A

Acoustic Demo
I’m off to a bad start alphabetically as this one has no real title. A short home recording from a Dagger Records release. Recordings of Jimi on acoustic are very rare. Officially, apart from this track, there is only the “Hear My Train A Comin” on “:Blues”. Some bootlegs reveal a few other acoustic doodlings.

Morning Symphony Ideas

 

Ain’t No Telling
If there is such a thing as an ordinary Experience number, then this must be it. Doesn’t quite make the grade like most of the band’s straight rock songs but it hurtles along with a rather dated backing vocal from Noel but rises to a great crashing climax. Love it.

Axis Bold As Love

 

All Along The Watchtower (Dylan)*
One of Jimi’s most accomplished works, where he perfectly conveys his love of Bob Dylans music. The Experience already had “Like A Rolling Stone” (and very occaisionally “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window”) in their repertoire, but Jimi gave it all for this song. The arrangement is just perfect, the guitar playing beautiful and it features one of his best vocal tracks (guitar man number one, okay, but Jimi was also a fantastic singer). He put most of the song together in London, where Dave mason of Traffic and Brian Jones of The Stones helped out (on acoustic guitar and percussion repectlively). Their contributions really do enhance the overall sound, with Dave and Jimi’s shimmering acoustic guitars blending in perfectly plus Brian’s clattering percussion giving that last perfect touch. The original Olympic Studios mix (with Chas Chandler at the helm) turned up later on the album “South Saturn Delta”. Back in the states, Jimi (forever the perfectionnist) refined that mix to produce one of his most outstandiing acheivements.
The song took on so much power as even Dylan himself took to performing the song as an echo of Jimi’s reading of it (check out the “Before The Flood” album with The Band). Here’s what Dylan had to say himself about Jimi’s version: “I liked Jimi hendrix’s record of this and ever since he died I’ve been doing it that way. Funny though, his way of doing it and my way of doing it weren’t that dissimilar. I mean the meaning of the song doesn’t change like when some artists do other artists’ songs. Strange though how when I sing it I always feel like it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way”
An anacdote here : one of Jimi’s girlfriends recounted that, once, when they were very hard up, Jimi nipped out with the last of the cash they had, to get a little food. Instead, he came back triumphantly with a new Dylan album, much to the fury of his hungry partner. Jimi even grew his hair like Dylan on the cover of “Blonde On Blonde” inventing in the process the “Afro”.

This song was used in a Renault Espace TV ad. (Other songs used for TV advertising purposes: “Crosstown Traffic” (Levis), “Little Wing” (Nike, BMW), “Ezy Ryder”(HSBC Bank), “3rd Stone From The Sun” (Audi).

Electric Ladyland
South Saturn Delta (Original Olympic Studios mix)

Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Johnny B. Goode Video Soundtrack (Atlanta Pop Festival 1970)
Live At The Isle Of Wight (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn

Jimi covered a total of five Dylan songs : “All Along The Watchtower”, “Like A Rolling Stone”, “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window”, “Drifter’s Escape” and “Tears Of Rage”.

All God’s Children
A gorgeous instrumental from June 1970 (which made its appearance on the 2010 box set) with a soft jazzy feel and some superb wah-wah soloing from the man.

West Coast Seattle Boy

And The Gods Made Love
Like on “Axis”, the opening track of “Electric Ladyland” is totally wierd. Jimi imagines what the title would sound like electronically. It was a nice idea to open that awesome album with this simulation of the ultimate act of creation.

Electric Ladyland

 

Angel
Jimi spent many years working on this love song. Handwritten lyrics from January 1968 have the song titled “My Angel Catherina” (Return of little wing)”. That came from the same notebook where he had also penned “1983 – A Merman I Should Turn To Be” which also featured the character of Catherina (i.e. Kathy Etchingham).
The final result (finalised by Kramer and Mitchell after Jii had passed away) is grandiose and quite moving, though not one of my favourites. Jimi told Emeretta Marks that the song came to him in a dream where his Mother appeared to him, as they passed in boats on the sea. Hence therefore the crashing wave sounds throughout the song.
On the “South Saturn Delta” album, the instrumental track listed as “Little Wing” (it was written on the tape box) is in fact an early rhythmic structure of “Angel”.
My favourite version of the song is “Sweet Angel” which appeared in an abreviated form (due to tape damage) on “South Saturn Delta” but complete on the MCA box set. With a primitive rhythm box accompanyment, it is the closest Jimi got to techno! Sorry about that one, couldn’t resist.
Another studio take with Jimi accompanied by Noel Redding and Buddy Miles (!) appeared in 2018 on the Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary edition.

“Angel” became a UK chart hit for Rod Stewart when he covered it in the early seventies. I remember being quite moved to see him miming to it on “Top Of The Pops”. Not a good cover version however, with its awkward boogie beat.

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
Lifelines/Jimi By Himself/West Coast Seattle Boy/Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (home demo)
Voodoo Soup (Alan Douglas remix)
South Saturn Delta/”The Jimi Hendrix Experience” box set (solo demo as “Sweet Angel”)
South Saturn Delta (demo with Mitch as “Little Wing”)
Both Sides Of The Sky (demo with Mitch – as “Sweet Angel)
Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (as “Angel Caterina”)

 

Are You Experienced
On the first album, this track picks up where “Third Stone From The Sun” left off, but this time Jimi is not an alien but a guru, inviting us to join his psychedelic experience. This is perhaps Jimi’s most Beatles inspired song, being very similar in subject and feel to Lennon’s “Tomorrow Never Knows” on “Revolver”. Jimi would sometimes play a little of that Beatles song during live performances (the 1968 Scene Club jam for example). In 1966, Lennon had innovated using backward tapes on that song and here Jimi and Chas adopt the same technique, with superb results. The track also sounds alot like “Srawberry Fields Forever” in texture.
A brilliant close to the stunning debut album. Check out the neat live version from the Winterland gigs on “The Jimi Hendrix Concerts”.

Are You Experienced
West Coast Seattle Boy (instrumental outtake)

The Jimi Hendrix Concerts
Winterland +3
Winterland (box set) – 2 versions
Live At The Hollywood Bowl

 

Astro Man
Standard 1970 Hendrix rock. Jimi was said to be tiring of the rock format, planning to expand the group towards jazz-rock or something we can only guess at. However, in 1969/70, has was churning out rock songs, which might seem a little “samey” for some, but they’re all good. “Astro Man” is in fact another great little song with a fun lyric about a super hero, “… flying higher than that old faggot Superman …”. At the beginning, Jimi puts in a tounge-in-cheek “Heeere I come to save the day !“, which was the battle cry of the cartoon hero Mighty Mouse (thanks to Scott for clarifying that for me). I believe Jimi was planning to incorporate this song into his “Black Gold” project.

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
MCA 2000 Box Set (Alternate)
Burning Desire (instrumental jam)

At Last… The Beginning
The working title for “And The Gods Made Love”

Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary

 

Auld Lang Syne (Traditional)
The Band Of Gypsys herald in the seventies at their New Years Fillmore gigs. Just before Jimi plays the song, you can actually hear the end of sixties happen in real time. A rehearsal version was released on a business-to-business Christmas single by Alan Douglas. That version was released to the public as mini album in 1999.

According to “The Hendrix Concert Files” by Hendrix specialist Tony Brown, on the 31st of December 1967 Jimi had played a thirty minute version of this at the Speakeasy Club in London !

Live At The Fillmore East (edited)/Songs For Groovy Children
Merry Xmas And A Happy New Year (studio rehearsal)

B

Baggys Jam
An instrumental jam from the Band Of Gypsys in preparation for the Fillmore gigs. It doesn’t come to much.

The Baggys Behearsal Sessions

Ballad Of Jimi – a.k.a. Ballad Of Jimmy a.k.a. My Best Friend (Curtis Knight)
This first showed up on the European version of the PPX/Capitol Curtis Knight/Hendrix album Get That Feeling. It was the opening song and it had started life as a demo in 1965 titled “Ballad Of Jimmy – My Best Friend”. That initial demo featured a lyric about the singer’s best friend Jimmy (nothing to do with Hendrix), who had died five years earlier in a car crash, leaving his girlfriend in sorrow.
In 1966, a studio recording was attempted. Then, during the summer ’67 Knight/Hendrix reunion sessions, Jimi added some wah-wah guitar doodlings to the recordings, with the 1966 vocal intact (versions without the vocal also turned up on various PPX exploitation albums over the years as simply “My Friend” – not to be confused of course with the song of that name on th Cry Of Love album!). 
Then, in late 1970 (after Jimi’s death) Chalpin and Knight decided to cash-in on the situation and came back to the version with Jimi on guitar and recorded a new vocal with lyrics about the memory of Jimi, and how he had predicted his own death five years earlier! Knight craftily tied this in with the release of his biography “Jimi” by inventing a story that these lyrics dated from the mid 60s, saying that Jimmy James had told him that he would be dead in five years time! The new montage of the song cropped up on many a Knight/Hendrix compilation over the years.
> In 2020, some 1966 takes with piano and a 1965 demo of “My Best Friend” appeared on the album No Business (Dagger Records).

Beginning (Mitchell)
Listed as “Jam Back At The House” on “Woodstock II” in 1971, (simply because Jimi had introduced it on the day by saying “We’d like to try this one we was jammin’ at the house…”),  the studio version first appeared on “War Heroes” in 1972. A driving jazzy instrumental attributed to Mitch Mitchell. On that Woodstock version, Jimi pushes the basic riff on and on, creating an almost hypnotic effect. Another version with posthumous overdubs turned up on the “Midnight Lightning” album.

War Heroes/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun

Live At Woodstock
Live In Maui

 

Belly Button Window
This intimate little blues used to fascinate me as it seemed that Jimi was predicting his own death rather than a rebirth. The song is about reincarnation and abortion, as a two month foetus muses about his return to the world. When Jimi began writing it, in May 69, he gave it the working title of “Mr. & Miss Carriage Esq.“. It closed the first posthumous release “Cry Of Love”, which added to its mystique.

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun

 

Bleeding Heart (Elmore James)
A nice choice by Jimi to include this Elmore James song in his repertoire. He had even parformed the song back in 1965 when he was with Curtis Knight And The Squires, as revealed on the album “Drivin’ South” (see Before Fame section). The song crops up again during the widely published jam with the McCoys at the Scene Club in 1968. The Experience also played the song live, as can be heard on the Albert Hall 1969 concert. Certain editions of those recordings listed the song as “Peoples, Peoples, Peoples” or “C Sharp Blues“. A studio recorded version from the Band Of Gypsys turned up on “:Blues” and they even performed it later during their first Fillmore set (as yet unreleased officially).
Jimi later used the Elmore James lyric over a new musical structure he had created (it first surfaced as the opener on “War Heroes”). Then it seems that he rewrote the lyrics and modified the structure of the song which turned out as “Come Down Hard On Me”.
Another funky but looser adaptation of the song turned up recently on the “Valleys Of Neptune” album, featuring a rhythm section of Billy Cox and Rocky Isaacs. It also came out as a vinyl single in the UK.
“An Evening With The Jimi Hendrix Experience” on the unofficial Purple Haze Records featured a live rehearsal of the blues “Bleeding Heart”.

Elmore James’ version was in fact called “(My) Bleeding Heart”.

Jimi hendrix: Blues
People, Hell & Angels (Hendrix arrangement)

War Heroes/South Saturn Delta (Hendrix arrangement)
Lifelines (extract without vocal track)
Valleys Of Neptune (arr. Hendrix arrangement)

Experience (Royal Albert Hall 24/02/69)
Machine Gun, Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 31/12/69)
Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead (Scene Club 68) – Unofficial
Drivin’ South (1965) – Unofficial

 

Blue Suede Shoes (Perkins)
Jimi evidently had a love of 50s Rock ‘n’ Roll: Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran, Leiber/Stoller and Carl Perkins here, with obviously Elvis in mind*, as with his cover of “Hound Dog”. On the (incomplete) “Loose Ends” version, an evidently stoned Jimi in fact does a brief imitation of the King when he apes “Trouble” and “Heartbreak Hotel” as the band begin the song. Alan Douglas later touched up that studio jam and put it on the ridiculous “Midnight Lightning” album.
*Jimi saw Elvis live on stage in the Fifties !

Loose Ends

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” box set (Berkeley soundcheck)

 

Blue Window

March 1969 again, at Mercury Studios in New York. This curiosity features Buddy Miles on drums, Billy Rich on bass, Duane Hitchings on organ and a brass section (Tobie Wynn, James Tatum, Bobby Rock, Tom Hall, and Pete Carter). A great jazzy jam which reminds me of what Frank Zappa did with brass on the superb “Grand Wazoo”. A pity that Jimi didn’t further develop this type of thing. The song is I believe also known as “Crying Blue Rain” (note also that in on “In From The Storm” Jimi uses that word play, singing “the crying blue rain was tearing me up …” Noel had in initially written a song called “Crying Blue Rain” and Jimi nicked the title (he did the same with “Midnight Lighning” another Redding idea.

Martin Scorcese Presents The Blues: Jimi Hendrix

Blues Jam At Olympic
A great wah-wah workout from Jimi with The Experience in February 1969.

Hear My Music

 

Bold As Love
I always loved the lyrics of this song with its imagery of colours such as “Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground…” or “Blue are the life giving waters, taken for granted”. A very poetic text for this beautiful epic which begins as a soft ballad and climbs (with a superb vocal track) to a soaring, almost classical, guitar crescendo. Jimi journeys triumphantly on, as a great album come to a close.

Axis Bold As Love
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” box set (Instrumental demo)

 

Bolero (a.k.a. Pride Of Man)
This isn’t a cover of Ravel’s “Bolero”, it is an unfinished instrumental track which Jimi planned to work on as the beginning of “Hey Baby”. After years of appearing on bootlegs, it finally turned up on the 2010 box set just before an alternate mix of that song.

West Coast Seattle Boy

Born Under A Bad Sign (Jones/Bell)
Another of Jimi’s idols, Albert King, gets the Hendrix treatment here, with obviously a nod to Cream who had also done an impressive version. Jimi had performed another Albert King song with Curtis Knight called“Travelin’ To California” (also listed as “California Night”) which perhaps was the musical basis for his own composition “Red House” (Elmore James’ “The Sky Is Cryin” was also an inspiration).

Jimi hendrix Blues

 

Bright Lights Big City (Reed)
A little 1968 jam with Paul Caruso which appears on some bootlegs. Jimi had also recorded (and sang) nice version of this Jimmy Reed song back in his Curtis Knight days (it’s on some of those Knight albums).

Burning Desire
A tortuous song put together during the Band Of Gypsys project but never fully realised. Perhaps my least favourite Hendix song.

The Baggys Rehearsal Sessions
Burning Desire
West Coast Seattle Boy

Live At The Fillmore East (Fillmore East 01/01/70)
Machine Gun (Fillmore East 31/12/69)
Songs For Groovy Children (both Band Of Gypsys performances at the Fillmore East)

 

Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
After three stunning singles Jimi showed another aspect of his music with this complex classical -inspired epic of a song. It seemed too huge to be contained on a 45 r.p.m. piece of plastic. This is no longer the swaggering independant space rocker speaking, as Jimi’s lyrics talk of loneliness and despair (“… its a little more than enough to make a man throw himself away”). Electrified harpsichord melts into searing distorted guitar, matching the singer’s desperate vocals. A gigantic track which Jimi was obviously very fond of, as he included it on “Electric Ladyland” (released over a year later), perhaps because he felt that it really deserved a cleaner pressing for better separation. In the February 17, 1968 issue of Disc and Music Echo, talking about the third album to come, he told Hugh Nolan “I’d like to do another version of Burning Of The Midnight Lamp as well. I liked that song but I don’t think people really understood it. Maybe they will when we do it on the new L.P.” In the end, Jimi kept the original recording, deciding that the superior mastering and manufacture of Electric Ladyland would give his cherished song the correct aura.

Note that the 2010 re-release of “BBC Sessions” features a previously unreleased Top Of The Pops performance of the song, where Jimi sings a live vocal over a pre-recorded backing track.

> The celestial choir-like backing vocals on “Midnight Lamp” were by Aretha Franklin’s singers The Sweet Inspirations (thanks to the March 2004 issue of Uncut magazine for that revelation).

UK Smash Hits/Electric Ladyland
BBC Sessions (+”Top Of The Pops” version on the Sony re-release)
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” box set (outtake)

Calling Long Distance (Tivoli Gardens, Stockholm 4/9/67)
Stages 67 / “The Jimi Hendrix Experience” box set (Radiohuset, Stockholm 5/9/67)
Radio Tymes / “The Jimi Hendrix Experience” box set (“Dee Time” TV BBC show)

C

Calling All Devils Children
A crazy number (recorded in October 68) which begins with a Link Wray type grungy riff then goes into a driving rock tempo until Jimi shouts out his manifesto, as if at a political rally. Other musicians and hangers on cheer, jeer and fake a fight, as Jimi rants and raves. 27 takes were done of this can you beleive it. As it closes there is some atmospheric improvisation not unlike what he did on “3rd Stone From The Sun“. That ending is missing from the officially released version which fades out before the “drug bust” part (Experience Hendrix endeavoring to clean up Jimi’s image!).

West Coast Seattle Boy

Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window (Dylan)
Another Dylan cover from Jimi but only a brief inclusion in the band’s repertoire in 1967/68. Performed on stage also a few times (as some rough audience tapes attest). Our chance to hear it (officially) comes from the BBC sessions.

