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Jimi Hendrix - Hendrix In The West (1970)

Track listing:
  1. Johnny B. Goode - Lover Man 7:54
  2. Blue Suede Shoes 4:31
  3. Voodoo Chile 7:55
  4. The Queen - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 4:05
  5. Little Wing 3:19
  6. Red House 13:12

Notes


1. Johnny B. Goode
(Berkeley, 30th May 1970, first show)
2. Lover Man
(Berkeley, 30th May 1970, second show)
3. Blue Suede Shoes
(Berkeley, 30th May 1970, afternoon rehearsals)
4. Voodoo Child
(Royal Albert Hall, London, 24th February 1969)
5. God Save The Queen / Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(Isle of Wight, 30th August 1970)
6. Little Wing
(Royal Albert Hall, London, 24th February 1969)
7. Red House
(San Diego, 24th May 1969)

Before the Alan Douglas era set in with that after-the-fact producer's vision for the Jimi Hendrix catalog of music on albums like 1975's Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning, manager Michael Jeffery had engineers Eddie Kramer and John Jansen develop compilations after 1971's The Cry of Love, those being the Rainbow Bridge Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (actually, studio tracks and a cut from the May 30, 1970 Berkeley Community Center concert) and this quick follow-up, Hendrix in the West at the end of 1971/early 1972. With a version of "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and the traditional British National Anthem, "The Queen," culled from the Isle of Wight concert (but not the single-disc 1971 Polydor Isle of Wight release); "Lover Man," "Johnny B. Goode," and "Blue Suede Shoes" from the Berkeley Community Center concert (the "Johnny B. Goode" track would be re-released the next year along with "Purple Haze" from the Berkeley concert on Reprise Records' Sound Track Recordings From the Film Jimi Hendrix); and "Red House," "Little Wing," and "Voodoo Chile" from the San Diego Sports Arena, this album strangely works. Maybe because it is Jimi Hendrix and his music somehow had the ability to rise above all the mutations his performances would endure in the years after his passing. The Jim Marshall photos are beautiful, and the seamless production by Eddie Kramer and John Jansen makes for a commercial and interesting mixture of the two versions of the Jimi Hendrix Experience: Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding from the San Diego Sports Arena, and Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox from both Isle of Wight and the Berkeley Community Center. Author Steven Roby gives a clear explanation of how this album developed on page 171 of his book Black Gold: The Lost Archives of Jimi Hendrix, citing engineer Eddie Kramer and manager Michael Jeffery's ideas for the project. Roby's book also states that material on this release came from England's Royal Albert Hall, but that information is not on the liner notes. It's an interesting release for the fans in the immediate time after the loss of Hendrix, and a guilty pleasure for purists years after the fact.