Album Reviews

If you were around when the second Jimi Hendrix album was released you probably got ripped off. After Reprise’s success with Are You Experienced?Capitol dusted off a Curtis Knight and the Squires album that Hendrix had played on as a sideman before forming The Jimi Hendrix Experience and using a recent photo, issued it as Get That FeelingJimi Hendrix Plays and Curtis Knight Sings.

If you were around when the second Jimi Hendrix album was released you probably got ripped off. After Reprise’s success with Are You Experienced?Capitol dusted off a Curtis Knight and the Squires album that Hendrix had played on as a sideman before forming The Jimi Hendrix Experience and using a recent photo, issued it as Get That FeelingJimi Hendrix Plays and Curtis Knight Sings.

Many were fooled into spending their hard earned money on that deviously labeled rip off but when the realsecond Hendrix Experience album was released in January of 1968, all of that was quickly and easily forgotten.

The outrageous Hindu devotional art cover that most cloistered college students at the time had never before seen was sufficiently mind-blowing but once the needle hit the lead in groove area it was “up, up and away” time!

The flying saucer opening was kind of corny (if your audio system is correctly set up the “saucer” will circle around the room) but the jazzy “Up From the Skies” was a smooth glide into the heart of Hendrix’s sophisticated music making helped considerably by Eddie Kramer’s outrageous post Sgt. Pepper’s… production work.

“Travel by dragonfly?” Hendrix’s lyrical, dream-like imagery combined with the musical and sonic intensity lifted listeners to new heights of aural pleasure, many aided by the fast spreading marijuana “scourge” of the time. From the shimmering high frequencies to the spatial movement between the speakers, this album was just made for weed!

No point in a tune-by-tune play by play. This album is the bridge between the harder rocking first album and the extended, jammy double LPElectric Ladyland that lost many fans initially but grows in stature as the years pass.

Songs like “One Rainy Wish” with the unexpected break “I have never laid eyes on you, not before this timeless day…” produced a powerful, surprising thrust that works its magic as effectively today as it did all of these years ago.

And of course the title song with its squishy, flange-y, cosmic time travel finale set tens of thousands of stoned young hippies into ecstatic overload. I remember listening to this album and the first two Doors albums (okay, and Days of Future Passed too, I’m ashamed to admit) with my college roommates late Friday nights.

 It became our weekend ritual. We sat there zonked in the dark between my AR 2ax speakers cranked way up and when the lights went up at the end, we’d each been to places and seen things words couldn’t begin to describe. The smiles did though!

Of course all these years later, that thrill is gone, but it’s replaced by an appreciation of Hendrix’s guitar wizardry and the rhythm section’s suppleness. This is the album that let the other guitar greats of the era know that Hendrix was the greatest—that he’d transcended the blues riffs, the Chuck Berry-isms and the electrified C&W picking and taken string bending to new territory.

Sonically, this was a huge step forward compared to Are You Experience?, which was issued in mono only in the UK with a different cover and track order. The high frequencies, in particular, were pristine, crystalline and extended. The cymbals shimmered and Hendrix’s guitar line attacks were fast, clean and well-articulated. Bass lines were also clean and extended and the kick drum was deep, clean and well-textured.

The original UK Track issue (Track 613003) was smoother, more extended and went deeper and tighter than the U.S. Reprise tri-color “steamboat” original and of course it was pressed on much quieter vinyl. It had tremendous “depth of field.”

 George Marino’s first 180g reissue for Experience Hendrix MCA back in the late 1990s was very good but at the time Sterling Sound no longer had a preview head so the cut was sourced from a 96K/24 bit file. Plating at UNI’s Gloversville, NY factory and the pressing itself were pretty good but not up to RTI’s standards.

(Photo of MF flanked by Janie Hendrix and Eddie Kramer taken at Sterling Sound during the mastering session for the 1997 MCA edition)

So considering that this latest version is all analogue, and was plated and pressed at RTI, you would expect it to be quieter, more detailed and more transparent and you’d better believe it is all of that and more, particularly in terms of bass weight and body.

In fact, the original, while still magical and worth owning if you can find one, sounds polite and slightly compressed dynamically compared to this new reissue, though the top end on the original, cut from the fresh tape can’t be beat. Good luck finding a clean copy for a reasonable price.

Still, in most ways, this reissue is better so I recommend grabbing it while you can.