Other than Heaven Has No Sorrow, Lord I Sing the Blues and the Black Gold material, can you think of any other significant studio material that has not yet been released by EH?
The few bits from the Douglas era that need to be reissued, a few things from TTG and the BoG sessions. There’s not a lot left, but it isn’t nothing. I think I worked out a 2 CD set at one point would handle the leftovers. If EH had started a more comprehensive approach with AYE 50th, I wouldn’t want another catch all 4 CD box, but in lieu of that I’ll take one at this point.
If you have a list of the specific tracks you're thinking of it would be great if you could post it here
Suddenly November Morning was great, I’m glad we got it, I just wonder how many more unheard gems like that there are on the tape. Despite all of the fans who think Janie Hendrix is some sort of evil mastermind pulling strings behind the scenes to maximize the value of finally releasing the full Black Gold tape in 2045, I suspect that, if the rest of the tape were as good as Suddenly November Morning, we’d have heard it by now. This isn’t like the Royal Albert Hall movie, where some third party is keeping Experience Hendrix from releasing it. If there were more good tracks, she would have already dribbled more of them out on Both Sides of the Sky, an album where they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel, or some other “new” release.
I've heard rumours that they don't want to release 'Little Red Velvet Room' because it supposedly references Jimi's daughter Tamika. How true that is I couldn't say. As for the overall artistic quality of BG....we all know we're talking rough-edged acoustic demos. They aren't going to set the world afire but Jimi's musical legacy isn't complete without them.
I'd love the outtakes featured on the two Out Of The Studio bootlegs in master tape quality to be honest. I'm floored that EH hasn't tapped these for a box set or an AYE deluxe edition yet.
Every 8 years or so Janie asks for another $20 mil(?) to license the catalog(+ publishing?) and dangle boxes/releases. We are getting BG one song at a time for marketing reasons. Isle of Wight Red House references his Swedish offspring who he was meeting(?) the next day.
I disagree with this stance. While Black Gold is most likely just acoustic demos of relatively low sound quality, it does contain at least a few original numbers that the general public has not heard, even the most dedicated fans have not heard. That definitely makes it somewhat unique and I think it's continued presence in the vaults does help keep the fish biting at the hook so to speak when contract renewals come up. It is simply an item unlike anything else in the archive and it's name alone can illicit a certain excitement among fans.
If Jimi Hendrix were alive today, he’d be 79 years old. His original fanbase dies off every day, every year. Physical media sales go down every year. Holding on to these gems indefinitely, year after year, in order to one day “excite” a fanbase that shrinks every year doesn’t make any sense. I personally bought Valleys of Neptune and People, Hell, and Angels on vinyl, but passed on Both Sides of the Sky, because I felt the last album was heading towards scraping the bottom of the barrel. Why they would withhold something so great for five or ten years down the road makes no sense to me.
This ^^ EH are running out of time to release Black Gold. Your average 25 year old kid has little to no interest in Jimi
I guess they can release it five or ten years from now, when CD sales have dropped even further, and even more of Jimi’s original fans are dead. I’m sure some people will still be interested in it then, just not as many people as are interested in it today.
If you are the family of Jimi Hendrix and huge sums of money were involved it would. Believe me, I am with you, I wish this stuff came out thirty years ago so I could have had that much longer to enjoy it, and I also agree that eventually the fan base will dwindle off significantly, probably in the next 10-15 years. But lets say Janie had decided back in the late 90's to unleash all the top material, sure a large amount of people would have bought it and loved it and it would have reflected significantly on Jimi's legacy. But there are some reasons to hold stuff back. Because Sony, and MCA before them are basically bidding on the right to release Hendrix material. If the best stuff or most interesting stuff was let out right away and what was left was Stockholm '69 and Hollywood Bowl '68, how much money do you think those labels are offering? It's sad as fans, but it's economics. Jimi is long gone and more material can't be created so his family has done what they have to maximize value off his catalog, no different than any other business does, except when it comes to art people cry foul about it. I suspect as you have stated they are aware about the laws of diminishing returns and that we will start to see some of the upper echelon stuff being released in the next 10 years, in fact I believe we have already started to see some of that trend with The Gypsys set and Maui in the last two years, which easily could have been spread out over a couple of different releases.
