CD Odyssey Disc 365: Jimi Hendrix

With this next album I have finally escaped the run of pop music I've been on. I like some pop music (obviously) but it is rock and roll that recharges my batteries.

Disc 365 is...Experience Hendrix: The Best of Jimi Hendrix
Artist: Jimi Hendrix

Year of Release: 1997 but with music from 1967-1968

What’s Up With The Cover?: A picture of Jimi looking cool, as he often does. I like this cover, but it doesn't lend itself to a lot of editorial comment, and so...

How I Came To Know It: If you don't know who Jimi Hendrix is, I can only assume you live under a rock. I do not live under a rock. That said, I went many years before I finally bought some Jimi for my collection - probably about fifteen years ago, shortly after this album came out.

How It Stacks Up: This is a 'best of' so it doesn't stack up. Those are the rules of the Odyssey, jerky! That said, it is also the only Jimi in my collection, although I've been meaning to pick some individual albums up.

Rating: n/a. I don't rate 'best of' records, because they are compilations and by their nature, not as the artist intended. This blog rates albums only, not compilations.

If you are going to break down and get a compilation album - and we're all guilty of that sin from time to time - then I've got a few helpful hints for you.

First, make sure you get a good recording. There are a lot of suspect records out there, with cheap production values that were pumped out in the early nineties when there was a rush to switch format from tape and record to CD. One thing to generally avoid is any CD that has the songs listed in block letters on the back in a white box, surrounded by some washed out colour. Instead, look for a later release (late nineties is good) when companies were remastering their recordings in to sound better on disc (and to sucker folks into buying them a second time as well).

Second, avoid those albums where there is only ten to twelve songs. I'm not saying you have to buy a 5 CD boxed set, but look for something with a good 20 songs, even if it is on a couple of discs and costs a few dollars more. Even though you won't know these extra songs as well as the recognizable hits, they are going to give you a much better and well-rounded sense of the artist. Cheap compilations are marketed at people who don't really care about music and just want something to go camping with. The larger, slightly pricier versions are for people looking for something beyond "Purple Haze" and that's you. How do I know that's you? Well, you're still reading, aren't you?

This particular compilation of Hendrix passes both tests. There are twenty songs (usually a cardinal sin, but acceptable on a greatest hits package) which is a goodly number. The front half of the record is heavy with Jimi's hits: "Purple Haze", "Fire," "Hey Joe," Foxey Lady" etc.

The hits are excellent, and testament to how famous Hendrix became despite his very short career (only three studio albums before his untimely death). I'm not going to dwell on them because lots has already been said about them.

The latter half of the album is laden with some interesting deeper cuts, at least to a casual fan like me. The bluesy "Red House," the lascivious "Bold As Love" and the incredible guitar on "Nightbird Flying" where Jimi demonstrates yet again that he is an undisputed master - the second greatest practitioner of that black and eldritch instrument that is the electric guitar. Sorry, Jimi - I've got to give the title to Mark Knopfler, although listening to him wail on "Nightbird Flying" my confidence in that judgment call was sorely tested.

Hendrix would have revolutionized guitar rock if he'd played these songs in 1978. The fact that he was doing it ten years earlier blows the mind. Into the usual rock and blues mixture he adds in elements of jazz and soul to make a sound that is unique to him.

For me, his rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" is second only to Leonard Cohen's "Democracy" in wrapping all of the great and not-so-great things about the USA into a big ball that is both indictment and love song. Cohen does it with lyrics, but Jimi lets his guitar do all the talking.

Vocally, Jimi does gets short shrift, but only because his virtuosity on the guitar overshadows his voice. However, like Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy, Jimi pour every ounce of himself into these songs. When he sings "Hey Joe, where you goin' with that gun in your hand?" you can feel the yearning, and the ominous feeling that something terrible is going to happen. He takes Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower" all his own, to the point that nowadays most people think it is his song.

My favourite deep track on this record is "Dolly Dagger," a character study of a passionate and self-confident woman:

"Here comes Dolly Dagger
Her love's so heavy gonna make you stagger.
Dolly Dagger, she drinks her blood from the jagged edge
Aah...drink up baby!

"Been ridin' broom sticks since she was fifteen
Blowin' out all the other witches on the scene
She got a bullwhip just as long as your life
Her tongue can even scratch the soul out of the devil's wife."

That is some dirty stuff, and Jimi lays it down with a fervour that leaves you seeing Dolly walking down the sidewalk toward you. You want to take a good look and give her a smile, but ultimately you lose your nerve in the face of such a woman and stare at your feet as she walks by.

Of course, Jimi never walked by the subject of a good song without looking it in the eye. He wrote a ton of them in his short life, and this compilation is a worthy example of that work.

He's only got three studio records and I'll probably get them all before I'm done, but even when I'm finished, many of these tracks are one-offs from other sources, and having them all in one place is a good thing. Even if it means breaking with my usual low opinion of compilations.

Best tracks: So many, but here goes: Purple Haze, Fire, The Wind Cries Mary, Hey Joe, All Along The Watchtower, Stone Free, Crosstown Traffic, Foxey Lady, Bold As Love, Castles Made of Sand, Voodoo Child, Nightbird Flying, Dolly Dagger, Star Spangled Banner. If you're keeping track, that's 14 of the 20 tracks, but what can you do? It is a best of...