BBC Sessions

Can You See Me
One of the very first songs that Jimi wrote and another short sharp killer. Typical Experience thrash. This wasn’t on the US version of the first album but a slightly different version cropped up on the US “Smash Hits”. The Monterey version is pretty neat too.
Those big “twangs” that come just before the vocals always made me laugh as a kid, as though he broke a string each time. It is the US “Smash Hits” version (with Jimi saying “You can’t see me” over the closing drum roll) which has been used on the CDs. The original mono version was finally re-released in 2010 on the West Coast Seattle Boy box set.

UK Are You Experienced
US Smash Hits

Live At Monterey
EXP Over Sweden (Tivoli Gardens, Stockholm 24/05/67)

 

Captain Coconut
In 1971 John Jansen was searching through the left over tapes for tracks to use on the “Rainbow Bridge” film soundtrack (not for the album of that name). He got carried away and created this collage of three interesting but unrelated guitar explorations. It begins with a Hey Baby-like intro then goes into a passage that had “MLK” written by a sound engineer on the tape box (uncomfirmed that it had anything to do with Martin Luther King) which appeared years later unretouched on Hear My Music (Dagger Records), he then added an instrumental that surfaced later as New Rising Sun (on Voodoo Soup then West Coast Seattle Boy). Eddie Kramer caught Jansen at it and told him to pack it in. Later, Alan Douglas found it, presumed it was authentic and put it on “Crash Landing” ! Ooops.

 

Castles Made Of Sand
Jimi takes his songwriting to another level here as a storyteller, with this hypnotic reflection on destiny and death. In the final lines a crippled girl is rescued by a UFO as she considers suicide. The backward tape of guitar, like on “Are You Experienced” adds to the songs ambling poetic feel. Wonderful.
In the “Uncut Story” DVD, Leon Hendrix tells us that the song is really about the disolution of the Hendrix family. The “Indian boy” is him and the girl in the wheelchair is their Mother Lucille (young Jimmy and Leon had seen their Mother in such a chair just before her death).
This song has nothing to do with the “Castles In The Sand” by Stevie Wonder (in 1964).
The opening guitar parts are slightly longer on the mono mix.

Axis Bold As Love
West Coast Seattle Boy (instrumental outtake)

 

Cat Talking To Me
This is an interesting studio outtake. It’s a driving instrumental from the Experience during the “Axis” sessions period. It seems to have enough structure to have been further developped by Jimi never came back to it.
In 1988, Chas Chandler overdubbed a spoken vocal by Mitch. He speaks as an alien observing Earth (like with Jimi’s mutterings on “Third Stone From The Sun”). That turned up in 2010 as track two of the “Valleys Of Neptune” single.

West Coast Seattle Boy

 

Catfish Blues (Traditional Arr. Hendrix)
Another Experience blues workout. I first heard this when BBC disc jockey John Peel introduced the version recorded in their studios as “Experiencing The Blues”, being perhaps what Jimi had called it on the day. He also called it “Muddy Water Blues”.
Catfish Blues” was already a “blues standard” having been performed by many bluesmen right back to Robert Petway (and beyond I trust). Jimi’s interpretation is close to Muddy’s version (which he titled “Rollin’ Stone”). There is also some of John Lee Hooker’s “Alberta” in there and “Rollin’ And Tumblin” from Muddy again. The old Michael Fairchild “Jimi Hendrix: Blues” booklet had a thorough run down of this one (the text is no longer used in the booklet). This song was a regualer feature in The Experience’s set list through 1967 but Jimi would soon drop it in favour of his own blues compositions “Red House” and “Gettin’ My Heart Back Together” (a.k.a. “Hear My Train A Comin”) which was quite similar in feel to “Catfish Blues”. Then during the sessions which led to “Electric Ladyland”, Jimi came back to the basic blues riff of “Catfish Blues” with new lyrics as it became the mammouth “Voodoo Chile” jam with Steve Winwood and Jack Casady.

On Johnny Winter’s 1969 album “The Progressive Blues Experiment” he plays the song as “Tribute To Muddy”.

BBC Sessions
JImi Hendrix: Blues (Berkeley)

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” box set (Paris Olympia 1967) / Paris 67
Calling Long Distance/Blues (Vitus TV Studios, Sweden 1967)
EXP Over Sweden (Tivoli Gardens, Stockholm 67)
Jimi In Denmark (Tivoli Koncertsal, Stockholm 68)
Stages 68 (Paris Olympia)
Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968 (San Francisco)
Paris 67
Live At The Hollywood Bowl – August 18, 1967

  

Cherokee Mist
The title evokes Jimi’s indian origins for this instrumental which he never properly defined in the studio.
Another can be heard on “Both Sides Of The Sky” and “Lifelines” (and some unofficial releases) which features an indian drum beat, some sitar sounding guitar and Jimi playing wild feedback patterns. I imagine it was that version that Jimi had pencilled in for inclusion on his 1970 album. The version on the MCA box incoporates riffs from “Freedom” and “In From The Storm”.
The track of this name on the unofficial “Axis Outtakes” is not in fact “Cherokee Mist” at all but a fake Hendrix track (see “God Save The Queen”).

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” box set
Jimi By Himself/Lifelines/Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (home demo)
Jimi By Himself (“Cherokee Jam” – home demo)
Burning Desire
Lifelines (extract)/Both Sides Of THe Sky (indian dum/sitar version)

 

Come Down Hard On Me
This first appeared in incomplete form on “Loose Ends” then reappeared retouched by Alan Douglas on “Crash Landing”. It was finally recycled on the MCA Box Set in its original form. A close listen reveals it to be the same musical structure as “Bleeding Heart” (first presented on “War Heroes”).

Loose Ends
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” box set

 

Come On (Let The Good Times Roll) (Earl King)
The first cover version to appear on a Hendrix record since the release of“Hey Joe”. A perfect song for the Experience to get their teeth into. They just tear it apart. Listed as just “Come On” on the original track album and as “Come On (Part 1)” on the Reprise edition.
Jimi is reported to have even played this song as a teenager with The Rocking Kings.

On some Curis Knight & The Squires Georges Club collections there is an instrumental bash titled “Hard Night” which closely ressembles “Come On (Part One)” and it is sometimes listed as such..

Electric Ladyland
Lifelines III (alternate take 1)
B-side of “All Along The Watchtower” Polydor France single 1991 (alternate take 2)

Country Blues
A year after the jams with Cox and Miles at the Record Plant (“Nine To The Universe”), the band are back at the same studio for this superb jam.
> The bootleg Spicy Essence (a.k.a. Jimi’s Private Reels Vol.1) features two apartment jams (with another guitarist) on the theme of Country Blues.

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set

 

Crash Landing
This was really an early demo that eventually became “Freedom”. Alan Douglas glossed it up as the title track of his first overdubbing exercise album. It was awful but the original version was released in 2013 on “People Hell and Angels” and isn’t bad at all.

Crash Landing (with postumous overdubs)
People, Hell & Angels

 

Crosstown Traffic
The Experience step on the gas for this tremendous hard rocking Rap. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers based a career on this one. Jimi’s vocals are so strong here, then Noel and Dave Mason come in for the chorus. Two minutes and ten seconds of pure exileration where Jimi brilliantly uses motoring terms as a metaphore for his emotional state about his cheating partner.
A chart hit in the nineties also after use in a TV Jeans ad.

Electric Ladyland

Crying Blue Rain
This slow blues jam from February 1969 received overdubs from Mitch and Noel in 1988 and eventually turned up on 2010’s “Valleys Of Neptune”.
It’s like a slowed down version of “Catfish Blues” in a way. 
> The jam “Lord I Sing The Blues For You And Me” has also been given this title (erroneously) on some bootlegs.

Valleys Of Neptune

 

D

Dance (Noel Redding/Mitch Mitchell)
This officially unreleased song with a Mitchell vocal featured a riff which Jimi would later develop as “Lullaby For The Summer” before incorporating it into opening riff of “Ezy Ryder”.
An instrumental version titled “Touch You” eventually appeared in 2011 on single (“Fire”, the “West Coast Seattle Boy” version) .

Day Tripper (Lennon/McCartney)
Cutis Knight and Jimi had recorded a version of this classic Beatles song in 1965 during the Georges Club sessions. Then in July 1967 Jimi came back to the tune during a jam at the Curtis Knight reunion session in New York. He only played bass however. Portions of that jam became “Flashing” and “Future Trip” on the PPX albums.
At the BBC, in December1967, the Experience layed down this great version of the song with Soft Machine’s Robert Wyatt on collective lead vocals with what must be Mitch and Noel also (and not John Lennon as some silly rumour claimed). Jimi just burns on this one, shouting away in the background and taking things to a screeching feedback climax and finally coming to the mike to confess“…Baby you just go to my head”.

Fascinating trivia: “BBC Sessions” revealed that just before going into “Day Tripper“, Jimi toyed with the opening riff to “I Want To Tell You” (a George Harrison song from “Revolver”).

BBC sessions

Dear Mr.Fantasy (Winwood/Capaldi/Wood)
A live jam at the Fillmore West 1968 where Mitch lets Buddy Miles take over on drums ! Unfortunately, whoever recorded this had to load new tape half way through.
The band had a long standing friendship with Traffic, Stevie Winwood and Chris Wood played on “Electric Ladyland” and on the later track “Ezy Ryder”. Dave Mason had played acoustic guitar on “All Along The Watchtower” and sitar on the Noel redding composition “There ain’t Nothing Wrong With That” (known in its instrumental form as “Little One“). Also, Wood and Mason guested on the “Room Full Of Mirrors” jam at the 1969 gigs at The Royal Albert Hall. A lengthy jam with Traffic members was also featured on an unofficial release. It is also said that Jimi secretly wanted Winwood to join The Experience, listen to “Voodoo Chile” to understand why.

A (poor) audience recording from a live performance in Dallas (1968) exists where Jimi opens his set with a version of this song with vocals !

Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968 (San Francisco)

 

Dolly Dagger
The riff at the beginning of this is like a variation on “Purple Haze“, then it settles into a great funky rhythm which brilliantly opened the second posthumous studio release “Rainbow Bridge” (unfortunately on “First Rays” it is lost in the mass). It is said to be about Jimi’s girlfriend Devon Wilson as Jimi jokingly refers to her one night stand with Mick Jagger ! Apparently, at a party Mick cut his finger opening a bottle or something and Devon took his hand and licked the wound. Hence the line “She drinks the blood from the jagged edge”. In the middle you can hear JImi say “Watch out Devon, gimme a little bit of that heaven.” The song didn’t come over at all well on stage but this finely crafted studio version with its rich multilayered funk is something else. Ghetto Fighters on backing vocals.
In the recent “Ultimate Hendrix” book by John MsDermott, Billy Cox explains that the song began with him mimicking Big Ben’s chime (Ding dong dang dong…”) on his bass one morning !

Alice Cooper nicked the opening riff of “Dolly Dagger” in the early 70’s for his “Elected” (a U.K. Number 1).

Rainbow Bridge/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun

Live At The Isle Of Wight – Blue Wild Angel
Live In Maui

 

Doriella Du Fontainne (Lighnin Rod)
A sort of proto Rap jam. Lighnin’ Rod of The Last Poets does his long rap and Jimi and Buddy Miles (on drums and organ) chug away behind and their parts are perhaps looped because what they play goes on with hardly a deviation from the basic rhythm.
When a 2011 re-of this song appeared, the label’s website stated that the vocal had been added in the 70s! I emailed Celluloid to get confirmation of this and they replied, telling me that Alan Douglas informed them that the vocals were done in 1973! Douglas had been assigned to handle the Hendrix recorded legacy in 1974 in fact, so we can assume that is what he meant to say. However in Corey A. Washington’s book “Black Legacy”, TaharQa Aleem (one of The Ghetto Fighters) says that he was present at the session with Jimi, Buddy and Lightnin’ Rod.
An extended instrumental version was on the flip side.
Later released on CD (see Singles Sleeves Part 3) and re-released on CD in 2011.

 

Dream (Redding)
A rare Noel Redding composition that didn’t mature. Very Beatles inspired.

Noel Redding – The Experience Sessions

 

Drifter’s Escape (Dylan)
Jimi just loved Bob Dylan and in 1970 he was working on this cover of a song which had appeared with “All Along The Watchtower” on the Dylan album “John Wesley Harding” of 1968. Jimi’s most finished mix appeared on “South Saturn Delta”. I prefer the “Loose Ends” version*. The curious abrupt ending sounds like a pneumatic drill cutting out.
*That version turned up on “Truth And Emotion” on the unofficial Purple Haze Records.

Loose Ends
Lifelines, South Saturn Delta (original mix)

 

Drifting
Similar to “May This Be Love”, this gentle ballad was finished off by Eddie Kramer and Mitch Mitchell with the addition of Buzzy Linhart on vibraphone which Jimi had considered, adding to the dreamy quality of the song.

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun

 

Drivin’ South (Albert Collins)
This flowing blues instrumental was an interesting addition to The Experience set list in 1967/68. Jimi had also played it before fame, as the Curtis Knight Georges Club tapes attest. In fact some listings have the song attributed to Curtis McNear (Curtis Knight!) but the source of the instrumental is Albert Collins’ “Thaw Out“. There are three versions of the song on the “BBC Sessions” collection (one of which ends abruptly as Jimi breaks a string !). See “Drone Blues” also.

> The McDermott/Kramer  book “Setting The Record Straight”, there is a mention of four-track demo of “Drivin’ South” but it perhaps refers only to the outtake that appeared on various bootlegs (including Axis Outtakes on Purple Haze Records) which breaks down and segues into a raggedy instrumental blast of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”..

BBC Sessions (3 versions)
Stages 68 (Paris Olympia)

 

Drone Blues
Jimi getting down to business in April 1969 for this jam which incorporates some of “Drivin South”. During these Record Plant jams, Jimi also jammed on the same theme with John McLaughlin (unreleased). The drummer here was not Mitch Mitchell as “Nine To The Universe” had stated, but Rocky Isaac. The jam appeared in its complete form on Dagger records 2004 release “Hear My Music”.

Nine To The Universe (edited)
Hear My Music

E

Earth Blues
Another great funky rocker from Jimi, this time with the legendary vocal group The Ronnettes* and Buddy Miles on the now usual soulful backing vocals.
Buddy did play the drums with Jimi on this initilally but in 1971 Mitch recorded his drums for the track instead.  The recording with the original drum track appeared in 2000 on the MCA purple box.
“Somewhere” (on the MCA box and People, Hell & Angels) has opening lyrics that Jimi used later used for “Earth Blues”.

*In her autobiography, Ronnie Spector recounted that she performed with the unknown Hendrix at the Manhattan club Odine’s in 1964. It was at a party in 1969 that she met Jimi again and ended up being invited (along with Estelle Bennet, her older sister and fellow Ronette) to perform backing vocals on this song.

Rainbow Bridge/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (alternate take)
Baggys Rehearsal Sessions (live rehearsal)
People Hell & Angels (live in studio version)

Live At The Fillmore East (Fillmore East 01/01/70)
Machine Gun (Fillmore East 31/12/69)
Songs For Groovy Children (all three Band Of Gypsys performances at the Fillmore East)

 

Easy Blues
Jimi, Mitch and Billy are joined by Larry Lee (who was part of the Woodstock band) for this superb jazzy instrumental jam! One of my favourite ever guitar instrumentals (with “Pali Gap”).
On the original tape, Larry Lee played a long solo at the beginning but this has been edited out of the officially released versions.

A small portion of it reappeared recently in the menu section of the Woodstock deluxe double DVD.

Nine To The Universe
People Hell & Angels (longer version)

 

Electric Church Red House
See “Red House”.

 

Everlasting First (Arthur Lee)
Jimi plays guitar on this track which opens Love’s sixth album. See “Guest Appearences” section. Apparently, Arthur Lee edited the recording to put Jimi’s solo at the very beginning. It is a rather odd construction.

Love – False Start
West Coast Seattle Boy (alternate version)

Everybody Knew But Me
A 1965 demo song with a pretty good vocal by Curtis Knight’s and some nice rhythmic backing from Jimmy.

No Business

 

Ex Art Student (John McGeogh)
Jimi plays lead guitar on this track which he helped put together for McGough & McGear of Scaffold fame. John McGough was a renowned poet and Mike McGear, who was good friend of Noel’s, was none other than Paul McCartney’s brother. Paul produced the album on which Mitch and Noel also appear as well as Graham Nash and other stars of the day. See “Guest Appearences” section.
Jimi also played on “So Much“, another song on the “McGough & McGear” album.

McGough and McGear

 

EXP
Beginning with the opening notes of “Stone Free” this joke interview (by Mitch with a distorted voice) of Jimi the alien visitor again, announces that the Wild Man is back. As his spaceship takes off we are deafened by swirling freedback. Jimi’s character is “a very peculiar looking gentleman who goes by the name of Mister Paul Caruso“*. Jimi and Noel created all this noise by feeding back their guitars and kicking them around on the floor of the studio. They originally called it “Symphony Of Experience”.
The live version (of fair audience quality) is interesting. Jimi and Mitch do the opening dialogue exactly like on the album track.