- Nine To The Universe - Midnight Lightning (as on the Freak Out Jam bootleg) - World Traveller (as on the Freak Out Jam bootleg) - Astro Man (the 11 minute jam as on Radioactive's Studio Outtakes Vol. 3) - 1966/67 studio takes of Wild Thing and Like A Rolling Stone?
Janie thinks he's an evergreen artist like Mozart, Salvadore Dali, Escher or Orson Welles., and she's not entirely wrong. RAH and other unseen footage they are sitting on may get new fans down the road. Janie's refusal to license his music out to TV/Movies(not TV ads) is a big mistake right now.
I find it strange that the studio takes of Like a Rolling Stone are so unsatisfactory they have been held back for so long. The live versions absolutely kill it, how could a studio version not be at least interesting enough to see the light of day? It's not like they just took one rough pass at it either, seems like they legitimately tried to get a solid version down, possibly for inclusion on an album or a single. I'm just so curious to hear what they are conceivably lacking.
Is Black Gold really going to get EH “huge sums of money” in the next contract negotiation? Holding on to an asset whose value drops every year makes no sense to me. If they ever put out the full Black Gold tape, I’ll buy it, of course, but I’m not buying another four-CD box set with one more new Black Gold track tacked on at the end as a bonus. I’ll stand by what I said before: if this tape was really so great, it would have been released already, to make the “huge sums of money” it could supposedly make.
I think Jimi would already be pretty disgusted by all the gold digging. I hope nothing gets dredged this year.
I agree that Jimi is of course an evergreen artist. There will always be people interested in Jimi Hendrix’s work. There will just be fewer of those people than there are now. Are Orson Welles’s movies number one on Netflix or iTunes right now? No, they are not. Maybe they’re generating some revenue on the Criterion Channel, maybe some people are renting them on iTunes, I’m sure that’s the case, but, while a subset of cinephiles will always be interested in Citizen Kane, the time to make “huge sums of money” from Orson Welles’s work has come and gone. If Experience Hendrix waits ten more years to release Black Gold, it will generate some interest and income, I’m sure. Just less interest and income than it would if it were released today. Or if it had been released ten years ago. The Royal Albert Hall footage is a wholly different thing, because there’s a third party with some power to block its release, trying to negotiate a better deal for himself or his heirs. Experience Hendrix could unilaterally decide to release Black Gold tomorrow.
Jimi didn't tape over bad go-nowhere jams on expensive reels - he kept everything. Jimi gave Mitch the Woodstock white strat and exclusive audio for simple practical reasons, and possibly as a golden parachute if everything went sideways. It doesn't justify plundering the vault, but it does show it's not clear cut as everyone thinks. Jimi also knowingly allowed 7 shows in 1970 to be filmed - 10 if you count FE/Dallas/LA.
We do agree on the closing window for releasing this stuff. It's hard to argue with results though, EH has gotten huge contracts for the rights to release their archives. However as you and others have pointed out, during this last Sony tenure, interest in some of the releases has started to fall. Valley's of Neptune was quite well received a decade ago, but each release since saw sliding sales down to and including Both Sides of The Sky which even many Hendrix obsessives seemed lukewarm about, and of course you also had the ELL 50th issues. So what's happened since then? Releases of two of the most sought after collections in the vault that have been teased and trickled out over the past two decades. These labels at the moment Sony pay an amount they see the archives as being worth for the contract. If sales start to dip below expectations they may request EH release more high profile material, or they may when this contract is up offer less for the next contract. If you are correct the market is going to seriously dip in the next few years, and I believe you are, then we will start to see this stuff sooner rather than later. But it's hard to argue the right move financially was to release this stuff years ago as they've been making huge dollars off these contracts as well as sales off other items for over 20 years now. I think they are well aware of this. Which is why The Gypsys set came all at once instead of just individual show releases like they did with Machine Gun. And after years of talking about it and hinting at it Maui came, both sets complete in one with a documentary and video, something in the past that could easily have been split into different releases. Now Dagger is starting to be revived after spending most of the last decade dormant and RAH is getting some attention again. I think they have seen the writing on the wall and realize that this next decade is probably the last chance to really maximize sales for this material.
