Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze (1999) AMCOS Bootleg

(U.S 1963-1970)
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This release consists of live tracks taken from Live at Albert Hall Feb 18, 1969, two tracks from the first "official" release of the infamous "Scene Club" jam session recording from 1968 featuring Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and finally four fake Hendrix tracks.

Jimi Hendrix played two nights at the Royal Albert Hall, February 18th & 24th, in early 1969. These would ultimately become the final two British dates to feature the original Experience. For many years the latter performance has been widely available on both bootleg and semi-official releases. The 24th was known to be professionally recorded and filmed and will presumably be released by the Hendrix estate at some point but a soundboard from the first night had never been realized.


Located at 301 West 46th Street in New York City, 'The Scene', which opened its doors sometime in 1965, was indeed the most renowned rock club in the USA for a short span during the mid-sixties. The club was run by Steve Paul, who had begun his career in the rock world working as a publicist for the famed Peppermint Lounge club in NYC. Paul, who had a talent for spotting the next big thing in rock music, made his mark on the music scene by being a savvy judge of musical talent. Paul was among the first clubs on the East Coast to book The Doors (who were booked for a three week run) early on in their career. The club also became a favorite hangout for Jimi Hendrix, who enjoyed stopping by frequently for late night jam sessions whenever he was in town. This led to other rock stars showing up to jam as well and soon everybody who was anybody was making the scene.

One of the things that added to 'The Scene's hip reputation was the spontaneous jams that took place on the club's stage from time to time.  Jimi Hendrix, who was doing sessions at the nearby recording studio The Record Plant for his Electric Ladyland album, would show up and sit in with bands along with other club regulars such as Steve Stills, Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles and Johnny Winter.  One of the most notorious jams featured a drunken Jim Morrison attempting to simulate the act of fellatio on a somewhat bemused Jimi Hendrix while Morrison moaned into the microphone and rolled around the tiny stage. And the quality of the jam, well I'll let you be the judge.
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The Fakes
Since Hendrix's death, some tracks have appeared on various albums claiming to be Jimi Hendrix or Youngblood / Hendrix material, but in reality do not contain any involvement by Hendrix. Nor do they feature Lonnie Youngblood but as these fake tracks have often been included on releases containing genuine Youngblood / Hendrix recordings they have become known among collectors as fake Lonnie Youngblood recordings even though that really isn't the case...

Most of these "fake" tracks have appeared under several different titles, I've tried to list them here with their real titles (if known) and / or the titles they had on their first "Hendrix" release. All of the fake tracks were produced and compiled by Johnny Brantley (sometimes with the help of Lee Moses) for release on various "Jimi Hendrix" -LPs between the years 1972 - 1982. Album titles such as Moods, Genius Of Hendrix and Rare Hendrix are some of the fake Hendrix albums released by Brantley.
Some discs contained only fake material, some only genuine early recordings, others were a mix of both and Brantley even put out the first "official" release of the infamous "Scene Club" jam session recording from 1968 featuring Jimi and Jim Morrison (eg. "Blues, Blues" and "Lime, Lime").
The following fake 'Hendrix Tracks' appear on the 'Purple Haze' release, featured here.

Miracle Worker (Jimmy Norman)
Wiped horns, drums, bass, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, glockenspiel

Girl So Fine (John Wesley)
Drums, bass, lead guitar (w/ phasing effect), rhythm guitar, 2nd rhythm guitar, organ

I'm Gonna Be Good [aka From This Day On] (Marion Farmer, Edward Lewis, James Lewis)
Wiped Piano, wiped horns, drums, bass, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, congas

These are clearly tracks that have been messed with. Several of these songs originally had vocals, horns or piano on them, and these have mainly been wiped. They can still be heard quietly in the background, probably because of leakage during the original recordings. After wiping some of the original parts new instrumentation, mainly vocal & guitar overdubs, was added to the tracks in order to turn them into "Jimi Hendrix" recordings.

