(Jimi Hendrix) (LP 2723 - 2730)

Jimi Hendrix  The Cry Of Love (Vinyl, Polydor Records, 1971) ***  

Jimi Hendrix  Rainbow Bridge (Vinyl, Reprise Records, 1971) *** 

Jimi Hendrix  War Heroes (Vinyl, Polydor Records, 1972) **** 

Jimi Hendrix  Loose Ends (Vinyl, Reprise Records, 1973) ** 

Jimi Hendrix  Crash Landing (CD, Polydor Records, 1975) *** 

Jimi Hendrix  Nine To The Universe (Vinyl, Polydor Records, 1980) ***    

Jimi Hendrix  Valleys Of Neptune (CD, Sony Music, 2010) ****  

Jimi Hendrix  Axis: Outtakes (CD, Purple Haze Records, 2004) *  

Genre: Rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records for the vinyl; Real Groovy (Crash Landing); JB Hi Fi for the last 2 CDs

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Freedom (Cry Of Love)

Gear costume: Highway Chile (War Heroes) 

Active compensatory factors: These studio albums are basically in two broad areas - the supposed fourth studio album, and, secondly, odds and sods.

Cry Of Love is the first posthumous release (six months after he died) and is an attempt to collate the songs he was working on for studio album number 4. 

It kicks off strongly, with Freedom, but from there onwards a lot of the songs lack the experimental, thrusting into new territories qualities that the three studio albums had. My Friend and Belly Button Window haven't aged well either - just sayin'. 

Instead, it's a mixed collection of songs - some would never have made the cut I feel, and I sense it would have been panned by critics at the time, coming so soon after Electric Ladyland. In other words, it sounds semi-finished.

The Cry Of Love almost gets a bonus point for a great cover!  

Rainbow Bridge also came out in 1971 and is also predominately an attempt at studio album 4 (with one live track - Hear My Train A Comin'). Dolly Dagger and Earth Blues are fun tracks that feel finished, but the rest are either studio jams or works in progress. Another 3-star effort, because this is Jimi after all.

War Heroes gets a bonus point for the great cover, and the title, but a minus point for the inclusion of loose jam moments like Peter Gunn. Still there is enough great stuff on this one to make it one of the best posthumous albums.

Bleeding Heart, Stepping Stone, Highway Chile, Beginnings, and Izabella all deserve their place in the Hendrix catalogue.

Loose Ends at least gets an honest title, but a shoddy fan art cover. The contents are pretty shoddy at times too.

It starts off well enough with the earthy Come Down Hard On Me Baby, but then we have a collection of loose jams that were never destined for general release. Jimi would not have approved them, I'm sure.

Crash Landing was Jack Douglas' attempt to complete a number of unfinished tracks. To do so, he added session musicians to Jimi's guitar and vocal tracks.

Generally, he achieved his aim, as the songs now sound 'finished', but there was a lot of controversy at the time of its release, given the level of manipulation - the girl singers being the most obvious addition, but they are only on one track. 

I still like it - it sounds like a well-produced 'real' album, and I can't really tell where the joins are. 

Nine to the Universe is the third Jack Douglas produced posthumous album (I used to have Midnight Lightning on cassette but I haven't bothered to find it on vinyl or CD).

This time he retains the original musicians around Jimi, but he names the 'songs' as these were all loose instrumental jams - never designed to be released to the public. Crazy what greed will do.

The first song, Nine to the Universe, is an interesting and worthwhile jam with Buddy Miles on drums, and I do like the organ and guitar interplay on Young/ Hendrix (named for organist Larry Young), but the rest is not of the same standard, unfortunately.  

There must be hours and hours of this jamming material in the vaults, so I'm sure it will dribble out for years to come.

Valleys of Neptune has a great title and cover (Jimi's watercolour art and Linda McCartney's portrait). It's another collection of stuff from 1969 post Electric Ladyland and supposedly for the fourth studio album.

It's a good collection of material which includes Noel Redding, Billy Cox, Mitch Mitchell, and sundry others.

Standouts are: alternative versions of songs like Stone Free, Mr. Bad Luck (a great discovery), a super funky Lover Man.

The final album in this batch, Axis Outtakes, is an odd one - a double album of outtakes from the much earlier Axis: Bold As Love sessions.

The quality on some tracks is not as good as these other albums, so this is most probably a bootleg - the other clue is it being on Purple Haze Records.

It's pretty clear why these are outtakes, and the Noel Redding songs don't help. One for the OCD collectors this one, which I'm not.

Where do they all belong? Next up - the live albums.