*The real Paul Caruso was on old friend of Jimi’s from his Greenwich Village days (he is interviewed on the “Jimi Hendrix” film soundtrack and on “The Uncut Story” DVD) and a pirate tape exists of him jamming on harmonica with Jimi. He has recently been attributed to the harmonica on “My Friend” (“Cry Of Love”/”First Rays”).

Axis Bold As Love

EXP Over Sweden (Konserthuset, Stockholm 8/01/68)

 

Ezy Ryder
The Band Of Gypsys let loose on this song inspired by Dennis Hoppers sucessful counter culture movie “Easy Rider” of 1969. The film had featured “If Six Was Nine” from “Axis: Bold As Love”. This song is standard 1970 Hendrix rock again and great stuff. Vibraphone is this time attributed to Stevie Winwood and Chris Wood of Traffic (who had both played on “Electric Ladyland” of course).

The intro riff had been layed down by The Experience as early as 1967, when they worked to complete a Noel Redding/Mitch Mitchell composed song called “Dance“. An instrumental version of this, titled “Touch You”, eventually appeared in 2011 on single (“Fire”, the “West Coast Seattle Boy” version) . The band remembered this riff and came back to it in 1969 with a jam now known as “Lullaby For The Summer” which appeared on “Valleys Of Neptune” in 2010.

Another band instrumental, known under the title of “Mushy Name” on some unofficial releases, later became the central bridge of “Ezy Ryder”. An exploration of that riff, can be heard on “Hear My Music” under the title of “Ezy Ryder/Star Spangled Banner” and on “People, Hell & Angels” as “Inside Out”.

The song has nothing to do with Big Brother And The Holding Company’s “Easy Rider” of 1967 or Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Easy Rider Blues” of 1927 !
“Ezy Ryder” was used to great effect in a TV ad. by HSBC Bank (spotted on BBC World)

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set
Hear My Music
Burning Desire (jam sequence)

Baggys Rehearsal Sessions
Machine Gun, Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 31/12/69 – 1st show)
Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 31/12/69 – 2nd show)
Band Of Gypsys 2/Jimi Plays Berkeley (Free CD with video)
Live In Maui
Live At The Isle Of Wight (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn

 

F

51st Anniversary
The flip-side of “Purple Haze” is Jimi’s assertion that he certainly ain’t ready to settle down with any chick, Man. It’s the only Hendrix song without a guitar solo but features some irresistible choppy rhythm guitar lines. For many years, only a purchase of the UK “Smash Hits” permitted to hear this little gem.

Smash Hits/Are You Experienced reissues on CD

 

Fire
Jimi the perfect pop star is back again with another driving rock classic. As pointed out in Sean Egan’s book, Mitch’s drumming here is fantastic. Noel also comes into the spotlight on a double tracked vocal singing each chorus as the band rock on in perfect cohesion. A long standing stage favourite of course and often a show opener. The legend goes, that it was on a cold night at Noel’s parent’s home, where Jimi asked if could stand closer to the fireplace, which coined the phrasing of the lyric. In his book Noel says that the ever polite Jimi had actually said “May I stand next to your fire ?” It was Noel’s Mother who always felt that the lyric in “Fire” came from that moment.
Pop perfection.

The famous line “Move over Rover and let Jimi take over” is Jimi’s cheeky sexual reference to an old joke that he liked to recite : “Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard to fetch her old dog a bone, But when she bent over, Rover took over and gave her a bone of his own!”

The 2010 box set, “West Coast Seattle Boy” features a superb “original mix” of the song, which boast a more dynamic and superior stereo to the version on that appeared on “Are You Experienced”.

Are You Experienced
BBC Sessions (live in studio recording)
Valleys Of Neptune (Royal Albert Hall rehearsals)
West Coast Seattle Boy (alternate mix)

Live At Monterey
Calling Lond Distance (Miami Pop Festival 18/05/68)
EXP Over Sweden (Tivoli Gargens, Stockholm 4/0967)
Stages: 67 (Stockholm)
Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968
Stages: 68 (Paris Olympia)
The Jimi Hendrix Concerts (Winterland 10-10-68)
Live At Winterland (Winterland 11-12-68)
Voodoo Child Compilation (Winterland 12-10-68)
The Last Experience
Jimi In Denmark (Falkoner Centret 10/01/69)
Live At Oakland Colliseum
Stages: 69 (San Diego)/In The West (Sony)
The LA Forum Concert (Lifelines IV)
Live At Woodstock
Cornerstones/Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Live Forever (Sacred Sources 1) (LA Forum 70)
West Coast Seattle Boy, Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 31-12-69 – 2nd show)
Band Of Gypsys 2, Somewhere CD single, Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 01/01/70 – 1st show)
Live At Woburn
Miami Pop Festival (2 versions)
Live At The Hollywood Bowl (incomplete)
Live In Maui
Live At The Hollywood Bowl – August 18, 1967

In 1968, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown had a big hit with a superb song bearing the same title, “Fire”. Inspired also by Jimi’s guitar burning, Arthur used to set fire to his head !

Flashing (Ed Dantes a.k.a. Ed Chalpin)
Part of the “Day Tripper” jam from the 1967 Curtis Knight reunion sessions. This appeared on the 1968 Hendrix/Knight rip-off album “Flashing”.

Flying On Instruments
See “Knock Yourself Out”.

 

Foxy Lady
After the first two singles, fans at the time, placed the first album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience on the turntable and, gently at first, all hell broke loose. The teasing, trembling drone explodes into a blast of feedback and Jimi delivers another rock standard. He plays his “Wild Man” role to the full as he drools over his female conquest. A live feature of Jimi’s concerts till the end. It is said that the foxy lady in question was Roger Daltrys girlfriend (whos name escapes me for the moment).
On the original mono mix (which is all the UK had until the early seventies), the line “Here I come baby…” is absent !

> Billy Cox recalled that when he heard “Foxy Lady” for the first time, he recognised the riff as being one that he and Jimi used to jam on, way back in their Nashville days, when they used to call it “Stomp Driver” !

Are You Experienced
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Alternate mix)
BBC Sessions

Live At Monterey
Stages: 67 (Stockholm)
EXP Over Sweden (Tivoli Gargens, Stockholm 4/0967)
Calling Long Distance
Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968
Stages: 68 (Paris Olympia)
Live In Ottowa
Live At Clark University
Live At Winterland
Jimi Hendrix Concerts (CD) / Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
The Last Experience (2 versions)
Live At Oakland Colliseum
Jimi In Denmark (Falkoner Centret 10/01/69)
Live At Woodstock
West Coast Seattle Boy (Fillmore East 31-12-69)
Band Of Gypsys 2 (Fillmore East 1-1-70)
Live At Berkeley
Soundtrack Recordings From The Film Jimi Hendrix
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Voodoo Chile compilation (Maui 70)
Live At The Isle Of White (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Live At Woburn
Winterland (box) – 3 versions
Live In Cologne
Miami Pop Festival (2 versions)
Live At The Hollywood Bowl (incomplete)
Live In Maui
Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
Live At The Hollywood Bowl – August 18, 1967

Freedom
A great rock song from Jimi’s final repertoire, which was presented in live performances on the last tours. In its early stages it was mixed up with future “Ezy Ryder” lyrics. Jimi went on to construct a superb finished master which opened the posthumous “Cry Of Love” album. Ghetto Fighters on soulful backing vocals again.

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (alternate version)
West Coast Seattle Boy (instrumental studio jam)

Jimi Plays Berkeley (Free CD with video)
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Live At The Isle Of Wight (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Live In Maui

Further On Up The Road (Don RobeyJoe Medwick Veasey)
I’m not sure if Bobby Bland wrote this, it’s a rhythm and blues classic that Jimi had a stab at during a studio session. Unfortunately he grinds it to a halt halfway through.

Unreleased officially

Future Trip
Another part of the “Day Tripper” jam from the 1967 Curtis Knight reunion sessions. This appeared on posthumous Hendrix/Knight rip-off albums.

G

Georgia Blues (Lonnie Youngblood)
This is again from the1969 Record Plant jams (March 19) but this time with Jimi’s old friend Lonnie Youngblood on vocals. It’s his band aswell it seems. Not to be confused with those awful Hendrix/Lonnie Yougblood albums.

Martin Scorcese Presents The Blues: Jimi Hendrix
Both SIdes Of The Sky

 

Get That Feeling (Knight Gregory)
Recorded in July 1967 at Studio 76 in New York during the Curtis Knight reunion sessions. Jimi is on a 6 string bass but still puts in some fancy playing.

Getting My Heart Back Together Again

See “Hear My Train A Comin”.

Gloomy Monday (Knight)
Recorded in August 1967 at Studio 76 in New York during the Curtis Knight reunion sessions. It’s not a bad little song and Jimi drives it along with some great rhythm playing. Unfortunately his solo is a little lost in the mix (it’s clearer on the alternante versions).

You Can’t Use My Name
No Business (alternate)

Gloria (Van Morrison)
The Experience ferociously attack another classic pop song. This time it’s a song by the Irish blues rockers Them (led of course by the great Van Morrison). This is a live-in-studio bash, but I don’t think the band ever performed it on stage. This great song has been covered by many other artists over the years (The Doors, Pattie Smith, Eddie & The Hot Rods …).
Back in 1966, Jimi had played a very similar riff on Ray Sharpes “”Help Me get That feeling (Part 1&2)” which was recycled without Jimi’s guitar part as “Save Me” by Aretha Franklin.

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set

 

God Save The Queen (Traditionnel)
Jimi had a thing about national anthems,”The Star Spangled Banner”, this song, and he is also reported to have played a bit of the Dutch national anthem in early 1967 during preparations for a TV show over there. He performed the British anthem as a “good to be back” joke when he opened at the Isle Of Wight Festival in 1970. He never recorded the Welsh National Anthem as a hoax claim in 2006 proposed.

Live At The Isle Of Wight (Blue Wild Angel)

Recently, on the unofficial “Axis Outtakes” a track listed as “Cherokee Mist” is in fact “God Save The Queen”. It was by Hendrix biographer David Henderson who managed to sell it to Alan Douglas as authentic Hendrix ! He later confessed to Douglas that it was a fake. Purple Haze records were obviously unaware of this.

Gypsy Blood
A very short solo guitar exploration in the same vein as “Little Wing” or the “(Have Ever Been To) Electric Ladyland” on the MCA box. This was recorded in early 1969 and perhaps is the beginnings of “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)“. The track below had continued a similar guitar feel and title.

Hear My Music

Gypsy Boy ( or “Hey Gypsy Boy”)
An early version of “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)” with awful posthumous overdubs and presented on the rip-off “Midnight Lightning” album. Jimi begins the song with “Hey, gypsy boy, where do you come from“. The original demo resurfaced in 2013 on “People, Hell & Angels”.

Midnight Lightning (with posthumous overdubs)
People, Hell & Angels

Gypsy Eyes
Oh, what to say about “Gypsy Eyes”. I haven’t enough superlatives to lavish on this beauty, where Jimi evokes his Mother. Such a complex structure, the crafting of which, all 41 takes of it, drove all those concerned nuts (exept Jimi). An amazing piece of work.
Ultra trivia: listed as “Gipsy Eyes” on the original Track release and as “Gypsy Eyes” by Reprise.

Electric Ladyland
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (alternate)
Jimi By Himself/Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (home demo)

 

H

 

Happy Birthday (Knight/Hendrix)
Recorded in August 1967 at Studio 76 in New York during the Curtis Knight reunion sessions. Seems to from the same jam as “Hush Now” but with a different lyric.

Have Mercy
See “Mercy, Mercy”

(Have You Ever Been To) Electric Ladyland
Once the Gods have finished frolicking, the first real track on the third album is this superb little soul number. Jimi was a big fan of Curtis Mayfield’s Impressions and here, his own falsetto vocals are a delight. He even amazed himself, reportedly jumping around in the studio saying “I can sing ! I can sing !”. The lyric described his magical fantasy land which would later became the inspiration for the name of his own recording studio, Electric Lady.
Jimi performed the Impressions song “Gypsy Woman” at the famous Woodstock festival, with Larry Lee on vocals (unreleased).

Electric Ladyland
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Instrumental)

Hear My Freedom
This is from a jam with keyboard player Lee Michaels and Buddy Miles and a percussionist. It has nothing whatsover to do with the song “Freedom” and is a funky up-tempo bash where Jimi doesn’t play that much guitar but puts in an improvised rap vocal.

West Coast Seattle Boy

 

Hear My Train A Comin’
Never fully realised in the studio, Jimi played this blues on stage since the early days, giving it other titles – “Getting My Heart Back Together Again” or“Lonesome Train”. It was the song he chose to play on 12 string acoustic guitar for Peter Neal’s film “See My Music Talking” (later the emblematic sequence for Joe Boyd’s cinema released “A film about Jimi Hendrix”). The audio track of that shoot now resides on “Jimi Hendrix: Blues”. During 1967, before including this song in his performances, Jimi often played his adaptation of “Catfish Blues”/”Rollin’ Stone” which bears a resemblance to the basic drive of this song. The best version of all is from Berkeley Community Theatre in May 1970 (“Rainbow Bridge” and “Jimi Hendrix: Blues”). A studio demo was also retouched and put on the exploitation album “Midnight Lightning” (it turned up in 2010 in its original form on “Valleys Of Neptune”).
Even as late as May 1970 (Dane County Memorial Coliseum, Madison) Jimi told the audience that the song didn’t really have a title as it still wasn’t finished!

BBC Sessions (2 versions)
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Albert Hall rehearsal)
JImi Hendrix: Blues (acoustic)
Jimi By Himself/Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary(home demo)
Valleys Of Neptune (studio outtake)
West Coast Seattle Boy (home demo with Paul Caruso)
People, Hell & Angels (Hendrix/Cox/Miles studio outtake)
Both Sides Of The Sky (studio outtake)

Calling Long Distance (Miami Pop Festival 68)
The Jimi hendrix Concerts (Winterland)/Winterland
The Last Experience (3 versions)
Live At Oakland Colisseum
Live At Woodstock
Band Of Gypsys 2/Live At The Fillmore East/Machine Gun (Fillmore East 31/12/69)
JImi Hendrix: Blues (Berkeley)
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Miami Pop Festival
Song For Groovy Children
Live In Maui
Dick Cavett Show (DVD)

 

Heaven Has No Sorrow
A June 1970 session produced the melancholy little ballad that Jimi didn’t have the chance to develop. It sounds like a fused rewrite of “Drifting” and “Angel” . Unreleased officially.

Here He Comes – See Lover Man.

Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)
Recordings for this song had begun with the Experience. A beautifully constructed ballad which was perhaps destined to become the title track of Jimi’s fouth studio album, if Jimi had chosen to call it “First Rays Of The New Rising Sun”. In putting this together from the left over tapes, Eddie Kramer chose to leave in the beginning of the vocal track where you can hear Jimi say “Is the microphone on ?”. This song was part of Jimis song list on his last tours and at Berkeley he introduces as simply “The New Rising Sun“.
It’s interesting to note that Jimi mentioned (in a September 1970 interview with Keith Altman) that he was working on a “Bolero type of thing” and evoked the lts lyrics which were evidently from”Hey Baby”. An outtake of that”Bolero” (recorded the same day as “Hey Baby”) was later discovered and it eventually circulated on collectors discs and bootlegs. It’s rather sketchy but one can imagine how it might have segued into the slow intro of the “Hey Baby” here.

Rainbow Bridge/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
West Coast Seattle Boy (alternate mix)

Live At Berkeley
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Maui 70)
Live At The Isle Of Wight – Blue Wild Angel
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Live At Maui

 

Hey Joe (Billy Roberts)
Jimi had played “Hey Joe” even when he was unknown in Greenwich Village New York as Jimmy James. The song was already quite well known being already covered by Love, The Byrds and the lesser known Leaves. Jimi’s reading is built on a version by folk artist Tim Rose. In fact the arrangement and the backing vocal treatment is exactly like on Rose’s version and he was furious at the time. Jimis has become the definitive version of course. The opening six notes seize one’s attention right away and his half spoken determined vocals add to the songs power. The brief guitar solo was enough to show that Jimi was the one to reckon with from here on. When playing live he would sometimes throw in a brief reference to The Beatles “I Feel Fine“. This legendary single was pressed with a red Polydor label (Track’s distributor) for a rush release.
Playing at a New York festival in August 1968 in Queens, Jimi dedicated the song to Tim Rose and the Village people (no, not the “Y.M.C.A.” Village People, the Greenwich Village people !).

There is a site dedicated to the song “Hey Joe” ! It has information on the song’s author Billy Roberts. – http://www.heyjoe.org

US Are You Experienced/Smash Hits/Are You Experienced reissues on CD
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (2 versions)
BBC Sessions

Live At Monterey
Stages: 67 (Stockholm)
EXP Over Sweden (Tivoli Gardens, Stockholm 1967)
Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968
Live At Winterland
Voodoo Child Compilation (Winterland 10-12-68)
The Last Experience (Sounchecks)
Live In Ottowa
Stages: 69 (San Diego)
Live At Oakland Colliseum
Live At Woodstock
Live At Berkeley – The Jimi Hendrix Concerts
Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Live At The Isle Of White (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Winterland (box set) – 2 versions
Miami Pop Festival
Live At The Hollywood Bowl
Songs For Groovy Children

 

Highway Chile
“Highway Chile” is an up-tempo rock track where Jimi recalls his days as a travelling hobo of a musician (“… his dusty boots is his cadillac”). This was an idea he was to continue in his naming of A Band Of Gypsys. This was the UK (original) B-side of “Wind Cries Mary” which made a helluva single.
Chas Chandler had preferred the mono mix for the single and the stereo version appeared only recently on the MCA box set. The mono version had also been put on “War Heroes” as a filler back in the early seventies as it had never appeared in the states before that. While working on a new album in 1970, Jimi had written a memo to recuperate the master tape. I can’t imagine that he considered it for inclusion on his new album however.

