432 CeeDees

The cavalcade of reissues continues

Henprix Lives!

Elijah Bak

 

The end of April brings us a great
bounty this year. The estate of Jimi
Hendrix, now overseen by his family,
has re-mastered and re-released all
the material that was released during
Hendrix’s lifetime. The only exception
to this is First Rays of the New Rising
Sun, which was slated for release six
or seven months after Jimi’s death and
was thus never properly completed.
Many of the tracks on this album
(‘Dolly Dagger,’ ‘Hey Baby (New Rising
Sun),’ etc) have been issued on other
posthumous compilations, such as
War Heroes, Rainbow Bridge and
1995's Voodoo Soup. All of these
compilations are grossly lacking in .
polish and fidelity, both of which were
fundamental components of Hendrix’s
meticulous studio recording process.
The new album First Rays finally
gathers these lost sheep into the fold
and allows for some degree of closure
on this chapter of Hendrix’s musical
legacy.

The most attractive feature of these
reissues is that they were assembled
from the original tapes, from which a
new master recording for the CD age
was made. What distinguishes these
re-masterings from those that MCA
issued three or four years ago, you
ask? Well, those so-called re-
masterings were made from the
master copies that were mixed down in
the 60s for the purpose of pressing
vinyl albums. Those tapes were taken

by Alan Douglas, under the auspices of
MCA, and simply re-EQ’ed for CD. The
new series of CDs was overseen by
Hendrix’s engineer, Eddie Kramer.
Through a'long and difficult process of
searching, all of the original tapes that
the original mixes were made from
were found. Kramer then set about
recreating the sound that was originally
only to be heard in the control booth
where he and Hendrix toiled endlessly
for months, sweating over the sonic
minutiae that haunted every waking
moment of Jimi’s life. In these new
issues of familiar albums new aural
territory has been opened.

The most immediately pleasing
album of the bunch is the Band of
Gypsys. Recorded at the Fillmore East
New Year’s Eve 1969, this album
features the most astonishing single
live track in the entire rock and roll
lexicon: ‘Machine Gun.’ Recorded
during his first show of the evening,
this song captures Jimi at his most
disciplined and focused. The song is a
searing invocation of the Vietnam war
and through the wonders of the new
CD mastering technology, the full
dimension of the rhythm section
(Buddy Miles, drums and Billy Cox,
bass) is rendered in its full live power.
Another plus of the Band of Gypsys re-
issue is that this album has never been
released domestically and the imports
that were (scarcely) available suffered
from the problems that plagued the
vinyl and cassette issues: extremely
muddy sound. This new version