Producer: Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Kramer, Janie Hendrix, John McDermott
Release Date: March 5, 2013
Recorded: March 1968 – August 1970 at Record Plant Studios, Hit Factory, Sound Centre and Electric Lady Studios, New York City and
Fame Studios, Muscle Shoals, Alabama
Label: Legacy Recordings
Genre: Rock, Electric Blues, Blues Rock, Classic Rock, Hard Rock
Duration: 105:51
Jimi Hendrix:
Wikipedia:
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music".
Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and trained as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division; he was granted an honorable discharge the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the Chitlin' Circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after being discovered by Linda Keith, who in turn interested bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals in becoming his first manager. Within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience: "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", and "The Wind Cries Mary". He achieved fame in the U.S. after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached number one in the U.S.; it was Hendrix's most commercially successful release and his first and only number one album. The world's highest-paid performer, he headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 before his accidental death from barbiturate-related asphyxia on September 18, 1970, at the age of 27.
Hendrix was inspired musically by American rock and roll and electric blues. He favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in utilizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He helped to popularize the use of a wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock, and was the first artist to use stereophonic phasing effects in music recordings. Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone commented: "Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began."
Hendrix was the recipient of several music awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1967, readers of Melody Maker voted him the Pop Musician of the Year, and in 1968, Rolling Stone declared him the Performer of the Year. Disc and Music Echo honored him with the World Top Musician of 1969 and in 1970, Guitar Player named him the Rock Guitarist of the Year. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Rolling Stone ranked the band's three studio albums, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland, among the 100 greatest albums of all time, and they ranked Hendrix as the greatest guitarist and the sixth greatest artist of all time.
People, Hell And Angels:
Wikipedia:
People, Hell and Angels is a posthumous compilation album by the American rock musician Jimi Hendrix. The fourth release under the Experience Hendrix deal with Legacy Recordings. The tracks featured are previously unreleased recordings of songs that Jimi Hendrix and fellow band members (mainly the Band of Gypsys lineup featuring Billy Cox and Buddy Miles) were working on as the follow-up to Electric Ladyland, tentatively titled First Rays of the New Rising Sun. The majority of the recordings are drawn from sessions in 1968 and 1969 at the Record Plant Studios in New York, with a few inclusions from Hendrix's brief residencies at Sound Centre, the Hit Factory, and his own Electric Lady Studios.
According to Eddie Kramer, the engineer who recorded most of Hendrix's music during his lifetime, this will be the last Hendrix album to feature unreleased studio material. Kramer said that several as-yet-unreleased live recordings would be available in the coming years.. It was released on March 5, 2013.
AllMusic Review by Sean Westergaard:
People, Hell and Angels is a collection of quality studio tracks recorded (mostly) in 1968-1969 as the Experience was coming to an end and Jimi was renewing his friendships with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles, who appear here as sidemen on most of these tracks. The surprising thing about this set is not the sound quality (which is exceptional) or that these all sound like finished tracks, but the fact that even avid Hendrix bootleg collectors are unlikely to have heard most of this material.
A great version of "Earth Blues" kicks things off with just Jimi, Billy, and Buddy (whose drums were replaced by Mitch Mitchell on the Rainbow Bridge/First Rays version). It's a more forceful take than the other version and also has some different lyrics. "Somewhere" is also a different take than the one used for Crash Landing and, of course, contains the original rhythm section and not the egregious overdubs of Crash Landing. "Hear My Train A Comin'" and "Bleeding Heart" are both taken from Jimi's first session with Billy and Buddy from May of 1969. In the film Jimi Hendrix, "Hear My Train" is played slow on a 12-string acoustic and sung so sadly that you can actually see a tear on Jimi's face as he sings. This version is not only electric and taken at a faster pace than normal, but it's an angry song, this time with a killer solo. "Bleeding Heart" is nice and raw and has a VERY different arrangement than he ever performed live. "Let Me Move You" was recorded with saxman Lonnie Youngblood, who released a couple singles with a pre-Experience Jimi Hendrix on guitar. It's nothing more than an old-school soul jam except the guitar is way more out front. It's a decent track, but doesn't really fit in with the sound of the rest of the album. "Izabella" and "Easy Blues" are rare studio recordings by the Woodstock band (Jimi, Billy, and Mitch Mitchell with Larry Lee on second guitar and Jerry Velez and Juma Sultan on percussion). This version of "Izabella" is now the earliest known recording of the song, while "Easy Blues" is actually a nice jazzy instrumental (previously released in edited form on Nine to the Universe).
This version of "Crash Landing" has Jimi and Billy with what is essentially a pickup band. It sounds more like a work in progress than anything else on the set and contains many elements of what would become "Dolly Dagger." "Inside Out" may have been heard by hardcore collectors, but not in this quality. It was originally cut with just Jimi on guitar and Mitch Mitchell on drums, then Jimi added bass and a guitar overdub through a Leslie. It's a great tune and it's always exciting to hear Jimi's bass playing as well. "Hey Gypsy Boy" is very closely related to "Hey Baby," and may have been an early version. On this cut, Jimi's whammy bar work is quite interesting and not his standard dive-bomb approach. "Mojo Man" was actually a Ghetto Fighters tune, recorded at Muscle Shoals. Jimi laid down a couple guitar tracks on top of the existing mix for this track. Kudos to Eddie Kramer for grafting guitar parts on to a fully mixed tune and making it sound great (he really did a spectacular job on this entire set). It's a hot tune with nice syncopated horns, improved by Jimi's addition. The album closes with a brief studio take on "Villanova Junction Blues."
People, Hell and Angels certainly isn't the place to start your Hendrix collection, but collectors will surely want to hear this and it provides an interesting perspective on where Jimi's music was headed post-Experience.
Tracklist:
01. Earth Blues (3:35)
02. Somewhere (4:07)
03. Hear My Train A Comin' (5:46)
04. Bleeding Heart (4:00)
05. Let Me Move You (6:53)
06. Izabella (3:47)
07. Easy Blues (5:59)
08. Crash Landing (4:17)
09. Inside Out (5:09)
10. Hey Gypsy Boy (3:41)
11. Mojo Man (4:08)
12. Villanova Junction Blues (1:49)
All songs written and composed by Jimi Hendrix, except "Bleeding Heart" by Elmore James and "Mojo Man" by Albert Allen and Arthur Allen.
Personnel:
Primary Musicians:
Jimi Hendrix – guitars, vocals, (bass guitar in track 9)