UK Smash Hits/War heroes/Are You Experienced reissues on CD
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (stereo mix)

 

Hoochie Coochie Man (Willie Dixon)
Jimi’s love of Muddy Waters is conveyed here as The Experience tear the song apart at the BBC in their characteristic style. Slide guitar accompanyment is by the show’s host Alexis Korner*, who was a leading figure of the British blues scene.
A poor quality bootleg tape exists with The Experience playing this song at a club in Milwaukee (1968).

*In the late fifties, Korner and Cyril Davis had formed one of the first ever white blues combos called Blues Incorporated. He later helped Brian Jones and the Rolling Stones get under way. He had a Number One hit in the early seventies under the name of C.C.S. with a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. The BBC then adopted his version as the theme tune for the legendary TV pop chart show Top Of The Pops !
Korner also later narrated a short film about Jimi called “See My Music Talking” which is now available on the video/DVD “Experience” (see “Film”).

BBC Sessions
Baggys Rehearsal Sessions

Hornets Nest (Hendrix/Simon)
Jimi recorded this song in 1966 during his period with Curtis Knight. This instrumental is all fuzzy (buzzing) solos and spooky organ. Jimmy also puts in some nice funky rhythm lines. Jerry Simon was the producer and gave himself credit as co-writer. The working title for the song was “Kato’s Special” and Kato was The Green Hornet’s sidekick in the American TV series (played by none other than Bruce Lee). The theme tune to the series was based on “The Flight Of The Bumble Bee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (bee, hornet, get it !) and here the organ part is built on that basic tune. Interestingly, Jimi would later incorporate the “bumble bee” motif into his guitar solos in “Lover Man” (thanks to earlyhendrix.com for all this info.).

You Can’t Use My Name
No Business (alternate)

 

Hound Dog (Leiber Stoller)
Jimi had seen Elvis on stage in the fifties and here he pays hommage with a cover of one of the hillbilly wildcat’s biggest hits. BBC session again.

Bootlegs: the Experience also had a few stabs at the song during the Albert Hall 69 rehearsals but they didn’t perform it at the concerts. Also, acoustic versions exist, which is from home jam footage by Gold and Goldstein who shot the Albert Hall gigs for their ill-fated “Experience” motion picture. In the footage, we see Jimi playing the song while reclining on his bed with Kathy Etchingham, Jerry Goldstein (providing percussion) and two other friends. At the 2018 Royal Albert Hall screening of footage from the 1969 performance, there was shown an different and more complete take of “Hound Dog” from Jimi and Kathy’s bedroom jam.

BBC Sessions

Hound Dog Blues (Leiber Stoller)
An 1969 jam with Chris Wood on sax and film maker Jerry Goldstein (who filmed the 1969 Royal Albert Hall concerts) on piano! Jimi puts in some fantastic guitar work here (rhythm and soloing) and doesn’t leave much room for Wood who struggles to fit in.

West Coast Seattle Boy

House Burning Down
This epic masterpiece blasts in with some devastating guitar, which fittingly sounds like it’s on fire. The track then gallops along and goes into a tango like rhythm as Jimi recounts a strange and epic story about arson and a close encounter ! It is said that the Watts riots had troubled Jimi and inspired the lyrics here. Awesome.

Electric Ladyland

 

How Can I live (Noel Redding)
The Experience play one of Noels songs in May 68, which didn’t make it on to one of the band’s albums.

Noel Redding – The Experience Sessions

Hush Now (Knight/Hendrix)
An instrumental jam recorded in August 1967 at Studio 76 in New York during the Curtis Knight reunion sessions. A version with vocal overdubs from Curtis Knight was also put out.

 

 

I

I Don’t Live Today
On stage Jimi often dedicated this song to the American Indian. This wasn’t just a casual pun. Jimi had indian blood in his veins and had been very close to his Cherokee grandmother, so he wasn’t insensitive to the plight of native Americans (on the official “Experience” video he voices his concern about them). On this song, the chilling lyrics add to songs menace as it builds to pure feedback drenched freak-out – “Ooohhh, ain’t no life nowhere…“.

Are You Experienced

Stages 67 (Stockholm)
The Last Experience
The Jimi Hendrix Concerts/Stages 69
The LA Forum Concert (Lifelines I & IV) / “The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set / Experience Hendrix / Voodoo Child / Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
Live Forever (Sacred Sources 1) (LA Forum 70)
Live At Berkeley
In The West (Sony)
Miami Pop Festival
Live At The Hollywood Bowl

 

If Six Was Nine
Such an original song with many shifts in mood and tempo as Jimi asserts his difference from the comman man, rejecting all criticism. “I’m the one that’s got to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to …”. The song’s anti-establishment stance fitted perfectly into the soundtrack of Dennis Hopper’s successful film “Easy Rider” in 1969. At the end Jimi plays some superb abstract patterns on a recorder that he had bought from a street seller.
Did you notice that the sonority of Jimis recorder was copied on Madonna’s “Beautiful Stranger” ?

Axis Bold As Love
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Alternate)

 

I’m A Man
– See Stepping Stone

In From the Storm
Standard 1970 Hendrix rock again and powerful stuff here. Emeretta Marks provides the backing vocals. Jimi apparently nicked the closing riff from The Jeff Beck Group’s “Rice Pudding” off “Beck-Ola” !
“… I just came back from the storm” refering perhaps to the gruellling pressures of The Experience, the drug bust, or the indecision of 1969 ? The song was again part of Jimi’s live repertoire in 1970 and it provided a dramatic close to his long and dreary set at the Isle Of Wight pop festival.

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
West Coast Seattle Boy (alternate version)

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Maui 70)
Live At The Isle Of Wight – Blue Wild Angel
Live In Maui

 

Inside Out
This is Jimi and Mitch bashing away at a riff which eventually became the bridge of “Ezy Ryder”

People, Hell & Angels

It’s Too Bad

This is another studio blues jam which starts up similarly to “Catfish Blues” with an interesting improvised lyric where Jimi seems to evoke his relations to his half brother Leon and his position in the black community. Recorded in early 1969, it features Buddy Miles on drums and Duane Hutchings on organ . Around the same time as this February ’69 recording, Jimi had used this basic lyric into early renditions “Room Full Of Mirrors” with The Experience singing“It’s a shame, shame, shame that my brother …“. One such  informal jam (with percussionist Rocky Zidzournu) turned up in 2010 as “Shame, Shame, Shame” on the “West Coast Seattle Boy” (with 1988 Mitchell/Redding overdubs).

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set / Martin Scorcese Presents The Blues: Jimi Hendrix

 

I Was Made To Love Her (Cosby/Hardaway/Moy/Wonder)
A spontaneous jam with the great Stevie Wonder on drums who the Experience met by chance during a visit to the Playhouse Theatre to do a BBC session. Mitch nipped off to the toilet, so in stepped Stevie for this historic jam around the singer’s superb hit song. With Jimi and Noel, he also went into The Temptations hit “Ain’t To Proud To Beg” which was left off the following release.

BBC Sessions

 

Izabella
A love letter from a soldier to his sweetheart, Jimi introduced this song at Woodstock and also worked on it in the studio with Gypsy Sun and Rainbows (as featured on the MCA box). A year later, tired of waiting for Jimi to produce a new album, Reprise put a rough mix of this song out as a single (with “Stepping Stone” on the flipside) behind Jimi’s back. Those songs featured The Band Of Gypsys and there are some great soulful backing vocals (by Jimi) again on “Izabella”. He continued working on the song in 1970 producing a near finished master with Mitch Mitchell drum tracks later released on “War Heroes”.

> With that line in the song “Hey, Izabella, it’s on the rays of the rising sun, here they come,…”, perhaps Jimi might have included the song on his planned 1970 album “First Rays Of The Rising Sun” (if he had finally decided to go with that title – in an August 1970 memo, Jimi had the title down as “Straight Ahead”).

> On one of Jimi’s handwritten lyric sheets for this song, he wrote: “Monika = Izabella” (logic would tell us that he was referring to Dannemann who he’d met earlier in the year.”

> The Experience recorded a version of the song as early as 0ctober 68 which remains unreleased.

War Heroes/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Alternate)
Voodoo Child Compilation (Band Of Gypsys mix – slightly different to original single)
Burning Desire (Alternate)
People, Hell & Angels (Alternate)

Live At Woodstock
Live At The Fillmore East/Machine Gun (Fillmore East 31/12/69)
Dick Cavett Show (DVD)

 

J

 

Jam 292/Jelly 292
Two different takes of a great blues jam with Cox, Michell, Sharon Layne on piano and an unknown trumpet player.

Jam 292 – Hear My Music (Take 4)
Alternate take (as “Jelly 292”) – Jimi Hendrix :Blues (retitiled “Jam 292” on the Sony Legacy re-release) – Take 2

Jam Back At The House
See “Beginning”.

Jimi/Jimmy Jam
That other Jimmy is Jim McCarty of Buddy Miles Express (also ex Mitch Ryder and eventually Cactus) on second guitar for this superb jam. Bass was either by Roland Robinson (also of Express) or Dave Holland. The uncut jam was released in 2004 by Dagger on “Hear My Music”.

Nine To The Universe
Hear My Music

 

Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry)
Listening to this live recording you can hear that as Jimi is about to play “.. a loose jam type of thing” someone in the audience shouts for this song. “Johnny B. Goode, what the hell” says Jimi and rips into this superb interpretation. He was on top form at Berkeley and this is an awesome display of spontaneous rock ‘n’ roll virtuosity. Originally the opening track of perhaps the best ever Hendrix live album “Hendrix In The West”.

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set

 

Jungle
An abstract jam exploration between Jimi and Buddy Miles.
On Morning Symphony Ideas It begins a little like “Hey Baby” then merges into the recognisable riffs of “Villanova Junction Blues”, “Ezy Ryder“and “South Saturn Delta“.
The version on Both Sides Of The Sky is similar and also goes into the “Villanova Junction Blues” riff.

Morning Symphony Ideas
Both Sides Of The Sky

K

Keep On Groovin
Jimi never fully realised this song, the lyrics of which cropped up live occaisionally in “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” (as on the recent “Live At Berkeley”) or “Midnight Lightning”. The jam that appeared on the Dagger release “Morning Symphony Ideas” doesn’t seem to relate to that. It clocks in at 28 minutes and goes through various rhythmic structures with some nice soloing here and there. It encompasses snippets of “Power Of Soul“, “Burning Desire” and “Tryin’ To Be” (“Steppin’ Stone“) which has a brief vocal.

Morning Symphony Ideas

 

Killing Floor (Chester Burnett)
This Howling Wolf number became a live favourite of The Experience. In their hands it became a tornado of a song, just listen the Monterey version. They didn’t get a proper studio version together but had a good stab at it during the BBC Sessions, even with vocal overdubbing. The song was also in the repertoire of Curtis Knight And The Squires (as heard on the1965 “Georges Club” recordings).
I think the song was also the first live performance that Jimi did in England when, as un unknown, he guested at a Cream gig in London. Clapton admitted that it was a song that he had never mastered. Jimi tore into it, with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker trying to keep up. Eric soon gave up, put his guitar down and watched from the wings in awe. When Chas found him in the dressing room, puffing hard on a cigarette, Eric said to him “You didn’t tell me he was that f***ing good !”.

In 1967 The Electric Flag (with Buddy Miles) had also covered the song on their debut album. Led Zeppelin would later do a version of “Killing Floor” as “The Lemon Song” on their second album.

BBC Sessions

Live At George’s Club 1965-1966
Live At Monterey
EXP Over Sweden (Tivoli Gardens, Stockholm 67)
Live In Ottowa
Live At Winterland/Winterland
Stages 68 (Paris Olympia)
Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968 (San Francisco)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Live At The Hollywood Bowl – August 18, 1967

Knock Yourself Out (Hendrix/Simon)
Another good 1966 instrumental and the B-side of “Hornets Nest” with Curtis Knight & The Squires.
We had to wait till the 2015 release of the Hendrix Estate’s compilation of the PPX/RSVP recordings to discover that this song had the working title
of “Flying On Instruments” (for years we had thought that that was the name of a lost recording).

You Can’t Use My Name

 

L

 

Let Me Move You (Youngblood?)
A great soul/funk jam recorded the same day as “Georgia Blues”.

People, Hell & Angels

Level (Knight/Hendrix)
This is simply another instrumental take/mix of “Hush Now” from the 1967 Syudio 76 sessions.*

Like A Rolling Stone (Dylan)
Jimi’s first cover of a Dylan song was in his repertoire from a very early stage (and even during his Greenwich Village days) but his fans had to wait untill 1970 to actually hear it on record (“Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival”). It was probably at this moment that the “love crowd” (as Otis Redding called them) really accepted Jimi. His delivery of the song is just great, even if, as he admits while singing it, he misses a verse. The Winterland versions are also great.
While putting together tracks for the “Are You Experienced” album, the band made a few attempts at nailing a studio version but to their frustration, Mitch just couldn’t get the time right! Hopefully we’ll get to hear those takes one day.

Live At Monterey/”The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set
Lifelines (Generation Club 1968) extract
Winterland +3
WInterland (11/10/68 + 12/10/68)
Sony re-release of the purple box set (10/10/68)
Live At The Hollywood Bowl – August 18, 1967

 

Little Drummer Boy (Traditional)/ Silent Night/Auld Lang Syne (Traditional)
The Band Of Gypsys prepare themselves for their New Years gigs at the Fillmore East with these traditional instrumentals (recorded at Baggy’s) which were originally released by Alan Douglas as a Xmas gift to other music business personnel.

Merrry Xmas And A Happy New Year

 

Little, Little Girl (Noel Redding)
The Experience play one of Noels songs in May 68, which didn’t make it on to one of the band’s albums.

Noel Redding – The Experience Sessions

 

Little Miss Lover
A great little rock song again from the Experience at full tilt. Again, Mitch’s drums are fabulous. Forget Buddy Miles, Mitch is the funkmaster here.
A pity that the band didn’t play it live so much (a live version can be heard on the official site (Multimedia page) during “Spanish Castle Magic” at Maple Leaf Gardens Toronto 1969).

Prince sampled the opening drumbeat for ‘Tick, Tick Bang” on “Grafitti Bridge”.

Axis Bold As Love
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Alternate version)
EXP Over Sweden (Alternate)
BBC Sessions (live in studio)
Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (outtake)

 

Little Miss Strange (Redding)
Noel’s second composition on an Experience album. Very similar to “She’s So Fine” it benefits from a richer treatment with Jimi adding some beatiful guitar work. Jimi was also generous enough as to let Noel open side two of “Ladyland” with the song (the effect of this is lost on CD). The song sounds less out of place as the other Redding song did on “Axis”. It’s pure late 60s psychdelia, sounding rather like Traffic or Moody Blues. The nice opening guitar lines are from Noel himself, he was after all a guitarist first and foremost. He reproduces it on the “Classic Albums: Electric Ladyland” DVD.

Electric Ladyland
Noel Redding – The Experience Sessions (alternate version)

 

Little One
It is still contested whether this instrumental track features Brian Jones or Dave Mason of Traffic on sitar and slide guitar. Perhaps both were present? It is listed in Kramer’s book as “Mushy Name” (that title is also attributed to a proto “Ezy Ryder“).
Because of the sitar, this has a very 60s psychedelic atmosphere to it and it goes beyond a mere jam and featured some overdubbing. There is a second mix which features some slide guitar (perhaps not from Jimi). Jimi in fact didn’t come back to the song but in 1988, Chas Chandler called up Mitch and Noel to retouche it. “Little One” received a vocal track from Noel to become “There Ain’t Nothing Wrong” and it appeared officially in 2003 on the mail order release “Noel Redding-The Experience Sessions”.

Lifelines (extract)
West Coast Seattle Boy

 

Little Wing
One of Jimi’s most loved songs. Beautiful guitar, vocals and lyric. The title sounds like an indian name (what his grandmother called him ?). The Albert Hall 69 version almost trancends the original. In the “Uncut Story” DVD, which I recommend, Jimi mentions that the atmosphere at Monterey and San Francisco had inspired this song.
Once used for a Nike TV ad. and more recently for BMW.

Axis Bold As Love
South Saturn Delta (In fact an early “Angel”)
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Instrumental)

EXP Over Sweden (68)
The Jimi Hendrix Concerts (Winterland 68)/Winterland/In The West
The Last Experience (Albert Hall 69)
Live At The Hollywood Bowl

Live And Let Live (Timothy Leary)
Supposed to be a jam around Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” (not that I recognised that) with Jimi on bass, Steve Stills and John Sebastien on guitar, Buddy Miles on drums and Duane Hitchings on keyboards. Jimi was invited to this session by the producer Alan Douglas, who later became the guardian of the Hendrix vault. It was used on Timothy Leary’s album “You Can Be Anyone This Time Around”.

Lonely Avenue (Ray Charles)
An interesting November 1969 jam with Buddy Miles on an old Ray Charles number! In Jimi’s hands, the song becomes an erratic funky rap.

