How do you feel about all the “new” releases of Hendrix’s music? Do you think releasing every last scrap of jamming, or takes he discarded because he didn’t like them, or badly recorded bootleg material is diluting his legacy? Or are you just glad you can get your hands on all things Hendrix?
2 Responses to More Jimi Hendrix
Well, I heard and dug Hendrix’s jamming-in-the-studio take on Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” on the radio this spring, but I didn’t buy the CD it’s on. Nor did I download the track — I haven’t downloaded a single track of anybody’s music thus far. But I’m no royalties-respecting saint, I go over to YouTube and listen for free to songs that interest me, along with catching the graphics I deem as essential as God did back in 1948 when He invented the longplaying record album with its matching sleeve (the latter replete with the images and words that inspired many a rock critic in those primordial 1960′s.)
It’s not just Hendrix, Kris, these days every artist is subject to having his or her outtakes and mistakes published to the world in the name of trying to lure the atomized-by-the-internet audience into buying actual recorded discs once again. I thought that the Elektra remaster of Love’s *Forever Changes* I reviewed for the Village Voice in 2001 was going to be the Final Word on that landmark album, but of course an expanded version with even more extras came out in 2008. Haven’t gotten that one yet, though the prospect of hearing Love cover Sam the Sham’s “Wooly Bully” is very tempting. As Arthur Lee sang it in that great FC outtake on both (and counting) versions of the reissue, “I Do Wonder”.
Hey, we’re all CONSUMERS first, last, and always in this post-industrial, post-modern society, bombarded with musical tracks from all directions, hacking our way through a pathless playlist without the benefit of guidance from pro rock critics (ahem!), so Jimi Hendrix (or name your fave artist) increasingly becomes an amorphous icon w/o any consensus anyway, so your listen is theoretically as good as mine. I guess . . .
That said, I still think (& this’ll get me in trouble) that reissue CD’s that include both stereo and mono versions of the VERY SAME CUTS, back to back, are strictly for the Asperger’s crowd.
It’s hard to come down on either side of the fence on this one. I guess it has to be a case-by-case thing. On one hand, I love hearing old unreleased stuff from before an artist “made it,” because I can hear the original spark they developed into a great band.
On the other hand, who wants to hear somebody hitting wrong notes or singing horribly? There’s some painful Led Zeppelin stuff out there.
I look at it this way: would I want anyone sifting through my old crossed-out crumpled up first drafts? Heck no.