There has probably been no other rock music artist who has had more of their music released posthumously than Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix died in September of 1970 and since his death the music he made in his short life has been issued and reissued in many formats and in many ways.
For many years, under the official label of Experience Hendrix, his family has done a respectful job in putting out his music, chosen wisely in what unreleased music to put out and conceived projects that add greatly to our knowledge and understanding of what may be rock music’s greatest guitar player.
Hendrix was mercurial and mysterious and his music was not easily definable. These projects have helped round out the story and the untrodden road that Hendrix traveled. This new project, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision, doesn’t so much elucidate a particular side, or foremost time period of his music, as shine a light on the legendary recording studio he conceived and owned.
Electric Lady Studios was originally to be a performance space. That’s what it was when Hendrix and his manager Mike Jeffery bought it in 1968 when, after its initial incarnation as the Village Barn, it was named the Generation. It was located in downtown Manhattan in Greenwich Village and was an eclectic venue that hosted a variety of musical styles.
Eddie Kramer, a recording engineer who is legendary for his work with Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and even The Beatles, along with Jim Marron, encouraged Hendrix to shelve the idea of keeping it a performance venue and to instead turn it into what would be the first-ever artist-owned recording studio.
The vision was to create a truly state-of-the-art, acoustically and aesthetically cool studio nirvana that would allow Hendrix, or anyone, to record and create in a perfect environment with the use of the most up-to-date technology and perfect acoustics, primarily designed by a young Princeton architectural graduate named John Storyk.
This new 5 LP/1 Blu-ray box set is an audio-video insider’s view of the launch and early history of the studio, that brings to vivid life the vision Hendrix had for the studio that opened on August 26th, 1970 with a private party that included Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Ron Wood, and Patti Smith.
The box includes 39 tracks, 38 of which were previously unreleased, mastered by Bernie Grundman and with the vinyl pressed at QRP, in poly-lined sleeves. The Blu-ray includes 20 5.1 surround sound mixes of the entire posthumous First Rays of The New Rising Sun album plus three bonus tracks. It also includes the documentary Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision. All of the contents come in a sturdy, slipcase box.
The music on the five LPs is a mixed bag. While there are plenty of tracks that include vocals and seem like fairly realized takes, there are a lot of instrumentals, jams, alternate mixes, alternate versions, demos, truncated takes, false starts, sketches of songs, and a medley which takes up all of side two of album two.
Regardless, the excellent sound of the studio and of the original recordings and the yeoman work of the production and engineering team of Eddie Kramer and Chandler Harrod make for recordings to treasure. Kramer produced and engineered almost all of the music Hendrix originally recorded in his lifetime and having him work on all of these posthumous recordings through the years is one of the main reasons they have all been so well done.
The sound is so intimate it feels like Hendrix is right in the room with you. And in most cases, it’s not just Hendrix on his guitar and/or singing, but his collaborators of that period as well. The Jimi Hendrix Experience had broken up after three albums and while drummer Mitch Mitchell from the Experience remained as his drummer for these recordings, he recruited Billy Cox as his new bass player, replacing Noel Redding, who went on to form Fat Mattress.
Cox had a more fluid and funky style and this is particularly evident on “Dolly Dagger,” represented here with three different versions. Another more well-known song that also benefits from Cox on bass is “Freedom,” also presented with three different versions. Cox was the bass player on the one and only live Band of Gypsys album (with drummer Buddy Miles) in 1970, the last album released by Hendrix in his lifetime. Other musicians on this album include Steve Winwood and Chris Wood of Traffic on “Ezy Ryder,” Winwood on “Valleys of Neptune,” and The Ronettes on “Earth Blues.”
Another track here that is well known to many rock music fans is “Angel,” represented by two different versions. There’s a cover of “Further on Up the Road”, a blues song initially popularized in 1957 by Bobby “Blue” Bland, but which has been a favorite of rock guitar gods of the ’60s, including Eric Clapton. Like Jeff Beck, Hendrix also put a spin on Ravel’s “Bolero,” which is included here coupled with “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun).” All of the tracks here were recorded in June, July, and August of 1970.
Some of the music here has been reissued in various forms in the past, including Voodoo Soup from 1995, produced by Alan Douglas, and First Rays of the New Rising Sun from 2010. Twenty tracks included here were intended to be all or part of First Rays of the New Rising Sun, which would have been the next album from Hendrix if he hadn’t passed away in September of 1970. Instead, after Band of Gypsys, the next album of Hendrix music to be released was the first posthumous studio album from Hendrix: Cry of Love in March of 1971.
Even with the passing of Hendrix, the studio became much in demand. Early on The Who recorded Who’s Next there. After working on one song for Led Zeppelin III, Jimmy Page worked on the soundtrack album for The Song Remains The Same there and then the group recorded Physical Graffiti there. Stevie Wonder recorded arguably his best run of albums there (Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness’ First Finale).
Peter Frampton recorded his Frampton’s Camel studio album there and worked on the live concert recordings that would become Frampton Comes Alive and that album’s follow-up, I’m In You. David Bowie and John Lennon recorded “Fame” there, and two defining punk albums, Horses (The Patti smith Group) and Sandinista! (The Clash), were recorded there.
Just before the digital downfall of music would unfold, in the ’80s and ’90s the studio was still busy with artists as diverse as Public Image Limited and Santana, who recorded its multi-grammy winning comeback album Supernatural there. Through the early part of the century artists such as D’Angelo, The Roots, and Eryka Badu recorded ground-breaking albums there, but the studio fell on hard times and faced the same downturn that the other big-name recording studios in New York and elsewhere were facing in the age of home portable studio setups, Pro Tools, and other computer-based recording. The studio has since rebounded and gone through a very exciting period of revitalization with artists such as Lana Del Rey, John Mayer, and Daft Punk recording there.
The studio was also the depository of master tapes Hendrix had recorded at various studios, primarily in New York, as he owned his master tapes. This box set chronicles in various ways and in some cases great detail the birth and initial stages of the studio and why it is so integral to the Hendrix story. There isn’t a serious Hendrix fan alive who wouldn’t want to own this box.
The 48-page booklet includes essays, detailed liner notes, and track annotations, photos, memorabilia, studio log notes, tape boxes, and extensive blueprints, and additional pictures that chronicle the conception and building of the studio that will have anyone interested in recording studio history or construction salivating.
This box set is a true labor of love. As big and grand as it is in some ways, it presents a very personal look inside the visionary musical mind of one of rock’s most visionary and revolutionary all-time artists.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