West Coast Seattle Boy

 

Long Hot Summer Night
Another sophisticated soul masterpiece, with remarkable backing vocal arrangements from Jimi and some of his most inventive lyrics. Al Kooper guests on piano. Fabulous.

Electric Ladyland
West Coast Seattle Boy (acoustic home demo)
Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (3 home demo takes and two studio takes)

 
Look Over Yonder
Left in the can by the Experience, this appeared in 1970 on the posthumous “Rainbow Bridge”. It began life in New York in 1966 as “Mr Bad Luck“, when Jimi was playing under the name of Jimmy James. It is similar to “Lover Man” and both songs seemed to have developped out of Elmore James’ “Look On Yonder Wall” . Whatever, this is a killer, with some of Jimis most inspired rock guitar solos. It hurtles along at a terrific pace climbing to a stunning whiplash climax.
Paul Butterfield Blues Band had “Look Over Yonder Wall” on their first album.

Rainbow Bridge/South Saturn Delta
Lifelines (as “Mr. Bad luck” – early demo version)
Valleys Of Neptune (as “Mr. Bad luck” – early demo version with 1988 overdubs by Redding and Mitchell)

 

Lord I Sing The Blues For You And Me
This is an interesting blues jam (September 6, 1969) with Jimi backed by Larry Lee, Mitch and Billy. It cuts in with Jimi working out on what sounds like his Gibson SG, then after about 3 minutes he lets Lee take a solo (for 40 seconds) before he comes back in brilliantly. He also puts in a brief but powerful vocal. I know this from the “Drone Blues” and “Diamonds In The Dust” bootlegs (listed as “Crying Blue Rain” on the latter). The jam is listed as simply “Blues For You And Me” in the Ultimate Hendrix book (McDermott/Kramer/Cox) which informs us that Alan Douglas had pencilled it in for an abandoned blues compilation to be titled “Multicolored Blues” (it ended up as “:Blues”) and he had also considered including it on the “Nine To The Universe” L.P. in the early 80s. 
The jam is also known as simply “Blues For You And Me” and “Crying Blue Rain” (which is in fact the title of a completely different song – see further up).

Officially unreleased

Love (Knight/Hendrix)
An instrumental jam recorded in August 1967 at Studio 76 in New York during the Curtis Knight reunion sessions. Seems to be from the same jam as “Hush Now”.

Love Love (Knight/Hendrix)
The above jam receives a vocal overdub by Curtis Knight.

Love Or Confusion
Words of uncertainty for this delicious little song where Jimi’s guitar explores new exotic sonorities, taking the first album into new territory. The track flows along beautifully held by great vocals. A nice rawer version is to be found on “BBC Sessions”. Before Jimi wrote “Purple haze”, this was considered as a follow-up single to “Hey Joe”.

Are You Experienced
BBC Sessions (live recording)
West Coast Seattle Boy (alternate version)

 

Lover Man
This developed out of “Rock Me Baby“, using the lyrics to the B.B King song but with Jimi’s own music. He later wrote his own lyrics for it as “Here He Comes” (as he called it in the studio and on stage).  The Experience never got down a finished studio version but Jimi later took the song to near completion with overdubs (released on the MCA box).
Amusingly on some live recordings (Albert Hall 69 and Woodstock for example) he’d forget his own lyrics and go back to “Rock Me Baby”.

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (2 versions)
South Saturn Delta
Valleys Of Neptune
Both Sides Of The Sky

Hendrix In The West (Berkeley)
Winterland (box set) – 3 versions
The Last Experience
Live At Woodstock
The Baggys Reheasal Sessions
Machine Gun (Fillmore East 31/12/69)
Live At Berkeley
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Live At The Isle Of White (Blue Wild Angel)
Machine Gun, Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 31/12/69 – 1st show)
Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 01/01/70 – 1st show)
Live In Maui

Lullaby For The Summer
The basic riff of this came from a so far unreleased Redding/Mitchell compositon called “Dance” (on which Mitch sang). However, an instrumental version of “Dance”, titled “Touch You”, eventually appeared in 2011 on single (“Fire”, the “West Coast Seattle Boy” version).  Jimi later  incorporated the riff into the opening of “Ezy Ryder”.

Valleys Of Neptune

M

 

MLK
This finally turned up officially on Dagger Records “Burning Desire”. We first got a glimpse of it in the seventies when it came out on “Crash Landing” as part of the instrumental collage that John Jansen had put together called “Catain Coconut”. At its outset, it is a lovely haunting melody before it moves into other moods. Reportedly, the three letters were on the tape box. It is not known whether Jimi named the jam as such or if it was an engineers reference code. If Jimi did name it “M.L.K.”, might he have referred to Dr. Martin Luther King ? In a UK “South Bank Show” Hendrix special, an Experience tour technicien emotionally describes the time when the band were to play in a Southern American city just after the assassination of Dr. King. This had deeply troubled Jimi. The atmosphere was dangerous in the city, bordering on a riot situation. When Jimi took the stage he said simply ‘This is for a friend” and went into a totally improvised and painfully beautiful hommage to the great black leader. The whole theatre was in tears (so the story goes). No tape exists, damn it. So, is this “MLK” a hint of what that live tribute was about ? We will never know.

Burning Desire

Machine Gun
After his adaptation of “The Star Spangled Banner” and the lyrical context of “Izabella“, Jimi further develops his visions of the tragedy of war with this powerful song about a soldier stuck in hell. “Evil man make me kill you, even though we’re only families apart”. He played it live through 1970 but didn’t finish a studio version, probably because the Band Of Gypsys version on the album of the same name was so successfully realised. Alan Douglas did assemble a studio version from demos, with posthumous overdubs on the lousy “Midnight Lightning” album.

In 1959, The Riptides (also known as Johnny Hudson & The Riptides) had a hit in California with a Bo Diddley styled instrumental titled “Machine Gun”. It featured a machine gun-like staccato drum beat and was perhaps an influence on Jimi’s very own “Machine Gun”.
The Clash would also later use similar rapid fire drum rhythms on their successful single “Tommy Gun”. What a trainspotter am I!

Band Of Gypsys – (Fillmore East 01/01/69-1st show)
Live At The Fillmore East (Fillmore East 31/12/69-2nd show & 01/01/70-2nd show)
Machine Gun – (Fillmore East 31/12/69-1st show)
Songs For Groovy Children (each of the four Band Of Gypsys performances at the Fillmore East)
Voodoo Child (compilation) – ’01/01/70-2nd show)

Live At Berkeley
Live At The Isle Of White (Blue Wild Angel)
Dick Cavett Show (DVD)

 

Manish Boy (Morganfield/McDaniel/London)
Jimi performed Bo Diddley’s “I’m A Man” in his days with Curtis Knight (featured on the Live At George’s Club album). The song was Bo’s reply to Muddy Water’s “I’m A Hoochie Coochie Man” (written by Willie Dixon). Then Muddy replied with “Mannish Boy”.
Two versions by the Band Of Gypsys (both composites) have emerged.

Jimi Hendrix: Blues
Both Sides Of The Sky

 

Manic Depression
This stunning rock track gallops in with a killer riff, contrasted by a lovely gentle vocal from Jimi, who, like on “Purple Haze” expresses a certain disarray and confusion. A great piece of classic rock songwriting with a terrific climax. “Moan for me guitar…”

Are You Experienced
BBC Sessions

Live At Winterland

Mastermind (Larry Lee)
Written by Jimi’s old friend from his “chitlin’ circuit” days, Larry Lee. Jimi generously let Larry perform this at the Woodstock festival (along with Curtis Mayfield’s “Gypsy Woman” – both were edited out of the DVD and CDs). Here we have a live-in-studio run through by Jimis ephemeral group Gypsy Sun & Rainbows.
This came at a time when Jimi was endeavoring to shed his psychedelic “wild man” image of The Experience and getting back to his roots by surrounding himself with old firends. Lee’s song sounds like it could have come straight out of those pre-Experience years and is pretty similar to “(My Girl) She’s A Fox” by The Icemen on which the younger Jimi had played some similar licks. Lovely accompaniement by Jimi.

 West Coast Seattle Boy

May This Be Love
Another sweet ballad in the footsteps of “The Wind Cries Mary“. Jimi just charms us here, singing and playing beautifully. At one point you can here him turn over his lyric sheet (God, that’s interesting). In its early stages, the song was called “Waterfall” and a French single version was even released in the 70s with that as the title.

Are You Experienced
1970 Barclay single as “Waterfall” (alternate mix)
West Coast Seattle Boy (alternate mix)

Mercy, Mercy (Covay/Miller)
Interestingly, Jimi had played some guitar on the original version by Don Covay (though not the opening lick) and went on to interpret the song with The Experience in the early days. The only known recordings of the band playing the song are from a gig at the Flamingo Club, London (14 Feb. 67) and at the Stora Scenen, Lund, Sweden (10 Sept. 67 – the power cut out half way through unfortunately).

There exists also a live version by Curtis Knight & The Squires with Hendrix on guitar and Knight on lead vocals.

>The song was also covered nicely by The Rolling Stones on their “Out Of Our Heads” album of 1965.

 

Message To Love (a.k.a. Message Of Love)
One of the first post-Experience numbers, presented again at Woodstock, heralding in Jimi’s new direction to more soul structured songs with funky rhythms. A feature of his live performances from thereon, the song came into its own with Buddy Miles’ excellent vocal accompaniement(1) as heard on the Fillmore East recordings and the near finished studio version.

(1) Buddy Miles invited Emerrata Marks to sing vocal accompaniement at the Fillmore, she is perhaps on the performance, in the background.
(2) The track on the MCA box is simply a remix of the Alan Douglas version that had appeared on “Crash Landing” and “Voodoo Soup”.

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set
South Saturn Delta
Hear My Music
West Coast Seattle Boy (original mix)

Baggys rehearsal Sessions
Band Of Gypsys (Fillmore East 01/01/70 – 2nd show)
Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 31/01/69 – 2nd show)
Live At Woodstock
Live Forever (Sacred Sources 1) (LA Forum 70)
Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Live At The Isle Of White (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Live In Maui

Messenger
This is a curious sketch of a song from Jimi with an ascending/descending hammered riff with some light piano punctuations (by Jimi himself!).
It’s pretty tedious unfortuantelyand doesn’t lead to much. Jimi seems to have wisely abandoned it afterwards.

West Coast Seattle Boy

 

Midnight
An Experience instrumental that made its first appearance on “War Heroes”. This was recorded in April 69 and is as powerful and accomplished as the other instrumental of that period, “Tax Free”. It’s a remarkable guitar exploration, from the depths of his soul. A rougher version was dressed up for the “Midnight Lightning” album and titled “Trashman” (eventually released unretouched on the excellent Dagger release “Hear My Music” in 2004). Noel later said that he was showing Jimi the riff to Booker T. & The MGs “Homegrown” and it took off from there.
Note that on “Voodoo Soup” this song has an extra 30 seconds and on the bootleg “The Capricorn Tape” it lasts 8 minutes, though it is unclear if this is a posthumous montage or the entire original tape.
“Midnight” is not to be confused with “Midnight Lightning”.

War Heroes/South Saturn Delta

 

Midnight Lightning
Jimi never managed to fully define this blues which has cropped up in a few different ways. When performing this, Jimi would slip the embryonic lyrics of another unfinished song “Keep On Groovin”. The title “Midnight Lightning” was Noel’s idea.
There was an Alan Douglas overdubbed studio version which gave the name to the producers second montage release.

South Saturn Delta

Live At The Isle Of White (Blue Wild Angel)
Live In Maui

*An alternate studio take of “Midnight Lightning” with differing lyrics had appeared previously on the bootleg Freak Out Blues (a.k.a. Ultra Rare Trax).

Mr. Bad Luck
This proto version of “Look Over Yonder” was recorded around the time of the “Axis” sessions. It is a great little Experience rocker but lacks the power and assertion of the song that it became in 1969 when the band came back to it.

Lifelines (mono)
Valleys Of Nepture (1988 overdubbed version)
West Coast Seattle Boy (stereo)
 

Mojo Man (Albert & Arthur Allen)
 In 1970, Jimi had recruited his old friends the Aleem twins (calling themselves The Ghetto Fighters) as backing vocalists on a “Dolly Dagger” and “Freedom”. The twins had had a single out in 1969 as The Jet Set titled “Mojo Man (From Voodoo Land)”  (Rojac ROJ 130) and one day, they got Jimi to add lead guitar to an alternate mix of the song. It was then remixed for the People Hell & Angels collection of outtakes and demos.
Full details here.

People, Hell & Angels
 

Moon Turn The Tides Gently, Gently, Away
I never really knew where “1983 …” ended and this one began. Sheet music showed that this part starts as Jimi sings “So down and down…“.Today, on the MCA CD version this title is more logically attributed only to the closing 60 seconds of tidal noises. See “1983“.

Electric Ladyland

 

Morrison’s Lament (Morrison)
Just a free form jam at the Scene Club, not a “song” as such, where a drunken Jim Morrison joins the musicians on stage only to yell obscenities and moan and groan. A pity that he wasn’t more sober for the occasion. What a missed opportunity finding two 60s greats on stage together.

Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead – Unofficial

 

Mushy Name
This bizarre title has been attributed to two songs. On some bootlegs it is a proto riff jam that later became the central break in “Ezy Ryder”.
In Eddie Kramer and John McDermott’s book “Setting The Record Straight”, the title “Mushy Name” is used for the instrumental “Little One” (see above).

My Best Friend (Curtis Knight)
Jimi playing wah-wah in 1967 over a rough demo of the song “Ballad Of Jimmy”, a Curtis Knight composition. See Ballad Of Jimi

No Business

My Friend (Hendrix/Redding)
A very Dylan inspired bar-room blues with some inventive lyrics, recorded when The Experience were still together.
At one point of the song Jimi mentions his arrest in Sweden in January 1968. For Mitch Mitchell, the harmonica player was a mysterious “Gers” but the recent “Martin Scorcese..” blues compilation attributes it to Jimi’s old friend Paul Caruso. He apparently telephoned after the session saying “Don’t forget to mention me. Cheers” Kramer and Mitchell didn’t know who it was, thinking his name was Gers! Another guest on the track is Steven Stills on piano!

The inclusion of “My Friend” (on “Cry Of Love” and “First Rays”) has been critised by many Hendrix fans because it came from a much earlier session. However in the “West Coast Seattle boy” booklet, it says “…When he (Jimi) and Eddie Kramer gathered in late May and early June 1970 to review Jimi’s tape library for songs that would be mixed or overhauled at the guitarist’s newly opened Electric Lady Studios, Hendrix played the March 1968 Sound Center recording for Kramer. Months later, in the aftermath of Jimi’s death, in September 1970, Kramer and Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell were entrusted with preparing “Cry Of Love”,… Kramer remembered Hendrix’s enthusiasm for the song and included it as part of the album.”

> Noel says in his book that the lyrics are Jimi’s but music was by him! Noel was never credited on “Cry Of Love” on “First Rays” so at least he is on this site. Not to be confused with the following song of the same name.

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
West Coast Seattle Boy (acoustic home demo)
Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (another acoustic home demo)

My Friend (Redding)
To further confuse things, Jimi was a guest player on this Redding solo track which unfortunately remains unreleased.

N

 

New Rising Sun
Parts of this turned up previously on “Crash Landing” as part of “Captain Cocanut” which was an abandoned film soundtrack experiment by Kramer’s assistant John Jansen. It’s a loose exploration with a “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)” feel to it and was dug up by Alan Douglas as the opener for the album “Voodoo Soup”. A complete version appeared in 2010 on “West Coast Seattle Boy”.

Voodoo Soup
West Coast Seattle Boy

 

Night Bird Flying
A very accomplished and complex little song with many shifting rhythm patterns. In one part ,with an almost barn dance rhythm, it’s the closest Jimi got to country music !* The title was Jimi’s hommage to Alison Steele alias “The Night Bird”, a New York D.J.
The song began life as “Ships Passing In The Night” and in that early form it turned up as a demo on “Valleys Of Neptune”.
*In the “Uncut Story” DVD, a childhood friend of Jimi’s says that together they would sometimes play around with country licks.

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
Valleys Of Neptune (as “Ships Passing In The Night)

 

1983 A Merman I Should Turn To Be / Moon Turn The Tides Gently, Gently Away
This is the central piece on Ladyland and unlike anything that Jimi did before or after. The double album format finally gave him the chance to indulge with this doomsday fantasy epic. He was a big science fiction fan and here he tells the tale of his mutation into a Merman and his voyage to Atlantis, as armagedon rages on Earth “… before our heads go under, we take a last look at the killing noise”. A brilliantly realised “sound painting” as he called it. Listening to it, especially on headphones, you really feel as though you are diving to the bottom of the sea.
On the vinyl versions, it was impossible to see where “1983” became “Moon Turn The Tides…” but official sheet music showed it to be where Jimi sings “So down and down…“. However, for the CD issue of today, “Moon…” is simply the final groaning noises of the tides, which seems quite logical. Perhaps this was done to keep the textual context of the song complete when subject to MP3 importation.