I have a huge Hendrix collection. I passed on Both Sides of the Sky and Electric Ladyland 50th, and bought the Songs for Groovy Children box and Maui. I’m at the point where a new Hendrix release is no longer an automatic buy for me. I have a lot of Hendrix records already, and they’re going to have to knock it out of the park for me to buy more “new” product. If they release the entire Black Gold tape while I’m still alive, I’ll pre-order it on day one. But I’m not going to buy a barrel-scraping box set or Both Sides of the Sky, Part 2, just to get one more new Black Gold track.
I’d take just one version just to see how they did. Of course, if they have several takes with good pieces in each...nah, they’d never do that.
I viewed BOG-FE and Maui as copyright protection, just like the RAH airing. PD companies have other "unprotected" Jimi stuff but harder to sell/compile - plus Jimi junkies already trade it. The mid 1990's 12 year Janie deal was $50mil. The more recent 8 year deals must be in the $15-20mil range. I only buy Jimi stuff if there's music/video I don't already have or it's a notable upgrade. Many of the RSD singles, color vinyl I just skip and I don't want to encourage "fluff" repackaging over new vault goodies. I didn't upgrade Monterey to blu because I'm not sure it's enough of a jump - and I have blu glimpses to compare to my 2007 DVD. I' used to get all Jimi on CD and vinyl, but have been CD only for the past 7-8 years. Netflix paid several million for Other Side of the Wind. Kino announced Orson's Touch of Evil on 4K UHD disc the other day. Criterion have given a couple of his minor later works the full blu-ray standalone treatment. Jerry has already lost million of potential revenue by sitting on RAH. The late Paul Allen would have given him $20million for it a decade or two ago without blinking an eye. I think it's ego/trying to connect himself to Jimi that's motivating Jerry's self-defeating business decisions. Look what Jerry says about Jimi(0:25-0:35) in this current music documentary trailer. Even with OG Jimi fans dropping off the grid, using black Gold to dangle 1 rarity every couple years is a the better business model. Blunt truth. While were here, anyone else think the Maui doc may turn off some younger/newer fans due to all the hippie nonesense?
That seems to be fairly typical of many of the fans. I skipped ELL 50th but did buy Both Sides of the Sky. There is some stuff there I like, but I much prefer VoN and PHA. Ultimately I think the softer than expected sales and tepid reaction to those two releases was probably a motivating factor in The Gypsy's and Maui sets being the next two releases which were almost universally well received, however there were copyright factors as well that most likely played into it. That's why I think 2021 will be a really interesting and revealing year for EH. Now that copyright no longer plays a role on any of this material, their decisions are based simply on marketability. If they use this year to release another top shelf release then I think it's likely we will see that trend continue now as they've come to the conclusion that we have that the market is slowing down and soon may be just a fraction of what it once was. If on the other hand they go with something lightweight that may be an indication of them feeling some material is still more valuable unreleased for the time being. Does anyone know when their current contract with Sony expires? It was signed in July of 2017 and was the second contract with Sony with their first being signed in 2009, but I can't seem to find the duration. MCA had the contract from what 97-08? Then the first Sony deal was 2009-2018? So maybe they are ten year deals? If that's the case I could see EH holding back at least some key items in hopes of another lucrative contract in 2027 or so.
