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Seattle-born guitar genius Jimi Hendrix died 40 years ago this September. Valleys of Neptune is the latest in the avalanche of unreleased Hendrix material that followed that premature demise.

Apart from “Axis: Bold As Love” outtake “Mr Bad Luck” (a prototype Look Over Yonder), the dozen songs herein are studio recorded tracks laid down after 1968’s Electric Ladyland, but before Hendrix began work proper on “First Rays of the New Rising Sun.” Most feature the original Jimi Hendrix Experience, two have Billy Cox in place of Noel Redding on bass, one features Hendrix and other musicians.

This, though, is not some kind of great lost missing link album. Several of the tracks, like the cover of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” and Elmore James’ “Bleeding Heart”, and a trio of rehashed Experience favourites, were done as studio warm-ups or rehearsals for forthcoming concerts. Even the conventional studio tracks mostly feel as cold and flat as rehearsals, rather than layered and nuanced in the manner of LP cuts. Additionally, the fact that these 12 tracks have a running time of an hour is a bad sign. That Hendrix was always best when he combined virtuosity with brevity is demonstrated by the flaccid eight-minute version herein of “Red House”, which can’t hold a candle to the taut, classic Are You Experienced original.

The core of the album is four tracks previously unreleased in any format. It’s an underwhelming quartet. “Lullaby for the Summer” starts out interesting courtesy of an exciting riff, but it soon disappointingly dawns that there are no vocals, while Hendrix’s solo is caterwauling. “Ships Passing Through the Night” is okay, but essentially just an identikit 12-bar blues with above-average guitar passages. The title-track is dreamlike and slick, but possessed of the type of rather aimless melody line that afflicted Hendrix’s work in later years. “Crying Blue Rain” is, unlike anything else here, poised and rich. However, it has no vocals, peters sloppily out and (like “Mr Bad Luck”) is rendered historically worthless by additional bass and drum recording done in 1987.

The fact that this climax comprises the closest thing to a substantial recording on the album is an indictment of a release that one suspects would not have made the stores had the Hendrix estate not wished to offer a bone to new label Sony following the end of their distribution deal with Universal.

Sample the tracks below:

Review by the BBC’s Sean Egan
BBC Online

A previously unissued track from Jimi Hendrix called “Valleys of Neptune” will be released as a single on February 2. It will then be released on a compilation album of the same name on March 9, along with several other rare and unissued recordings.

The Valleys of Neptune album will contain 12 tracks recorded at Jimi’s final recording sessions while working on his posthumously completed First Rays of the Rising Sun. Other tracks receiving their first official release are “Lullaby for the Summer,” “Crying Blue Rain” and “Ships Passing Through the Night.” Other songs featured include Hendrix’s covers of “Bleeding Heart” and Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” and rerecorded versions of previous Are You Experienced? hits “Fire,” “Red House” and “Stone Free.”

March 9 will also see the reissue of all three of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s studio albums, plus the 1997 release of First Rays of the Rising Sun, will be reissued as CD/DVD. The albums will each include a documentary by Beatles Anthology director Bob Smeaton, with interviews with the Experience’s Mitch Mitchell, Noel Redding and producers Chas Chandler and Eddie Kramer.

The 1969 best-of comp Smash Hits will also be resurrected, and Live at Woodstock will be re-released as a standard and Blu-ray DVD.

Click here to preorder Valleys of Neptune

Source: RollingStone.com

Dagger Records has announced the forthcoming release of ‘The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Live At Woburn’.The CD features a previously unheard concert performance by The Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Woburn Music Festival on July 6 1968.

The Woburn Music Festival was one of Britain’s first large scale, open-air rock music events. The two-day event featured afternoon and evening sets on Saturday July 6 and Sunday July 7.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience closed the Saturday evening show in front of a crowd of 14,000.

The band skipped songs from Axis: Bold As Love altogether, kicking off the set with ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, the start of which was unfortunately missed by the recording machine. This was followed by ‘Fire’, during which technical problems that would continue throughout the show were evident.

The complete tracklist is:

• Introduction (1:07)
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1:11)
• Fire (4:19)
• Tax Free (10:11)
• Red House (11:30)
• Foxey Lady (4:55)
• Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (6:38)
• Purple Haze (8:10)

The performance at Woburn Music Festival would mark the trio’s last performance in England until the two celebrated concerts in February 1969 at the Royal Albert Hall.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Live At Woburn’ is due for release on July 28 2009, but pre-orders are being accepted now.

Click here to order the CD.

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