The main musical refrain of the song is strikingly similar to the “End Of Part One” musical link from the famous British TV series “Coronation Street” !! Jimi also seemed to have got the idea for “3rd Stone From The Sun” from the programme theme. This is not such a crazy theory. We know from an Ernie Isley  interview that the young Jimi would imitate every sound that he heard, cars, sirens, voices, airplanes… He soaked up everything around him, so it is certainly possible that he heard the TV theme in 1966/67 (it was on twice a week) and picked up on its haunting bluesy feel.

Electric Ladyland
Lifelines (alternate mix)
Jimi By Himself/Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (home demo)
West Coast Seattle Boy (another home demo and a studio outtake)

 

Nine To The Universe
An extended jam around the basic riff which eventually became “Message To Love“. This is Hendrix, Cox and Miles in May 69, months before the Band Of Gypsys were officially formed. It was severely edited down by Alan Douglas for inclusion on the album of the same name but didn’t really suffer from it. Jimi improvises a vocal “I am what I am, some people don’t understand, help them God …“. On the original session, Jimi’s girlfriend Devon Wilson rapped a little with Jimi on this one.

Nine To The Universe

No Business
The real title of this song was “I Ain’t Takin Care Of No Business” and Hendrix had registered it as such in 1966 but no version from that year has surfaced. During the July 1967 session at Studio 76 in New York (during the Curtis Knight reunion sessions), Jimi recorded some fuzz bass on an old demo of the song and it appeared on the 1967 PPX album “Get That Feeling”.
Months before that sesion, Jimi had recorded the song with The Experience during the Axis sessions (the song finally appeared officially on the “The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set of 2000).

No Business

Noel’s Tune (Noel Redding)
The Experience play one of Noels songs, or tunes rather, in February 69, which didn’t make it on to one of the band’s albums. An interesting instrumental with some great searing guitar.

Noel Redding – The Experience Sessions (2 takes)

No Such Animal
Recorded with Curtis Knight’s band, this has never been released as part of the PPX recordings but appeared “unofficially” on Audiofidelity in the 70s. It is very similar to Jimis other instrumentals from the period (“Hornets Nest” and “Knock Yourself Out”).

You Can’t Use My Name

 

O

Odd Ball (composer unknown)
Jimi on funky fuzz bass for this instrumental jam from the July 67 session at Studio 76 during the Curtis Knight reunion sessions. It appeared on posthumous PPX albums.

Old Times Good Times (Steven Stills)
Jimi guests on lead guitar on his friend Stephen Stills’ first album (Clapton also guested on another track) – see “Guest Appearences” section. Stills had played piano on Jimi’s “My Friend” which now resides on “First Rays”. A jam with Stills (and Johnny Winter)“Things I Used To Do” was also presented on “Lifelines”. The two also participated in a recording session organized by Alan Douglas which turned up on the Timothy Leary album “You Can Be Anyone This Time Around” – see Guest Appearances section

Stephen Stills

 

Once I Had A Woman
Jimi based this on Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Decoration Day”. It was initially assembled with posthumous overdubs on Alan Douglas’s “Midnight Lightning” album, before it eventually appeared in its original form on the “:Blues” album. It is a nice lilting blues with some lovely guitar (and an unknown harmonica player in the background) which then accelerates into a harder rock improvisation.

Jimi hendrix Blues

 

One Rainy Wish
Another high point of the second album with this wonderful little song about a dream, shifting between gentle ballad and hard rock. In the coda the mood shifts again as Jimi describes the dream in more detail. Fabulous.

Axis Bold As Love
Lifelines (alternate mix)

 

Our Lovely Home (aka Snowballs In The Snow)
Only a short extract of this little ballad has turned up unofficially. It features Jimi on solo guitar with a nice vocal. I’m not sure if it is a cover or a song that Jimi had on the go.

Unreleased officially

Outside Woman Blues (Arthur Reynolds)

This song was also in the repertoire of one of Jimi’s favourite bands, Cream. He would always insert the basic riff of this in the middle section of his cover of Cream’s own “Sunshine Of Your Love” (see the Albert Hall version). It was incorporated into the famous Scene Club jam with The McCoys. He would also throw in the riff during “Fire” sometimes on stage.

Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead

Pali Gap
Released on the “Rainbow Bridge” soundtrack album, the title (invented in 1971 by Jimi’s manager Michael Jeffrey) refers to a mountain pass on Maui, Hawaii where Jimi had played for the making of the film. This beautiful Santana-like instrumental apparently grew out of a spontaneous studio jam around The Spencer Davis Groups “Gimme Some Lovin” (just after the recording of “Dolly Dagger“), which Jimi later came back to, laying on overdubs. Juma Edwards on percussion. It would seem that he left it aside and it didn’t figure in his shortlist for his uncompleted 1970 studio album. It turns out to be one of his finest works and the most beautiful guitar piece of all time in my opinion. A masterpiece.
The fact that Jimi went to such lengths to refine the piece would lead us to think that he considered using it for his 1970 album. One of his handwritten lists of possible album tracks shows the mysterious “Electric Lady” with “(slow)” noted after it. Before being baptised by Mike Jeffrey as “Pali Gap” (to associate the instrumental with the film “Rainbow Bridge”) the tape box had the song named simply “Slow part”. So it is perhaps possible that Jimi was preparing to use this brilliant instrumental for his 1970 album.

Rainbow Bridge/South Saturn Delta

 

Paper Airplanes
See “Power of Soul“.

 

Pass It On
See “Straight Ahead“.

 

Peace In Mississippi
This intense heavy rock guitar workout with The Experience appeared (modified) on “Crash landing” initially. Recorded by the Experience in October 68, it is similar to “Midnight” in feel but not as well focused. It’s such a wild and powerful explosion of psychedelic blues guitar. The original Experience recording was later put out on “Voodoo Soup”. The song reappeared with a new mix as a second track of the 2010 singles “Valleys Of Neptune” and “Bleeding Heart”.

Voodoo Soup
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set re-release

 

Peter Gunne (Mancini)/Catastrophe(Arr. Hendrix)
“Peter Gunne” was the subject of a loose jam that appeared on “War Heroes”. The song was written by Henry Mancini who wrote many cinema theme tunes, the most famous one being “The Pink Panther” theme. “Peter Gunne” (a TV series theme tune I think) had been popularized in the sixties by the influential American guitarist Duane Eddy. Jimi was a big Duane Eddy fan. His father remembered that “Peter Gunne” was one of the first songs he learnt to play !
This jam falls apart after a minute or so and Jimi jokingly goes into a brief “Catastrophe” which is attributed to him but is based on an old song, “Jealousy” , which was written by Bloom & Gade (popularised by Frankie Lane in 1951).

War Heroes (edited)
West Coast Seattle Boy

Play That Riff
No a song but… a riff! And a hell of a riff it is too. Jimi would incorprated into “Midnight Lightning”. On this little snippet we hear Eddie Kramer asking Jimi to play the riff so he can get it memorised on tape. Thank God he did.
On the bootleg titled Freak Out Jam, you can hear “Midnight Lightning” from the same session where Jimi incorporates the riff as an integral part of the song. He would also integrate it into “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)” occasionally (Cologne ’69 for example).

West Coast Seattle Boy

 

Power Of Soul (a.k.a. Power To Love)
This song began life with different lyrics as “Paper Airplanes” and Jimi had played it with Buddy Miles during an on-stage jam at the Newport Pop Festival in June 1969. When the two worked together in the studio later in the year, they came back to the song, and developped it further as it became “Power Of Soul“. Jimi in fact introduced the song at the Fillmore as “Crash Landing” or “Paper Airplanes”, anything you like“. As with “Who Knows”, Hendrix and Miles lock together well. Jimi never managed to put down a finished studio master however. In fact the version on “South Saturn Delta” is obviously a work-in-progress mix as the guitars are out of sync and the opening vocal is missing, with Jimi appearing to come in late. A much more cohernet earlier mix is out there on bootlegs.
The song is often erroneously listed as “Power To Love”.

> Billy Cox mentioned that the riff to “Power Of Soul” was sourced from Ray Charles’ “Mary Ann” (1956) but a year before that T. Bone Walker had the riff come in his song “Hard Way”.

South Saturn Delta (as mixed by Eddie Kramer after the Hendrix/Kramer mix of August 1970)
Both Sides Of The Sky (as mixed by Jimi and Eddie Kramer in AUgust 1970)
+ B-side of “Somewhere” 7″ vinyl (as mixed by Jimi and Bob Hughes in February 1970)

Band Of Gypsys (Fillmore East 01/01/70 – 2nd show)
Live At The Fillmore East (Fillmore East 01/01/70 – 1st show)
The Baggys Behearsal Sessions
Machine Gun, Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 31/12/69 – 1st show)
Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 01/01/70 – 1st and 2nd shows)
 

Power To Love
Curiously, this is the title give to “Power Of Soul” on the current version of “Band Of Gypsys”. See the previous title.

Pride Of Man – see Bolero

 
Purple Haze
This must be the ultimate psychedelic rock song. The opening crunching monster walk creates the excitement before the famous riff kicks in. A riif inspired, it seems, by Beethoven’s 5th Symphony! Jimi’s confidence on this track is incredible. Vocals and guitar gel together to perfection as the song builds to a climax backed with piercing sustain. Here, Jimi really arrives as a writer of classic rock music.
When asked how the lyrics came to him, Jimi said that he was inspired by a dream he had had where he was walking under the sea. He was reading a lot of science fiction at the time and he also said that he was inspired by one story with a purple death ray. He is also thought to have been inspired by Philp José Farmer’s novel “Night Of Flight” (which Chas is known to have had in his flat that he shared with Jimi) in which there is the passage “The sky was clear but the stars seemed far away, blobs straining to pierce the purplish haze”. Inevitably, the lyrics and tone of the song became associated with the drug experience which was obviously an influence for Jimi.

> The intro was perhaps inspired by the opening notess of Sun Ra’s “India” (the first track on his “Supersonic Jazz” album of  1956).

US Are You Experienced/Smash Hits/Are You Experienced reissues on CD
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Alternate mix)
BBC Sessions

Live At Monterey
Stages: 67 (Stockholm)
EXP Over Sweden
Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968
Stages: 68 (Paris Olympia)
Live In Ottawa
Live At Clark University
Live At Winterland
The Last Experience (2 versions)
Stages: 69/Voodoo Child compilation (San Diego)
Live At Oakland Coliseum
The LA Forum Concert (Lifelines IV) / Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
Live At Woodstock
Live At Berkeley
Soundtrack Recordings From The Film Jimi Hendrix
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Live At The Isle Of White (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Winterland (box set) – 4 versions
Live In Cologne
Miami Pop Festival
Live At The Hollywood Bowl
Songs For Groovy Children
Live In Maui

 

R

 

Race With The Devil (Adrian Curtis)
During his 1970 tours, Jimi would throw in the riff of this song which was a hit for the group Gun.

Rainy Day, Dream Away
Freddie Smith’s sax sets the tone of this gorgeous jazzy blues. Mike Finnegan also guests on keyboards and Buddy Miles’ plays some great drums. Jimi shifts to wah wah making his guitar talk as the song goes into the final workout which we hear on the track “Still Raining Still Dreaming”. If you are nifty with a tape deck (or the right software), it is possible to splice the two tracks together, to appreciate it in all its splendour. Listening to this, how the different instruments blend so well together, one imagines how well Jimi could have expanded the group to take his music in other directions.

Electric Ladyland
Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (outtake)

 

Rainy Day Shuffle
A brief jam that happened during the recording of the above song.

Lifelines (extract)
Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary

Record Plant 2X
A superb rocking jam from the Band Of Gypsys which followed an improvisation around “Villanova Junction Blues“. Unfortunately split into two pieces on “Burning Desire” it is to be found complete on “Villanova Juncton Blues” (Burning Airlines) and on “Am I Blue” (Purple Haze Records).

Burning Desire

 

Red House
Jimi shows exactly where he was coming from. He adored blues giants like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Albert King, and picking up on the blues “revival” already under way in Britain, he delivered his own classic blues composition. The original version on “Are You Experienced” (and “Jimi Hendrix: Blues”) has a wonderful raw sound which contributes to its purity. Noel Redding plays his bass parts on a normal six string guitar. Performed live throughout his years of celebrity with many varied versions recorded, for us to study with delight.
The song had not appreared on the US version of “Are You Experienced” as Warner (who owned and distributed the Reprise label) considered that American audiences weren’t into blues. By 1969 however, the blues had been popularized by Jimi’s own success and by other groups such as The Doors, Big Brother, Cream, Canned Heat and of course the revamped Rolling Stones. So, a second version of “Red House” in stereo (recorded a week after version 1) was put out on the US “Smash Hits” and is every bit as good as the first version with a little extra guitar overbubbing, reverb and crispness.
The version titled “Electric Church Red House” comes from a session in October 68 and features the Experience with Lee Michaels on organ.
Jimi’s inspiration for the lyric harks back to his Greenwich village days where Linda Keith had an appartment which had a red interior.

The Curtis Knight Georges Club recordings reveal Jimi playing Albert King’s “Travellin To California” and it appears a sort of proto “Red House”.
“Red house” also follows Elmore James’ “The Sky Is Crying” quite closely in structure and phrasing, even reworking Elmore’s lyric “I’ve got a bad, bad feeling that my baby don’t love me no more”.

Are You Experienced
US Smash Hits/Kiss The Sky/The Ultimate Experiece/Martin Scorcese Presents The Blues/Experience Hendrix/Fire:The Jimi Hendrix Collection
Jimi Hendrix: Blues (“Electric Church Red House” -TTG Studios 1968)
Valleys Of Neptune (Royal Albert Hall rehearsal)<<

Calling Long Distance
Lifelines / Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968
Stages: 68 (Paris Olympia) / Noel Redding-The Experience Sessions
Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead – Unofficial
Live In Ottowa
Live At Clark University
Live At Winterland
Variations On A Theme: Red House (Winterland 10/10/68 + Berkeley 70)
The Last Experience (2 versions)
Live At Oakland Colliseum
Hendrix In The West/Stages 69/”The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (San Diego 69)
The LA Forum Concert – Lifelines IV (Alan Douglas mix)/West Coast Seattle Boy (original mix) / Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
Live At Woodstock
Jimi Plays Berkeley (free CD)/West Coast Seattle Boy
Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Voodoo Chile compilation (Randall Island 70)
Live At The Isle Of White (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Winterland (box set) – 3 versions
Live In Cologne
Miami Pop Festival
Live At The Hollywood Bowl
Live In Maui

 

Remember
Spliced in between two very spacy rock songs on the first album, “Remember” seems a bit out of place. The rhythm is similar to Otis Redding’s “Mr. Pitiful” or “Mocking Bird” and Jimi sings it with ease, harking back to his years as a backing musician to countless soul artists. Punctuated by a superb little guitar solo.

UK Are You Experienced reissues on CD

> Curtis Knight & The Squires had “Mr. Pitiful” in their repertoire as revealed by some of the PPX albums. Also, Jimi once performed “Mocking bird” on British TV as a duet with Dusty Springfield in 1968. 

 

Rock Me Baby (King)
Another early song in the band’s set, with B.B. King’s lyrics to a tune of Jimi’s that later became “Lover Man”. As Jimi introduced it at Monterey he plays a brief snippet of the B.B. King riff. Interesting to note that Otis Redding, who shared the original Monterey album with Jimi, had also recorded his own version of the song on the album “Otis Blue” of 1967, on which Jimi’s old friend Steve Cropper of Booker T And The MGs played some neat guitar.

Live At Monterey/”The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set
Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968

 

Rock ‘n’ Roll Band
Jimi played on this track for the band Eire Apparent. He also produced their album. This track sounds like The Flaming Groovies with Hendrix on lead guitar !
See “Guest Appearences” section.

Eire Apparent – Sunrise

 

Room Full Of Mirrors
Jimi had been toying with this song when The Experience were together, even playing it at one of their UK farewell gigs at the Albert Hall. In the lyrics, Jimi seems to speak of his despair of being at the centre of everything and his desire to break out. Which is exactly what he set about to do in 1969, disolving the band to develop a new approach and image.
There are many versions of the song in all stages of its development. At the Albert Hall in 1969 it became an inspired funky jam. He later perfected the song in the studio with the Band Of Gypsys line-up to create one of the best songs of his last years. However, the song did not come across well on the 1970 tours.

Rainbow Bridge/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
Lifelines (alternate mix)
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (2versions)
Morning Symphony Ideas (jam)
West Coast Seattle Boy (jam with 1988 overdubs)

The Last Experience
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn

 

S

Scorpio Woman
Jimi exploring ideas alone at Maui. Not during the gigs there however. It begins with a nice improvised vocal then ambles along for 20 minutes, going through “Midnight Lighning” and “Race with The Devil” (a hit in the late sixties for Gun) the riff of which Jimi often incorporated into his live shows in 1970.

Morning Symphony Ideas

 

Sergent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Lennon/McCartney)
When The Experience had finished and released their first album, The Beatles put out their much anticipated psychedelic extravaganza. A few days after the release, members of The Beatles went down to the their manager Brian Epstein’s Saville Theatre on a Sunday evening to see The Jimi Hendrix Experience play. Jimi opened with this song, the title track of The Beatles new album, much to the amazement and delight of the Fab Four ! The Beatles album would later prevent “Are You Experienced” from reaching the Number One spot on the charts (damn Liverpudlians !)

