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| Rollingstone |
 For Jimi Hendrix fanatics, the selling point of this four-disc set is a full CD of songs on which the guitarist doesn't sing lead and barely solos. Instead, he plays sideman to Little Richard, Don Covay and others on 15 R&B smokers. The tracks offer glimpses of a prodigy straining at the bit: The hot-shit solo on the Isley Brothers' 1964 "Testify," all of 10 seconds long, is like an early Marlon Brando screen test, coiled drama springing to life; the reverb-soaked, Curtis Mayfield-style licks on the Icemen's sublime 1966 "(My Girl) She's a Fox" offer a taste of the exploded- soul magic Hendrix cooked up later on "Castles Made of Sand."Jimi Hendrix tops Rolling Stone's List of the 100 Best Guitarists The remaining three CDs parse Hendrix's subsequent career chronologically but strictly through alternate takes, demos and live tracks, drawn from the seemingly bottomless vault of recordings that shadow the three studio LPs and one live set released during his lifetime. The material splits the difference between sheer greatness (a gorgeously psychedelic instrumental take of "Are You Experienced?") and novelties like a ragged but deep cover of the Bob Dylan/Band classic "Tears of Rage," the highlight of six intimate tracks recorded in a hotel room in 1968 with singer/harmonica player Paul Caruso. There's also a wonderful, illuminating new DVD documentary narrated in Hendrix's own words — drawn from letters and interviews — by kindred spirit Bootsy Collins (the bit about eating a picnic lunch while watching race riots in Nashville, where Hendrix got his career started, is grimly hilarious). To be sure, this box is for the fans. But even when the tracks don't shed new light, they still burn as bright as the sun....full text |
| Bbc |
| Compromising four CDs and a DVD in which Hendrix's story is told in his own words with Parliament's Bootsy Collins as narrator, West Coast Seattle Boy is a collection of Hendrix material previously officially unreleased. It spans his early career on the "Chitlin' Circuit", where he earned his spurs playing behind the likes of Little Richard in the mid-60s, to his very last days, sketching out material for a mooted new studio album in his Greenwich Village apartment. It's quite obvious that this is not the place for newcomers to begin – they are directed to the great Jimi Hendrix Experience albums, finished articles in which studio and engineer were vital components to the end product. Hendrix was the supreme master of electricity in rock – for him it wasn't mere amplification but the element in which he sculpted. He might well have been horrified that much of what appears on these four discs – early drafts, tentative run-outs, acoustic sketches – is seeing the light of day at all. Although he was the sort of live performer whose incendiary charisma melted the hinges off doors, he is not necessarily an artist best heard "in the raw". One of the boasting points of this collection is a hitherto unpublished version of Bob Dylan's Tears of Rage. It's interesting enough, with Hendrix, a Dylan devotee, channelling Dylan's own impersonation of a 90-year-old bluesman, complete with harmonica and plucking. But along with the rest of the acoustic numbers included here recorded in the same session, such as a version of 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be) from Electric Ladyland, it reveals that Hendrix lacked delicacy as an acoustic player, and that he only realised his musical visions when he colourised them on the electric guitar and using multi-tracking to the full....full text |
| Premierguitar |
| Evaluating posthumous Jimi Hendrix releases is tricky business. His four masterpieces—Are You Experienced (1967), Axis: Bold as Love (1967), Electric Ladyland (1968), and the live Band of Gypsys (1970)— so completely transformed electric guitar and altered the sound of popular music that any subsequent Hendrix recordings simply pale by comparison. Since Jimi’s sudden death in 1970, most fans greet news of another Hendrix album with trepidation. It’s no wonder: We’ve been burned by poorly recorded bootlegs and hoodwinked by such major-label monstrosities as Crash Landing and Voodoo Soup (both contained overdubs by studio musicians who had never played with Hendrix). The good news is West Coast Seattle Boy—a five-disc set comprising four CDs and one documentary DVD—has both historical merit and genuine musical integrity. But the truth is, while this collection will satisfy ardent fans and Hendrix completists, it’s not where newcomers should begin exploring his legacy. The set’s first CD features Hendrix as a sideman backing Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, Don Covay, and various R&B singers starting in 1964. The tracks are lively and it’s fun to hear Hendrix unleash some stinging bends behind the vocals, but the Jimi that brought us “Manic Depression” and “Third Stone from the Sun” is not yet in evidence. Instead, we hear a young guitarist reworking the licks and riffs Ike Turner and Curtis Mayfield brought to the table in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Disc 2 thrusts us deep into the magic of the early Experience with alternate takes of “Fire,” “May This Be Love,” and other cuts from the first two Hendrix albums juxtaposed with such previously unreleased tracks as “Little One,” featuring Traffic’s Dave Mason on sitar, and the funky instrumental “Cat Talking to Me.” Demos Hendrix recorded in his hotel room, including “1983 (A Merman I Should Be),” “Long Hot Summer Night,” “Angel,” and “My Friend”—songs which would appear on Electric Ladyland and Cry of Love (the latter released shortly after his death)—give us a chance to eavesdrop on a guitarist developing his progressions, grooves, and lyrics. Though raw, these demos are compelling and intimate....full text |
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