Here are a few releases on various labels that managed to get product
into the shops over the years and on more recently onto retail websites.
JIMI HENDRIX AT HIS BEST Volumes 1,2 & 3
Released 1972 ((Joker/Sagapan)
This is Jimi jamming in reclusion at his rented Shokan house just after Woodstock in 1969 – the Mike Ephron jams.
Ephron dodged copyright (vis à vis Experience Hendrix and PPX Enterprises) by declaring the recordings as being from 1964!
> See “Home Recordings” section.
The Scene Club '68 tape
HIGH, LIVE ‘N DIRTY ♥
Released 1978 (Nutmeg Records)
F.H.I.T.A., No! No!, In The Morning, Jimi’s Blues, Peoples, Peoples
I finally managed to get hold of full details of this (thanks to Samb). Recordings from this Scene Club, New York 1968 jam were already known to Hendrix fans as the bootlegs “Sky High” or “Pipedream”. The tapes were not in the hands of the Hendrix estate but turned up widely distributed on this label. Not all of the concert was represented here and the tapes were tampered with (Jim Morrison’s foul language was padded out), so I’ll save my breath for the more satisfying release that came in 1980: “Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead”. I am certainly not going to say what “F.H.I.T.A” stands for !
Deleted
THE COVER
“X Rated ” it says (thanks to obscenities from Jim Morrison). An apt title but a graphically plain sleeve. – 2/10
WOKE UP THIS MORNING AND FOUND MYSELF DEAD ♥♥½
Released 1980 (Red Lightning)
SIDE 1: Red House / Wake Up This Morning And You Find Yourself Dead / Bleeding Heart (James/Sehorn)
SIDE 2: Morrison’s Lament / Tomorrow Never Knows (Lennon/McCartney) / Uranus Rock / Outside Woman Blues (Arthur Reynolds) / Sunshine Of Your Love (Bruce/Brown/Clapton).
Some of this was on on the above “High, Live N’ Dirty”, but this was a much better presented release (though still not official!).
We have often read about Jimi’s passion for jamming with friends and this is a rare chance to hear what could happen. Here he is caught having fun in a spontaneous jam at the Scene Club, New York, in March 1968, with The McCoys (their manager Steve Paul owned the club) and perhaps a members of Eire Apparent. Also present on the night was an obscenely drunk Jim Morrison. Mr Mojo Risin is completely out of his head and unfortunately only comes to the mike at one stage to shout some obscene vocals (this gave rise to the track called “F.H.I.T.A” on “High Live And Dirty” !). The harmonica in the background is reportedly by Lester Chambers.
Rick Derringer has confirmed that he plays on this and the sleeve states that it’s the McCoys rhythm section, Randy Hobbs (bass) and Randy “Z” Derringer (drums) but Buddy Miles was also there and he takes over in the drum seat on the last five tracks (really one long jam).
The sleeve claimed that Johnny Winter plays guitar here but it was later proved that he was in Texas at the time and Johnny said that he never ever met Morrison. The confusion came about because Winter shared the same manager as The McCoys and because Winter had jammed with Jimi at the Scene on other occasions. A year later, The McCoys would join forces with the albino Texan to become Johnny Winter And.
Barely audible is a third guitarist who takes a solo on Side One is perhaps Henry McCullough or more likely Mick Cox (both of Eire Apparent). McCullough was busted for drugs in Canada in February 1968 and supposedly sent home to England (while on the Hendrix tour), yet he has claimed he is the third guitar player. Mick Cox, who replaced McCullough in Eire Apparent, owned a copy of the tape and licensed it to Red Lightnin’ for this release.
Jimi plays without effects pedals, is on top form and clearly enjoying himself. He plays “Red House” in an very different rhythm and this is the first known occasion that he performed Elmore James’s “Bleeding Heart”*. Amazing sound quality under the circumstances.
On some other releases of this material, parts of the long closing jam were retitled “Whoa ‘eck” and “Lime Lime” in order to fool punters that previously unheard Hendrix songs were featured.
*Apart from the 1965 Curtis Knight version.
Deleted in this form but … The Scene Club tapes were re-released under many titles ( “NYC ’68”, “Sunshine Of Your Love”, “New York Session” …) on different labels, sometimes with pre-Experience (Lonnie Youngblood?) or Albert Hall 69 tracks added and with a multitude of different covers.
THE COVER
The most avant garde Hendrix sleeve. George Snow’s collage has a distorted image of Jimi (from the photo later used on the “NYC ’68” CD) on a gothic patchwork background. Some would say that it’s ugly but I like it – 8/10
I first purchased these recordings in the early seventies
(from Black Sedan record shop, Manchester, England) as an expensive bootleg titled “Sky High”.
30 years later I came across the recordings in a French supermarket,
as a budget CD titled “Red House”, for 5 euros. Weird.
Jimi jammed with other musicians at every opportunity and over the years he met up with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Wonder, John McClaughlin, Fleetwood Mac, Frank Zappa, Taj Mahal, Johnny Winter, Paul Butterfield, Billy Preston, Alan Price, Roland Kirk, James Cotton, Buddy Guy, Roy Buchanan, Fairport Convention, Lee Michaels, Ten Years After, Al Kooper, Elvin Bishop, Joe Tex, Ted Nugent, Delaney & Bonnie, Larry Coryell, Arthur Brown, The Hollies, Traffic, Electric Flag, Paul Butterfield, John Mayall, Aynsley Dunbar, Richard Thompson, John Hammond Jr, Brian Auger, Eric Burdon, Jack Bruce, Moving Sidewalks (with Billy Gibbons), José Feliciano, Amen Corner, Hansson and Karlsson, Georgie Fame, B.B. King, Ben E. King, Mountain,
… very few jams have survived on tape.
SHAKING FUNK! ♥♥♥
Released 2006 (Depaja Recordings)
Stone Free, Fire, Red House, Message To Love, Lover Man, All Along The Watchtower, Foxy Lady, Ezy Rider, The Star Spangled Banner/Purple Haze, Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
This 180g vinyl record has cropped up on the market, even in record shops. It’s the Randall Island, New York show which was Jimi’s contribution to the “New York Pop” event (Downing Stadium on Friday July 17, 1970). It’s pretty good soundboard but not a great gig. It’s a festival again and the P.A. is a mess with drop outs and radio coming through like at the Isle Of Wight.
There are some great performances in the show, like the classic “Red House” (which was on “Jimi Hendrix Concerts”). Overall however, this is Jimi on a rough day at work, as he struggles along with the deficient sound system. He has his moments of humour and during “Fire”, after a bit of sound trouble, he improvises playfully over Mitch’s little drum breaks by throwing in a little medley of riffs of “Sunshine Of Your Love”/”Outside Woman Blues”/”Satisfaction”. At the end of “Message To Love” he plays a snippet of “Leader of The Pack” and at the start of “Purple Haze” a little of “Auld Lang Syne” -(“Let old aquaintance be forgot…”).
At the close, he gets irrate with the audience and it all ends in a bad atmosphere.
> The title of the album is taken from the sleeve-note that Jimi wrote for the Buddy Miles Express album “Expressway To Your Skull” (see Guest Appearences section). “Shakey Rock” would’ve been a more apt title !
THE COVER
Jimi in full flight (at I don’t know which concert) with a giant sun in the background. Makes you want to buy it ! – 8/10