Stages 67 /”The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Stockholm)
Live At The Isle Of White (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At Woburn
Live At The Hollywood Bowl – August 18, 1967

 

Send My Love To Linda
An unfinished song from 1970 that appeared on “Lifelines” as a very sketchy solo demo. According to Kathy Etchingham, Jimi worked on the song as early as 1968/69 and she suggested the name Linda ( Rocky Dzidzournu’s girlfriend and not Linda Keith as was originally believed).
> At his last UK concert (Isle Of Wight) he had dedicated “Foxy Lady” to “Linda” (that time referring to Linda Keith we presume).

Lifelines (extract)
Both Sides Of The Sky (complete and fused with a Band Of Gypsys studio intrumental)

 

Shame, Shame, Shame
Jimi toyed with incorporating this song into “Room Full Of Mirrors” in early 1969 but he later developped it as “It’s Too Bad” (which appeared on the purple box set in 2000.

West Coast Seattle Boy

She’s So Fine (Redding)
Noel’s high profile in the band and his ambition, led to him getting one of his own songs on the second album. Okay, his voice does sound a bit out of place on the album and the song has dated rather, but it all adds to album’s charm. Great playing by all concerned and Jimi treats Noel to some fabulous guitar playing. Mitch is brilliant on this too.
I read in Jas Obrecht’s book that when they recorded this, Jimi just cracked up according the Chas Chandler. The book also mentions that Jimi would later linsist that the song should be on Axis Bold As Love.

Axis Bold As Love
Noel Redding – The Experience Sessions (alternate version)

 

Sky Blues Today
– See Stepping Stone

Slow Blues
An invented title for this enticing instrumental jam on which the tape ran out ! Aaaargh !

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set

Slow Time Blues
This is the final part of the jam that Dagger called “Record Plant 2X” on their release “Burning Desire”. The jam is to be found complete on “Villanova Juncton Blues” (Burning Airlines) and on “Am I Blue” (Purple Haze Records).

Burning Desire

Slow Version
An improvised jam by the Experience at Olympic Studios in February 1969, similar to “Hear My Train A Comin” in feel.

Hear My Music

 

Slow Walkin’ Talk (Brian Hopper)
This instrumental has only cropped up officially on an Alan Douglas approved Univibes album – see Posthumous Live section (90s). It is in fact Soft Machine member Robert Wyatt (on vocals, organ and drums) with Jimi on bass only. The song later became “Soup Song”.
Soft Machine were good friends of the The Experience and toured with them quite extensively. Robert Wyatt dropped in on a BBC session once to participate in the vocals to “Day Tripper” (to be found today on “BBC Sessions”).

Calling Long Distance

 

Smashing Of Amps
Well I had to list it didn’t I ? At the Albert Hall in 1969 Jimi felt a little obliged to do his Wild Man thing, even though he had really put that behind him at that stage. This is the silly title given to the crunching at the end of the gig.

The Last Experience

Snowballs At My Window
A 40 second sketch of a song on solo acoustic guitar. That’s all that we have of this song.

Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (home demo)

 

Somewhere
This song from March 1968 also got the Alan Douglas treatment on “Crash Landing” apprearing as “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”but it turned up later on the MCA box set without the Douglas overdubs. Mitch had in fact recorded his drums onto the song in 1972 (the original drums were by Buddy Miles who had participated in the initial recording session with Steve Stills on bass. That version emerged in 2013 on the album “People, Hell & Angels” but unfortunately as a Pro-Tools composite of seperate takes.
This song showed great promise but Jimi unfortunately left it aside, only retaining the opening lyrics for “Earth Blues”. Superb vocal track.

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set
People, Hell & Angels
Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (home demo)

 

So Much (McGeogh & McGear)
Jimi guests on lead guitar. See “Guest Appearences” section.

McGough and McGear

 

South Saturn Delta
A rather disjointed instrumental that Jimi never really finished. It began with the Experience (as on the unofficial “Axis Outtakes”) then later Jimi added a brass arrangement by Larry Fallon (as featured on the album “South Saturn Delta”). On “Lifelines” another mix had the horns attributed to the Brecker Brothers (later denied by them).
When I first heard the version on “Lifelines” I always half expected Alan Douglas to release a “Jimi Hendrix :Jazz” album (like he had done with “:Blues”. Perhaps he had it in mind (he had already hinted at it with “Nine To The Universe”). Other “jazzy” tracks he might have included: “Up From The Skies”, “Tax Free”, Rainy Day”, “Blue Window“, “Beginning”, “Easy Blues” … Burn your own !

South Saturn Delta
Lifelines

Spanish Castle Magic
Jimi invites us to join him on a cosmic journey by “dragonfly” to a faraway place “though it’s not in Spain.” Great hard rock from The Experience in the style of “Manic Depression” or “Fire” and often featured to great effect with long improvised passages in live performances.
Jimi’s father recounted in his book that, in his youth, Jimi used to frequent a club in Seattle called The Spanish Castle (thanks to Jerry for that detail). It is confirmed by a childhood friend of Jimis who also said that the “Dragonfly” was a car. When introducing the song at State Fair Music Hall, Dallas (16/02/68), Jimi says “It’s not a place where you’d take your grandmother”.

Axis Bold As Love
BBC Sessions
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Albert Hall Rehearsal)

Calling Long Distance (different ?)
Live At Winterland/Winterland
Live At Oakland Colliseum
Live In Ottowa
Stages 69 (San Diego)
Jimi In Denmark
The LA Forum Concert (Lifelines IV) / Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
Live At Woodstock
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Live At The Isle Of Wight (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Live In Maui

Station Break
This lost Curtis Knight recording finally appeared in 2015 when Experience Hendrix aquired the rights to the Ed Chalpin PPX material and released
an album of mainly the 1965-66 recordings under the title of “You Can’t Use My Name”.

You Can’t Use My Name

Steal Away (Jimmy Hughes)
The Band Of Gypsy covering an old Jimmy Hughes song at their Fillmore concerts. Buddy Miles on lead vocals.

Songs For Groovy Children

 

Stepping Stone
Jimi inserted a glimpse of this into an improvisation at Woodstock. In its early form it was called “Lonely Avenue”, “Tryin To Be”, “I’m A Man” or Sky Blues Today”. It was in the studio however that the song really came together. It is quite breathtaking when Jimi lets loose as it sears towards its growling climax. On the rougher single mix, you can hear, I presume, Eddie Kramer say “Made it !” as the band crash to a halt (just before the tape ran out ?). That mix (along with the A-Side “Izabella”) was eventually released on the MCA compliation “Voodoo Chile” and more recently in the “Classic Singles Volume II” box set of vinyl 45s. A more finalised version had been issued on “War Heroes” (now on “First Rays”). This song has nothing to do with the superb Monkees classic “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” (which the Sex Pistols covered to good effect in the seventies !).

Voodoo Child Compilation (Band Of Gypsys mix – slightly different to original single version)
War Heroes/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun
Both Sides Of The Sky

Live At The Fillmore East

Still Raining Still Dreaming
The stunning continuation (on vinyl Side Four) of “Rainy Day Dream Away” (vinyl Side Three).

Electric Ladyland

 

Stone Free
This is said to be Jimi’s first song, although Linda Kieth said she had heard him working on other songs (which later became famous) when she had befriended him in New York in the late summer of 1966). The autumn 1966 recording of “Stone Free” is a swaggering funky rock track which needs no introduction from me. Jeff Beck confessed once (on a Radio One tribute to Jimi, “Impressions Of Hendrix”, that the guitar solo always made him freeze on the spot). In April 1969, the Experience re-recorded “Stone Free” for possible inclusion on the US “Smash Hits”, but it wasn’t chosen for inclusion. In the mid 70s, Alan Douglas glossed that 1969 recording up (with session musicians) and put it out as “Stone Free Again” on the Crash Landing album. The unretouched 1969 Experience version later turned up on the MCA box set. In 2009, Eddie Kramer took a Mitchell/Cox rhythmic instrumental of “Stone Free” and Pro-Tool merged it with the April ’69 version and put it on the Valleys Of Neptune album.

UK Smash Hits/Are You Experienced reissues on CD
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set
BBC Sessions
Valleys Of Neptune (composite)

Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968
The Last Experience – Jimi Hendrix Concerts
Live At Berkeley
West Coast Seattle Boy (Fillmore East 31-12-69)
Live At The Fillmore East (Fillmore East 1-1-70)
Songs For Groovy Children (all three Band Of Gypsys performances at the Fillmore East)
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Live In Maui

 

Stop (Ragovoy/Shuman)

Buddy Miles on lead vocals for this soul number that the Band Of Gypsys played at at their Fillmore East concerts. Jimi and Miles vocals intertwine nicely, like they did on “Who Knows” and I think Billy Cox is in there supplying some backing vocals. A bold decision to perform this at the Fillmore and thanks really to Miles’ stature and confidence as a one-man soul machine, they pull it off rather well. The song was originally a 1969 hit for Howard Tate. It had also been covered on the blues jam album “Super Session” by Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills.

Band Of Gypsys 2/Live At The Fillmore East (Fillmore East 01/01/70 – 1st show)
Machine Gun (Fillmore East 31/12/69 – 1st show)
Songs For Groovy Children (all three Band Of Gypsys performances at the Fillmore East)

 

Straight Ahead
This began life as “Pass It On”. Standard 1970 Hendrix rock again for our listening pleasure, the lyrics of which were printed on the back cover of the first posthumous studio album “Cry Of Love” – “Hello my friend, so good to see you again. I’ve been all alone, all by myself. I just couldn’t make it”, lyrics which say a lot about Jimis mental state at the time.

Cry Of Love/First Rays Of The New Rising Sun

Live At Berkeley
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Freedom – Atlanta Pop Festival
Live In Maui

 

Strato Strut
A jam exploration with Jimi, Cox and Miles. A very nice funky groove to this one. At the end, you hear Jimi call out “Save that !” to the sound engineer.

Morning Symphony Ideas

Sweet Angel
See “Angel”

Suddenly November Morning/Drifting
An extract from the legendary “Black Gold Suite” home demo. A totally new song for us, which shows great promise. Jimi is alone on acoustic guitar and sings of cold lonliness “…ever since I left that girl of mine” (Kathy?). The song drifts nicely into “Drifting” at the end of this extract.

West Coast Seattle Boy

 

Sunshine Of Your Love (Bruce/Brown/Clapton)
Chas Chandler recounted that when he met Jimi in New York for the first time, he was already very keen to meet one of Londons hottest guitarist, Eric Clapton. As soon as they both arrived in London in October 1966, they went to check out Eric’s new band that he had formed (with the ex-rhythm section of The Graham Bond Organisation) called Cream. Incredibly, the unknown Jimi guested with the band and went into “Killing Floor” and blew away poor old Eric, who put his guitar down and stood aside to just watch in awe (he later admitted he had never managed to master the song). A great friendship struck up between the musicians however and Cream composed this song in Jimi’s honour ! The Experience soon featured their own instrumental version in their stage performances.

BBC Sessions
Valleys Of Neptune (with 1988 overdubs by Redding and Mitchell)

Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead
Live At Winterland/Winterland
The Last Experience (2 versions)
Stages 69 (San Diego)
The LA Forum Concert (Lifelines IV) / Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
West Coast Seattle Boy, Songs For Groovy Children (as part of Stone Free)
Live At The Hollywood Bowl

T

 

Taking Care Of No Business
During the “Axis” sessions, the band put down this amusing little bar-room blues not unlike another Experience epoch number called “My Friend” (which appeared on the posthumous “Cry Of Love”).
We had to wait till the year 2000 to get this one officially, on the MCA box. Jimi plays just rhythm, accompanied by Mitch and the raw quality adds to the songs charm. There is a delightful middle section where Jimi simply hums an imaginary horn solo. Great lyrics as Jimi humourously recalls his hard times as an unemployed musician.
In 1988 Chas Chandler completed the song with some fitting brass overdubs (which were perhaps intended originally) giving it more of a Kinks feel. Chas was working on an album of unreleased Experience material which remains on the shelf. The version with brass cropped up on the unofficial but widely distributed Axis Outtakes (Purple Haze Records).

Back in 1965, Curtis Knight and The Squires had cut a demo of the song. During one of the two August 1967 reunion sessions with Knight, Jimi recorded bass over the old  demo. It had the basis of the lyrics, the same tempo, but a slightly different structure. It appeared as “No Business” on the PPX/Capitol album “Get That Feeling” in 1967.

“Taking Care Of No Business” bears a strong ressemblance to Ray Charles’ “Them That Got” and also The Coasters’  “D.W. Washburn” for the music and also to Louis Jordan’s “Nobody But Me” for the lyrical and vocal approach. 

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set
No Business (sutudio and demo versions)
Axis Outtakes (unofficial – Chas Chandler version with brass overdub)

 

Tax Free (Hanssen/Karlssen)
The Experience never put out a full instrumental and this jazz-rock number appeared originally on the postumous “War Heroes”. The composers Bo Hanssen ( keyboards) and Janne Karlssen (drums) had met Jimi in the Club Filips in Stockholm (September 1967), where they had jammed for over four hours*. I’m not sure if one of the tunes they jammed on was “Tax Free“. The duo would later play support for The Experience when the tours passed through the region. The Experience soon adopted the song and their version is just great, with Jimi freely using all the phrasing from his rich palette of sounds. They recorded about eight versions in the studio ! The band often played this song in concert in 1968 and 69 and even opened their last gig in Denver with it.
You can hear their original version by Hansson And Karlsson here: Tax Free
* A tape of the jam exists but is jelously garded by its owner. Shame on him !

War Heroes/South Saturn Delta

Live In Ottowa
Live At Winterland
The Last Experience
Jimi In Denmark (Falkoner Centret 69)
The LA Forum Concert (Lifelines IV) / Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
Live At Woburn
Winterland (box set) two versions
Miami Pop Festival

 

Tears Of Rage (Dylan)
This home demo features Jimi on electric guitar recording the Bob Dylan/Richard Manuel song, accompanied by his old Greenwich Village friend Paul Caruso. Jimi learned the song from listening to a privately circulated copy of Bob Dylan and the Band’s unreleased ‘Basement Tapes’ as the song had not yet officially appeared on disc by either Dylan or the Band at the time of this recording. An edited demonstration version of this has circulated on the bootleg “Happy Birthday Jimi”. This brings the number of Jimi’s Dylan covers to five songs!

West Coast Seattle Boy

Them Changes (Buddy Miles)
Buddy Miles’ most famous song performed by the Band Of Gypsys at the Fillmore East concerts. Miles soon released an album of the same name.
Buddy had nicked the riff from “Sing Lady Sing” by The New York Rock And Roll Ensemble (featured on their 1969 album “Faithful Friends…”).

Band Of Gypsys, Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 01/01/70 – 2nd show)
Live At The Fillmore East/Machine Gun, Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 31/12/69 – 1st show)
Songs For Groovy Children (Fillmore East 31/12/69 – 2nd show & 01/01/70 – 1st show)
The Baggys Rehearsal Sessions

 

There Ain’t Nothing Wrong (Noel Redding)
This began life as an instrumental jam titled “Little One” and it features Dave Mason of Traffic on sitar* and slide guitar. In 1988 Chas Chandler came back to the track, calling up Mitch and Noel to do new overdubs and “Little One” was given a Noel Redding lyric and vocal to become this song.

*It was thought by some that Brian Jones played the sitar here but Eddie Kramer’s book confirmed that it was Mason. A Stones bootleg CD was even put together with Jonesy on the cover called “He Is Not Dead” featuring the two takes of the track (with some “Citadel” sessions and a poor live Stones recording).

Noel Redding – The Experience Sessions

 

The Star Spangled Banner (John Stafford Smith)
Jimi had inserted this theme into “Purple Haze” as far back as September 1967. In 1968 he incorporated into a suite that he introduced at the Winterland concerts as “This Is America”. Along with his cutting interpretation of the American national anthem were brief flurries of The Byrds “2-4-2 Fox Trot” and the famous “Bonanza” cowboy TV series ! His “Star Spangled Banner” wasn’t just “wild man” feedback for the hell of it, as it might have seemed on the surface, but a brutal attack on American imperialism. At the time, the youth of America lived through the hell of being drafted to fight in Vietnam, and there was a strong anti-war movement under way. The summer of 68 had seen an explosion of anti-authoritarian violence in the States and across Europe. Here, Jimi uses his guitar to paint a sattirical nightmare vision of machine guns, diving bombs, napalm explosions and most chillingly, screams. The most famous and symbolic version being at the Woodstock climax as an exploited and distraught American youth looked on. His very own Guernica.
His assault on the song did offend devoted patriots, particularly in the southern states of the USA. In 1969 in Houston, the police security got upset and demanded backstage that Jimi stop the interpretation as he was performing it. Once in Dallas (where else) a bunch of red-necks appreared backstage and threatened Jimi and tour manager Ron Terry that if “that nigger” played the song, they would kill him. Jimi proceeded to play it anyway ! Talk about Black Power.
He also put together a complex multi-track studio version which was much less violent and sarcistic, and subsequently comes over as more patriotic, putting a whole different slant on the statement. When Jimi worked on the studio version in1968, it only got as far as a demo. Kramer came back to it and mixed for this album.

