Jimi Hendrix was already an international superstar when he performed the first of six sold-out shows over a three-night run at San Franciscos Winterland Ballroom beginning Oct. 10, 1968.
His fame, however, was still well short of its apex. Before the month was out, hed release his third and final studio recording, the creative tour de force known as Electric Ladyland, and the following year hed make his fabled appearance at Woodstock. In August 1970, just weeks before he died in London at the age of 27, hed perform before some 600,000 people at the Isle of Wight Festival.
Hendrix, unquestionably a master of the studio, was equally adept on the stage, and its the live aspect of his artistry thats featured on a series of new releases from Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings: Winterland, a four-CD set that chronicles the San Francisco performances of 1968; Hendrix in the West, previously out of print in the United States since 1974; and two DVDs, Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight and Jimi Hendrix: The Dick Cavett Show.
Contextually, whats interesting about Jimi is that his music isnt dated, explains John McDermott, the catalog director for Experience Hendrix, the family business that has controlled the guitarists legacy since 1995. You listen to Winterland, and it really could be at any time because hes so ahead of the curve. But I think that when you look at the man himself in 1968, youre two years removed from him having nothing. Youre two and a half years removed from him starving in Greenwich Village with no prospects for success, essentially seen as an oddball, itinerant touring sideman.
Indeed, Hendrix spent the early and mid-1960s backing artists like Little Richard and the Isley Brothers on the Chitlin Circuit, a collection of venues friendly to black artists during the days of racial segregation. He later made New York his base of operations, but in 1966 was convinced by Animals bassist Chas Chandler to head to England, where the Jimi Hendrix Experience — consisting of Hendrix, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell — was formed.
By the summer of 1967, on the heels of a debut release called Are You Experienced and an iconic, show-stopping performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, where Hendrix famously set his guitar on fire, he was a major star. It was a sudden, meteoric rise, one the artist had prepared for, according to McDermott.
When Chas Chandler gave him that gift of opportunity, he went at it at unbelievable speed, says McDermott, the author of Ultimate Hendrix: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Live Concerts and Sessions and three other Hendrix-related books. He was recording as often as he could and playing all these gigs … Its funny. This is a guy who didnt own a Graceland. He had a two-bedroom apartment in (Greenwich Village). When he made real money, he bought a Corvette and he bought a recording studio. I think he thought that this could never happen when it happened, so he grabbed it with both hands.
Hendrixs legendary guitar work takes center stage on Winterland, the artist delivering scorching versions of classics like Manic Depression and Little Wing alongside covers of Creams Sunshine of Your Love, Howlin Wolfs Killing Floor and Bob Dylans Like a Rolling Stone.
Considering the relative brevity of Hendrixs recording career — his debut album was released in England in May 1967 and he died in September 1970 — music historians chart the evolution of his work by months and even weeks, not years.
A live performance for Jimi Hendrix in 1967, theres no relation to the same thing in 1970, says the 48-year-old McDermott, a Massachusetts native. The guy who was onstage at Monterey in June of 1967, how you could think that this same guy would be creating The Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock two years later, its hard to fathom.
Hendrix in the West, a longtime fan favorite, primarily consists of recordings from 1969 and 1970. It finds Hendrix letting loose onstage — a searing take on Red House and a high-octane reading of Chuck Berrys Johnny B. Goode are among the highlights — and making music with different bass players. Noel Redding appears on the 1969 recordings; the 1970 tunes feature Billy Cox.
The DVDs provide intriguing historical snapshots of Hendrixs artistry, if not vintage performances.
On the reissued and expanded Blue Wild Angel, shot by Academy Award-winning documentarian Murray Lerner, Hendrix plays with less energy and focus — by his standards, at least — before a massive audience of 600,000 people some three weeks before his death.
Hendrix famously faced a series of challenges at this show, including a performance that went off in the wee hours, technical difficulties and an audience hidden in darkness.
The Dick Cavett Show, meanwhile, collects all of Hendrixs appearances on the program, including his US network-television debut. Interviews, which cover topics like Hendrixs stint as a US Army paratrooper, are supplemented with complete live performances of Izabella, Machine Gun and Hear My Train A Comin.
For McDermott, Hendrixs enduring appeal is rooted in the remarkable quality of his work. Four decades after the guitarists death, hes still finding new fans. In 2010, more than 1 million Jimi Hendrix albums were sold.
Its hard for a lot of folks to believe, but Jimi has a multigenerational audience, McDermott says. Were talking about 14-year-old kids who are hearing Jimi Hendrix for the first time, and theyre doing what others were doing 30 or 40 years ago: Theyre coming into it and exploring it … Youve gotta tip your hat to the guy. He was really ahead of his time, way ahead of anything else that was happening out there.
(Reach Sean McDevitt, features editor of the Evansville Courier amp; Press in Indiana, at mcdevitts(at)courierpress.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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