Open Web Player
Hendrix collectors like me have been searching for these sort of outtakes since the Loose Ends LP was first released on the Pickwick record label back in 1973. Sometimes we're happily fulfilled, as I was with the "Experience" Box Set that contained a number of previously unreleased studio outtakes, sometimes we're frustrated, as I was with the 1990 Lifelines Box Set-- it had a lot of good studio outtakes, but the idiot "show host" kept talking over the top of them!
This is a fairly mixed bag of outtakes. Hendrix fans know that Jimi spent an amazing amount of time in the studio, jamming to get ideas, mixing and remixing, and this collection is a good sampling, some of which (like the incomplete take of "Voodoo Chile") I have heard before (on the Lifelines Box Set) and some (like the double-tracked vocal mix version of "51st Anniversary" and the wicked, although incomplete takes 1-3 of "Red House") that I've never heard before on any release, legitimate or bootlegged. A few are of questionable worth-- "La Poupee Qui Fait Non" is unfinished, with only the rhythm tracks laid down, and very little of Jimi's guitar to be heard, and "Midnite Lighting Jam" is a bit meandering at times, and deserved the edit that Alan Douglas gave it on the LP "Midnight Lightning."
Radioactive Records of Japan originally released these cuts on 3 LPs a couple of years ago, claiming release rights from the Micheal Jeffreys Estate. Jimi's myriad fans should note that several of Radioactive's later Hendrix releases are of diminishing quality and not reccomended according to reviews on fan sites, and at least one is reportedly sourced from MP3 files, but this one (at least) is a worthwhile purchase for any Jimi Hendrix fan. There are several gems to be found, and it bears up under repeated listenings.
