the two takes, especially since neither one contains all the lyrics on their own.

Something I was thinking about last night after the BoG album talk above, another What If: What if the MSG show on Jan 28 didn't happen? Things came to a screeching halt that night (assign whatever or whoever you want as blame) and after that, he generally just worked on the live album and took some time off until April or so. Would they possibly have finished more of the tracks they were working on? We'll never know.

 

also, who knows, did they do that in the studio?
you could make an excellent studio album if Machine gun and Who knows were studio quality...
i can dream

 

I think the closest thing to a Who Knows studio version is the one from Baggy's that unfortunately was not included on Dagger release. I gather it was a late addition to the setlist and meant as a jam for the guys to play out a bit.

 

Yeah, I have my doubts as to whether that song would have ever been refined in the studio.

 

seems a few ideas were dropped early 1970 and a quick change of focus went on

 

It was a continuing evolution from the summer of '69. If you compare Woodstock, the BoG concerts, Berkeley, Atlanta and Isle of Wight, you see what stayed around and what was left off to the side. Izabella, Stepping Stone and Earth Blues got a lot of attention in late '69, then after the BoG shows they were kind of done. On the other hand, Message of Love became a staple through the end of his life, as did Machine Gun and Ezy Ryder

 

Very unlikely. That's the one track where Jimi really suceeded in giving away and filling the album with something that didn't hurt or cost him a lot; just a jam on a basic riff, with a scat vocal from Buddy to cover for a broken string! But it worked and is a wonderful example of the Gypsys at their best, that groove is to die for.

 

Perhaps he had sketched it out at home and did a rough jam in the studio before the tapes rolled... or maybe not. Jimi had such a head full of ideas.

That's why he was the greatest of all time.

 

I have a theory that it was some old, pre-fame tune that Billy already knew, but that's only a theory.