Some of the Winterland songs are on Concerts but only Fire and Wild Thing, you'd need LAW as a compliment to Concerts (or vice versa) War Heroes does have its barrel scraping moments (looking at you Peter Gunn) but has enough to make it almost legitimate. It was 2 B-sides away from a solid record. Isle of Wight is sparse but a lot of people like Carlos Olms' mix on the material compared to Blue Wild Angel.
I suggest getting Cry Of Love, Rainbow Bridge and War Heroes in that order, as an intro to the post-EL studio recordings. Voodoo Soup is a good idea if you want one man's (Alan Dougals') view of how it should have gone. First Rays has *most* of the important songs but a horrible track order and sounds pretty bad, along with the boring cover and missing bits of song intros. On the other hand, if you use Deezer, Spotify or Apple Music to stream I could make a playlist of all the important songs for you, with a track order heavily influenced by Jimi's works-in-progress ones.
Memory being a terrible thing, I checked my CDs (all boxed up after the last house move, but I ripped them for when I was working away). Turns out I have Cry of Love, War Heroes, Rainbow Bridge and Band of Gypsys - I have no recollection of when I got these! Spinning Band of Gypsys now. Really good and it does sound familiar. I greatly prefer the more fluid bass style on the extended jams.
A nice summary by the OP, and the first three albums are obviously classics, but I think Smash Hits is really the place to start with Jimi for newbies.
The OP's list seems like a great primer. My first Jimi was Kiss The Sky in the late 80s, immediately followed by Axis and an LP of Smash Hits. Never looked back after that.
Hey I love Peter Gunn however I always lop off Catastrophe. It`s a fun in the studio interlude. Now if he had only given it the same treatment as Gloria.
That's Billy Cox for ya! Noel Redding was a guitarist by trade so it's no wonder his bass parts were not as natural. It's funny you have Rainbow Bridge, as the first (And only) CD of that was in 2014. Might be a boot.
Bonus tracks on all the most common CD issues. I mention it in the post. Same here ^ Outdated shorthand too! UK left the party early
If you see song titles like Hot Trigger, Good Times, Voice in the Wind, A Mumblin' Word, Two in One Goes, etc., you are looking at one of the many fakes in which Hendrix involvement is little to none. But the music is still good.
I used to get a lot of CDs from one shop in York that always had a rack with 5-6 titles for £5 each by various deep catalog artists - Nick Cave, Kiss whatever - 3 would be greats 2 would be duds usually. I'm guessing I grabbed a handful of Hendrix back in 2006ish. Probably a boot then.
The OP’s advice is what I did as a kid in the 80s figuring it out for myself — and it is still spot on for today. I went into a used record shop and asked the owner to play something by Jimi Hendrix for me (never having hear him). The swelling feedback from Foxy Lady was my introduction and I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It’s been almost 40 years since that day and I’ve loved his music ever since. As a guitarist, there is always something new to learn from Jimi - and as a listener, for me it never gets old.
Absolutely fantastic post OP!!! Im on mobile so I cant link it, but my very first posts on here were a thread where I tried to make sense of all the miscellaneous post death tracks and albums. That thread might be interesting for anyone interested in this stuff as well. Peace and love mate. All hail Jimi!
Noel's bassline for Hear My Train A Comin' is pretty essential to that song. When Bob Babbitt did his version on Midnight Lightning, it just didn't work. He did not make the same mistake on Machine Gun. Noel did have a tendency to either double the guitar part or keep things basic. But there are a bunch of times on AYE where there's some pretty complex stuff for a guy who just picked it up.
If I was to recommend to a beginner buying vinyl I would choose the following - First - the first 3 studio albums plus Smash hits Second - Hendrix in the West Third - First Rays of the Rising Sun and Valleys of Neptune This is enough for at least a few months to absorb, then buy Band Of Gypsies which I personally find a tough listen, If that`s still not enough for you by then, just pick up everything else you see
