Jimi Hendrix "Songs For Groovy Children" 5CD Box Set of '70 Fillmore East Concerts Due Nov. 22, 2019

A drummer that I think would have fit perfectly with Jimi's style of playing is Michael Shrieve (Santana).

 

Yes, true, it is San Diego Red House people usually choose (Randall Island is the second choice). From RAH, it is Little Wing and Purple Haze (not Red House). And when it comes to Monterey, besides Like a Rolling Stone (where Winterland is more often prefered), they sometime pick Killing Floore. I mostly curious if the material released in the laste decade or so changed anything.

 

Or Lenny White!

 

Excellent choice. I also think Jack DeJohnette would have been a good choice.

 

I'd like to hear what Idris Muhammad (Leo Morris) or Billy Cobham could do with the Band of Gypsies material.

 

Here is Idris Muhammad's version of Power Of Soul.

 

Nicely written, and I too would call it "swing" not funk. And agree about the importance of Billy's presence.

I like both these drummers, especially early Mitch, but my favorite period of Jimi's work is BOG and some of the studio beyond, and I find Billy and Buddy such a wonderful team for him.

 

At last, someone has got it!

"Buddy is more of a rock drummer." - Jimi Hendrix

 

As much as I disdain Douglas, he did a fine job with Nine to the Universe. Amusingly, McLaughlin blames Douglas for ruining Devotion. “In 1969, I sign a contract in America for 2 records. First is 'Devotion' that is destroyed by producer Alan Douglas who mixes the recording in my absence.”

Alan Douglas - scapegoat or saboteur?

 

I like Jack DeJohnette as well. Never thought of him as someone who might play in a Hendrix band.
I know he is still playing. Looked him up and he was born the same year as Hendrix.
Those two might have actually worked together well.

 

I wonder what a Jimi Hendrix / Larry Young / Jack DeJohnette trio would sound like.

 

Aynsley Dunbar also would have been a good fit (and apparently lost the gig to a coin flip).

 

The full Young/Hendrix jam on West Coast Seattle Boy is one of my favorite things Hendrix ever did.

I think Hendrix could have more than held his own on a fusion record such as Bitches Brew.

 

Bill Ward would have been incredible with Jimi. Bill could swing, play blues, rock, etc. Bill could do it all.

 

And I wanted Jimi Hendrix / Paul McCartney / Miles Davis .

 

I think Paul would have been out of his element. He wasn’t an improvising player and in time his bass skills kind of evaporated. I would have loved James Jamerson.

 

Jack Cassidy would have been a good fit on bass.

 

Miles' instructions to Jack in 1970 was to play like Buddy Miles but with technique, which Jack had a lot of of course.

 

An under the radar, great idea. I always thought Ginger Baker would have been a good musical fit, but personality-wise, it never would have worked. Ward would have brought something similar to the table musically, but likely would have been a better overall fit.

 

I dig Buddy Miles' contribution both singing and drumming-wise. My take is that the BOG is able to do some really tight unison accents with Buddy that don't happen in Mitch's live stuff that I've heard. I don't hear sloppiness in his Buddy's playing at all - he's tight-sounding to me. There are also a couple of BOG passages where I hear Jimi playing really rapid fire leads - shredding almost - that I don't perceive in his live shows with Mitch.

Bottom line is it would've been great for Jimi to be around longer so we could hear him in a variety of contexts. (I was thinking of Bill Ward too - that would've been a good pick IMO).

 

Yes!!!
I love Jack's style of playing. I always felt that he held back a little when sitting in with Hendrix.

 

Yes, problem with Devotion is we don't have a non-Douglas version to compare with. It's certainly not a "ruined" album, unless the unedited version was a even more of a masterpiece. Probably John was just upset that Douglas did edits without his involvement.

 

re: 1st set

If the 3rd set kind of took a little bit of a hit in my regard for it, the first set has risen...significantly. Which is odd because we've had the set for a few years now and there doesn't seem to be any kind of sonic change to it compare to Machine Gun (I'll go by what others have noted about the specifics). But when taken into regard compared to the other sets, it stands out in that there doesn't appear to be any issues with the instruments that affect the performance aka no tuning problems!

Supposedly when Jimi and Eddie went to review the tapes, the mics didn't work for the first two songs, Power of Soul and Lover Man. As we found out three years ago, they were there just fine, which brings up the question of what tapes were those (again with the tapes!) Power is a decent first time performance, while Lover Man is as good as it would be until Berkeley. Hear My Train is probably among the top 5 versions of the song, it would've been a great choice to start off side 2 of a Buddy-less BoG. Changes is a more grounded version than the one(s) the next night, talking about what a girl had done. Then we get the full Izabella/Machine Gun two-fer for the first and seemingly only time. If the version the next night hadn't been as incendiary as it was, this duo would've been a solid enough replacement.

Stop here is probably the second best version, even though it's totally in tune. Ezy Ryder makes its debut and yeah, it's not quite done, put it back in the oven. Not sure what made Jimi revive Bleeding Heart live for the only other time apart from RAH (and his early days with Curtis Knight), but it worked here. Does make me wonder what a Buddy drummed Red House could have been. By process of elimination, this is the best version of Earth Blues we have as a whole (the playing on the 1/1 early set is phenomenal, but the first part of the song being woefully out of tune takes it out, while the last set version has a bunch of missing words). Then at the end, if this was the only version of BD we ever got, it'd be good enough (I think the next night's was a little better).

So as a whole, this set works the best from top to bottom. Hard to believe Hear My Train was the only thing somewhat strongly considered for the album (and how is it that this one song was around for them to use on BoG2 in the 80s when everything else was "missing").

We can't quite close the book on the Band of Gypsys, but this'll do for now. I am a little surprised we didn't get any singles off of this like Message of Love from 2nd set (and an excuse to release those excluded songs), but they didn't do anything from the ELL box either. Maybe it's the new status quo: singles from albums, but not boxes...until it changes. We also didn't get a big publicity push...or ANY publicity push for that matter. Posting videos is fine but not a replacement for people talking it up. The same people John & Eddie talked to last year for ELL would've had them back in a heartbeat for this. And the box really should have had an essay from John about the nuts and bolts stuff along with the other two (though to be honest the video of Nelson George's essay on the website now works better than the printed version). But overall this was a solid effort.

 

That's a great breakdown of the 1st set. Even though EZ Ryder isn't quite done ,I really like the energy /fire of that 1st set version. Agreed that Hear My Train is a scorcher , definitely a top 5 version in my opinion.

 

I loved the Hendrix version of Hear My Train that was played by the Dick Cavett show, the 12 string version is also good but the studio version I didn't like very much.