Jimi Hendrix is primarily known in the music community and the rest of the Western world as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, musician to ever lay a hand on the guitar.
From his short-lived, four-year career, where he recorded three of the greatest rock albums of all time with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, to his legendary performance at Woodstock in 1969, to his later recordings with the Band Of Gypsys, Hendrix’s influence on music has been incalculable.
In just a few years, he redefined the language of the electric guitar and paved the way for heavier forms of musical amplification.
On his “new” album, People, Hell, and Angels, the music is comprised of 12 previously unreleased Hendrix studio tracks. The album is the latest in a long campaign to release music that Hendrix recorded before his death in 1970, all of which remained unreleased in his lifetime.
This album was also revealed to be the last posthumous album of Hendrix material, as they have finally reached the end of Hendrix material 40 years after his death.
The recordings in this album are not all completely new, unreleased tracks but rather updated versions of previously released unreleased tracks.
That being said, the album is not just a rehash of old tracks, as the revamped tracks have a completely new life to them. This album shows Hendrix’s experiments with funk music, as many of the tracks have a distinct emphasis on the beat and are more rhythmically complex.
Eddie Kramer, Hendrix’s recording engineer, does a fantastic job because the album has a sense of forward motion and fire and sounds like it was recently recorded.
Even though a lot of the tracks on the album are revamped tunes that have previously been released, this isn’t noticed, as the fire and funkiness that Hendrix was so famous for is in full swing.
Tracks like “Hear My Train A Comin’,” one Hendrix recorded multiple times and played live throughout his life, is in its most powerful studio form on this album, and Hendrix is in top vocal form as well.
The album also highlights his less documented excursions into rhythm and blues with saxophonist and singer Lonnie Youngblood.
In two highly sinuous R&B jams, “Let Me Move You” and “Mojo Man,” Hendrix takes a backseat and just playing guitar while Youngblood sings and plays tenor saxophone.
These sessions, while not essential to understanding Hendrix, certainly are an interesting side note in his discography.
Overall, this is a fine album if you approach it in the right way. If you go into it looking for a Hendrix album of completely new, never-before-heard tunes, then you will find that it falls short of your expectations.
But if you approach this album expecting to hear more of Hendrix’s constantly evolving musical vision in the context of tunes he’s already done, you will be very pleased.
While this album doesn’t hold a candle to others with the Experience, it is still a fine entry in his ever expanding discography and one that all Hendrix fans should give a listen in order to see where he was would’ve headed in his music had he remained alive.