Rainbow Bridge /”The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set
Lifelines (alternate mix extract)
Hear My Music (live in studio version)

The Last Experience (2 versions)
The LA Forum Concert – Lifelines IV (Alan Douglas mix)/West Coast Seattle Boy (original mix) / Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
Live At Oakland Colisseum
Live At Woodstock
Live At Berkeley
Stages 70 (Atlanta)/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
Winterland (box set) – 2 versions
Live At The Hollywood Bowl

 

The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice
This is a load of fun as Jimi takes us all on a “Magical Mystery Tour” to outer space (“… if you look out of the window you will see Mars”). The title is a sort of joke capitalising on the suggestion that had been made that The Beatle’s “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” was an intended pun about L.S.D. (Lennon later denied this). Jimi makes his guitar practically talk with the Wah-Wah break at the beginning of the song before he revs it up to Warp-Factor 10 for a blistering guitar solo. That solo was mixed down on the single to flow with the whole swirling “trip”, however the song was re-released later on “Loose Ends” (and ultimately on “South Saturn Delta)” with the guitar solo much clearer in the mix. 
The original single mix disappeared while Alan Dougles was in charge of the back catalogue but it reappeared on the 2002 re-release of “Smash Hits”,  “The Singles Collection” in 2003 and on the Sony re-release of the purple box set.

UK Smash Hits / The Singles Collection / Sony re-release of the purple box set
Loose Ends/South Saturn Delta

 

The Wind Cries Mary
Released at the same time as the Experience’s first album “Are You Experienced”, the mood shifts here to a beautiful gentle ballad with a charming lyric. Incredibly, Jimi introduced this song to Mitch and Noel in the studio and they immediately recorded it, all in just twenty minutes ! Jimi is thought to have sketched the basis of this out in his Greenwich Village days but he brought it fully together in London, after a row with his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham. Her middle name was Mary and Jimi often called her by that name to tease her. In the “Uncut Story” documentary, she recounts that during the row, she smashed some plates on the floor and Jimi drearily swept up the broken pieces. Then dressed in red she went out to catch a taxi, waiting under the traffic lights (that for Jimi would depressingly turn blue tomorrow). The “jacks in their boxes” referred to the BBC end of evening test-card, on which there was a photo of a young girl with a toy jack-in-the-box by her side.

US Are You Experienced/Smash Hits/Are You Experienced reissues on CD

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Paris Olympia 1967) / Paris 67
Live At Monterey
Stages: 67/West Coast Seattle Boy (Stockholm 67)
EXP Over Sweden
Stages: 68 (Paris Olympia)
Live At The Hollywood Bowl – August 18, 1967

Things I Used To Do (Eddie Jones a.k.a. Guitar Slim)
A glimpse of this jam was featured on the radio show that was put out as the “Lifelines” box set. Jimi jams with Johnny Winter, Stephen Stills and Dallas Taylor at the Record Plant, New York 15 May 1969. Jimi once performed this song live at the Newport Pop Festival in June 1969, during a spontaneous on-stage jam with friends (Buddy Miles, Eric Burdon, …)

Lifelines (Exract)
Both Sides Of The Sky

3rd Stone From The Sun
Lift off. The most psychedelic track of the first album where Jimi plays the role of an alien observing Earth. The only thing he finds interesting is our “mysterious superior cackling hen“, so he destroys humanity with the only consolation that“…you’ll never hear surf music again” . That was Jimi’s little tribute to surf guitar hero Dick Dale who at the time had been diagnosed with rectal cancer. Jimi was under the impression that Dale had died apparently. This is a good illustration of how Jimi incorporated his feelings into his texts.
The main musical refrain sounds very similar the theme tune of the famous British TV series “Coronation Street” (by Eric Spear) ! (see “1983” also).
The central part is similar to The Spencer Davis Group’s “Waltz For Lamumba” which I think pre-dates this song.

In the seventies the tune made it into the UK singles charts as the central part of Cozy Powell’s hit “Dance With The Devil”. In the 90s, the duo Right Said Fred had a big hit with “I’m Too Sexy” which featured a sample of “3rd Stone From The Sun”.
The song was also once used as a soundtrack for an Audi advertising campaign on British TV.

Are You Experienced
“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set (Alternate version)

This is America
See “Star Spangled Banner”.

 

3 Little Bears
An amusing little song put down (with overdubs) during the “Ladyland” sessions. The lyric was perhaps just what came into Jimi’s head before he had developped something less trite. It is quite funny towards the end as even Jimi gets sick of the song and his own annoyingly insistent guitar solo, moaning and shouting “Stop that shit !, Stop it !”. The unofficial “Axis Outtakes” (see Studio section) revealed that this track went into a long loose jam after the false (and better) ending that Eddie Kramer created for “War Heroes”.

> On the unofficial “Blues At Midnight” (Radioactive 2005) there is blues jam built on the basic structure of “3 Little Bears”. It was recorded at the Café-A-Go-Go in March 1968.

Merry Xmas And A happy New Year

 

Title #3
The Experience working out on a riff that is similar to “Can You See Me” or “You Got Me Floating”. “Title #3” was what was written on the tape box.

“The Jimi Hendrix Experience” purple box set

 

Tomorrow Never Knows (Lennon/McCartney)
This is listed as a track on the Scene Club jams but it is only the basic Beatles riff (from their 1966 album “Revolver”) within a broader jam sequence. Jimi would include the theme as part of live performances of “Are You Experienced” sometimes (that song was really Jimi’s own rewriting of “Tomorrow Never Knows“).

Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead – Unofficial

Touch You (Redding/Mitchell)
This is simply an instrumental version of a Redding/Mitchell song called “Dance” (or, “Dance” was the “Touch You” riff with a later added Mitchell vocal). “Dance” has never been officially released but “Touch Me” turned up as an extra track/vinyl B-side of the 2011 single “Fire” (the excellent “West Coast Seattle Boy” version).

Trashman
This first appeared in a retouched version on “Midnight Lightning” in 1975 and it wasn’t until 2004 that it reapeared in it’s original form. It is The Experience in a New York studio who begin jamming on “Midnight” before Jimi takes things in another direction until he puts in a nice theme, not unlike “1984” or “Third Stone From The Sun“.

Hear My Music

Tryin To Be
– See Stepping Stone

12 Bar WIth Horns
A great 11 minute jazzy tinged instrumental jam with Chris Wood on sax and trumpet, recorded in February 1969, this has only appeared as track 2 of the 2010 CD single of “Love Or Confusion”.

$20 Fine (Stephen Stills)
A jam with Steve Stills on vocals and organ. Some nice guitar backing from Jim.

Both Sides Of The Sky

Two Little Birds (Knight/Hendrix)
A pretty uninteresting doo-wop demo song with a Curtis Knight vocal.

No Business

U

 

Untitled Basic Track
October 68 and a stunning jam here from The Experience with a hard driving riff and some tasty extreme soloing from Jimi (not unlike the heights attained on “Tax Free” or “Midnight” for example).

West Coast Seattle Boy

Up From The Skies
It is almost a relief when Mitch’s brushes come in after the wild feedback of “EXP” for this cool jazzy blues. It sounds like Donovan’s The Observation was the inspiration for this one. It also has a Georgie Fame feel to it.
Fabulous soft vocal from the alien again, driven by some lovely wah-wah guitar. “Aw shucks … If my Daddy could see me now”.

Axis Bold As Love

EXP Over Sweden (Konserthuset, Stockholm 8/01/68)

 

Uranus Rock
Part of the Scene Club jams again. The last part of the recording is one long jam incorporating many themes. This title obviously refers to Jim Morrisons filthy language.

Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead – Unofficial

V

 

Valleys Of Neptune
An unfinished song from the end of jimi’s career that appeared as a rough demo on “Lifelines”. Jimi had great interest in the song and previewed it for inclusion on his 1970 album. Other incarnations appeared recently on “Hear My Music”, one of which features Jimi on piano !.
Finally in 2010, Eddie Kramer combined two demos (one of which had been on “Lifelines”) to create a more finished sounding version that became a single and album title track.

Lifelines
Hear My Music (2 versions)
Valleys Of Neptune

 

Villanova Junction Blues
This is the name given to a sketchy instrumental that Jimi never fully defined on record. Perhaps “Pali Gap” released on Rainbow Bridge was its closest relation. At Woodstock this came at the end of Jimi’s set and all concerned sound a little numb after the colossal suite that had preceeded it.

Burning Desire
People, Hell & Angels (alternate)

Live At Woodstock

 

Voodoo Child (Slight Return)*
At the end of “Ladyland”, after the three previous tracks (on vinyl side four originally), the listener, already wiped out by such richness, is bludgeoned by this awesome cosmic blues. Bearing little relation to side one’s “Voodoo Chile”, this track is a tour de force of sizzling guitar work and rock vocals. Jimi is self portrayed as a sort of God here, who can chop down mountains and create islands at will. A black God. As he began playing the song at the Newport Festival in June 1969, Jimi shouted at the aggressive hecklers “This is a black militant song, don’t you ever forget it !“. At the ‘Mystique Of Harlem’ benefit the following September he introduced the song as “The Harlem National Anthem”. Later in the year at the Fillmore East during the famous Band Of Gypsys concerts, Jimi introduced the song as “The Black Panthers National Anthem” !
If Muddy Waters had been the first to electrify the blues and white rock artists from the Stones to Paul Butterfield to Cream picked up on that, it was Jimi who re-possessed it and took it all to its ultimate conclusion.

*On the original UK Track pressing, this was listed as “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)” with an “e”, which was more logical. Handwritten lyrics from early 1968
have it down with an “e”. For the US edition, it had a “d” and a photo of Jimi’s handwritten notes (in the present MCA CD edition) seems to show that Jimi wrote a “d” over his previously written annotation with an “e” (why do I bother ?).

Electric Ladyland
Lifelines (Take 4)
Jimi By Himself/Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (home demo)

Live In Ottowa
The Jimi Hendrix Concerts
Winterland +3
The Last Experience (3 versions)
Live At Oakland Colliseum
The LA Forum Concert (Lifelines IV) / Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1967
Stages 69 (San Diego)/In The West (Sony)
Jimi In Denmark
Live At Woodstock
Live At The Fillmore East, Songs For Groovy Children
Live At Berkeley
Johnny B. Goode/Band OF Gypsys 2/Stages 70/Freedom – Atlantic Pop Festival
The Rainbow Bridge Concert
Live At The Isle Of Wight (Blue Wild Angel)
Live At The Isle Of Fehmarn
Winterland (box set)/Winterland (1 CD version)
Live In Cologne
Live In Maui

 

Voodoo Chile
Enough messing around (as this track seems to say as it begins) it’s time to get down to business. Jack Casady (of The Jefferson Airplane) plays bass and Stevie Winwood (Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith) blends in perfectly on organ. Although this sounds live-in-studio, it was constucted from various takes. Jimi’s guitar sounds gigantic here and Mitch’s playing too, shows that he was in a class of his own. At last the double album format gave Jimi the chance to stretch out (but at the time this was seen by some critics as self indulgence). The song in fact grew out of Jimi’s interpretation of “Catfish Blues” which had been in The Experience’s repertoire for some time. Here however, the song has totally cosmic, science fiction inspired lyrics !

When the musicians finish playing, one gets an idea of the atmosphere during the recording of “Electric Ladyland” with Jimi surrounded by his band of hangers-on in the studio. This was one of the things that so infuriated Chas and Noel and led to the break-up of the band. Noel later said that, amongst all the studio partying, he would be asked “Who are you, Man ?”.

> Jimi got the opening warble from “Collins Shuffle” by Albert Collins.

> Interview with Jack Casady about the recording of “Voodoo Chile”

Electric Ladyland
Blues (“Voodoo Chile Blues” – outtake)

W

 

Wait Untill Tomorrow
New territory for the band here with this superb little ballad. It is all romantic fun as Jimi plans to run away with his sweetheart until he is shot by her father !

Axis Bold As Love
BBC Sessions

 

Wake Up This Morning And Find Yourself Dead
The title of this is a pun on standard blues lyrics and this comes from the 1968 Scene Club jam with The McCoys, Buddy Miles and Jim Morrison.

Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead – Unofficial

 

Walking Through The Garden (Noel Redding)
The Experience play one of Noels songs in May 68, which didn’t make it on to one of the band’s albums.

Noel Redding – The Experience Sessions

Waterfall
See “May This Be Love”.

We Gotta Live Together (Buddy Miles)

Another Buddy Miles song performed by the Band Of Gypsys at the Fillmore East concerts. The riff that Jimi plays on this Buddy Miles composition is lifted directly from Sly Stone’s 1968 hit “Sing A Simple Song” and the basic chant is taken straight out of Sly’s “Everyday People“. Buddy also slips in a snippet of Joe Hicks’ “Home Sweet Home” (which was also a Sly Stone penned song). Thanks to Andrew from Glasgow, Régis and Dino for clarifying all that for me.

> Miles soon released his own recording of the song on his album of the same name.

Band Of Gypsys/Live At The Fillmore East, Songs For Groovy Children (01/01/70 – 2nd show) – the latter has the most complete version.
The Baggys Behearsal Sessions

Who Knows
A catchy little funk arrangement that Jimi only seems to have played with the Bang Of Gypsys for their New Years concerts at the Filmore East 69/70. A great vehicle for this soul/rock outfit where the vocal interplay between Jimi and Buddy Miles comes over very well (even if Miles gets a little carried away*).
*Eddie Kramer recalled that while Jimi was mixing “Band Of Gypsys” he put his head in his hands saying “Come on Buddy, shut up”.

Perhaps Bo Diddley’s “Ride On Josephine” (from the album Bo Diddley Is A Gunslinger which Jimi had owned as a teenager) had been the inspiration for the killer riff of “Who Knows”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOd4lws9XNE

Also, there was a 1968 song by Beau Dollar titled“Who Knows” (available on “James Brown’s Funky People Vol. 3”) and guess what, the opening riff is vaguely similar to the basic groove of Jimi’s song. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kR-eUxkW3s

However the JB song (by Beau Dollar) was released in February 1970, after the Fillmore concerts. Could Jimi, Buddy or Billy have heard the track prior to that on another release or from a musician close to the JB stable of artists ? Or, had the riff already appeared on another Brown related song?
It is intriguing, especially when you consider that Jimi never came back to the song (despite its brilliance). It seems to have been a jam idea (or loose cover version), put together for the shows. Just a theory.

Band Of Gypsys
Live At The Fillmore East
Songs For Groovy Children (both Band Of Gypsys performances at the Fillmore East)

 

Wild Thing (Chip Taylor)
If ever there was a song tailor-made for Jimi’s reputation as the “Wild Man Of Rock” or “the black Elvis” as the popular press described him, then The Troggs hit “Wild Thing” was the one. Jimi’s audacity to simply adopt the songs of other artists was quite remarkable. There was alot of cameraderie among artists in the sixties, The Beatles wrote “I Wanna Be Your Man” for The Stones, The Who recorded and released a couple of Stones songs to aid the band during their drug busts, etc. Jimi, despite being such a prolific writer himself, was a fan aswell and enjoyed performing songs by The Troggs, Beatles, Cream, Them or Traffic. He would also play a little of Frank Sinatra’s big 60s hit “Strangers In The Night” during the guitar solo on this one ! (Frank Sinatra was also the founder of Reprise, Jimi’s US label).
The song, written by Chip Taylor, was originally recorded and released by The Wild Ones (a.k.a. Jordan Christopher & The Wild Ones) in 1965 on United Artists (UA 947). The Troggs had a hit with their version in the spring of 1966, just as Jimi was entering his solo Greenwich Village stint and the first recording that we have of him playing it is from the Paris Olympia in October 1966. Jimi closely follows The Troggs’ stop/start arrangement of the song rather than more flowing original Wild Ones version. “Wild Thing” became his ultimate show stopper, quite literally, when on occasions he would take the song into a storm of feedback and then theatrically make love to, smash up or burn his guitar. Wild Man of Rock alright !

Live At Monterey
Paris 1967/San Francisco 1968
The Jimi Hendrix Concerts
Live At Winterland
Live At Clark University
The Last Experience
Live In Ottawa
Live At The Fillmore East, Songs For Groovy Children
Live At The Hollywood Bowl – August 18, 1967

Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)
Jimi only on bass with Steve Stills on vocals and organ.

Both Sides Of The Sky

Working All Day
A nice little 1965 demo of a song written by Jimmy. In the doo-wop style, it’s a prison song, similar in theme to Sam Cooke’s Working In A Chain Gang.
Jimmy also demonstrating here that he really could sing well.

No Business

World Traveler
This is an interesting 1969 studio jam with Duane Hutchins on organ. It features a vocal from Jimi backed with a nice“Funky Chicken” type rhythm.

Unreleased officially

Y

 

You Got Me Floating
Like “Aint No Telling”, this is another standard Experience rocker again with Mitch, Noel, Graham Nash and Roy Wood and Trevor Burton of The Move on the chorus vocals. Nice use of backward guitar tapes again.

Axis Bold As Love

 

Young/Hendrix
A superb 1969 jam featuring keyboard player Larry Young with Cox and Mitchell. It appeared in an edited form on “Nine To The Universe” in 1980 but complete on 2010’s “West Coast Seattle Boy”. This demonstrates again how Jimi could feed off and propell other musicians and how he could have developped in a more “jazz” orientated context.

In 1969, Larry Young played alongside John McLaughlin in Tony Williams’ Lifetime and with Miles Davis on the Bitches Brew album. The following year he played on John McLaughlin’s solo album “Devotion”, which was produced by Alan Douglas and also featured Buddy Miles on drums. 

Nine To The Universe (Edited version)
West Coast Seattle Boy

 

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Keep on groovin’ trainspotters !