Finally, another record producer Herman Hitson was responsible for released some other fake Hendrix material including "You Are Too Much For The Human Heart"

You Are Too Much For The Human Heart (Lee Moses)
The fake "Human Heart" is available in two versions, titled mostly either as "Human Heart", "Let Me Go" or "Louisville". Both of these takes are versions of "You Are Too Much For The Human Heart" recorded by Herman Hitson on 1 March 1968.  The actual 45 this track was released on is very rare, and quite popular in soul collecting circles.
Both "fake" takes sound quite different to the single track, but the song itself is clearly the same, and on one of the "fake" takes faint singing can be heard. The vocals are extremely low, but when you compare them to the single version you are able to match bits of the lyrics. The fake "Human Heart" has a much slower tempo compared to the Hitson single, so it's a different take, not the 45 take with overdubs.

Another fake track, "I'm Gonna Be Good" [aka "From This Day On"], features congas very similar to "Yes You Did", another Hitson 45 produced by Brantley, so it's possible that the fake track "I'm Gonna Be Good" has some kind of connection to Herman Hitson. At least three solo singles were released by Hitson involving Johnny Brantley and / or Lee Moses
[Thanks to earlyhendrix.com for the above enlightenment]
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The Mystery of a 1969 Jimi Hendrix Photo Gets Solved
(By Chris Epting)
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Famous Photo: The Experience Live at Royal Albert Hall, 1969 (Photo by Eric Hayes)
There’s just something really special about the above picture. It all started with a French music promoter and self-professed Jimi Hendrix fanatic, Yazid Manou. Over the years, Manou has helped organize some of the biggest tributes and events built around the legendary guitar player. Additionally, for more than 20 years, he’s worked with artists as storied as Taj Mahal, Steve Winwood and Led Zeppelin. But for him, nothing compares to Hendrix. Manou has even become a bit of a Jimi Hendrix detective, researching rare performances and photos.


One of his favorite Hendrix performances is the much-bootlegged Royal Albert Hall show from London, filmed on Feb. 24, 1969. The show has never been released commercially but has always been popular on the underground circuit.

A famous moment in the film occurs near the end of the concert, just before Hendrix burns through “Purple Haze.” A young child, a boy perhaps just three or four years old, adorably emerges from the wings and bustles over to Hendrix, who bends down as the child appears to whisper a message to him. Seemingly happy that his mission is complete, the child then toddles off the stage.

Manou saw a photo from that moment posted on a private Jimi Hendrix Facebook group. Intrigued at whom the child might be, Manou embraced this as yet another new challenge. He posted the photo across a variety of other Hendrix discussion groups and several days later he had his answer as to the child’s identity.

It wasn’t just any hippie-era kid. The youngster was none other than Charlie Weber, immortalized (along with his family) in the Robert Greenfield book, A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties. Weber’s parents, Tommy and Sue (nee Coriat) Weber, were one of the most fashionable, striking couples of the mid-’60s “Swinging London” era. Tommy, a race car driver, eventually made his way into the music scene, shooting films with Hendrix, the Beatles and other stars of the day.

As for Manou, once he found out the child’s identity, he reached out to Weber via email and made contact. Weber, now in his 50s, had never even seen the photo before. Manou put Ultimate Classic Rock in touch with Weber, now living in Turkey, who told us just how shocked and pleased he was to see the photo.



“To open up an email and see piece of your past looking at you like that was just extraordinary,” he said. “I’ve never seen the picture before, but I remember very clearly being backstage before the photo happened. My father introduced me to Hendrix. Of course they were all doing ridiculous amounts of chemicals when we met. But Hendrix put me up on his shoulders. He was just a lovely guy; a beautiful guy with lovely energy.”

Even at that young age, Weber had an instinctive fondness for Hendrix. “He was my hero. That’s why I was so excited to watch that performance. My father had shot a film of him so I was familiar with the music and his style. He was just the master. He spoke to me deeply at a very early age.”

And he remembers the moment he walked out on stage, too. “If you look at the shot, it’s like a fantasy image; like something from Alice in Wonderland, he continued. “Back then, in that era, a child wandering out was not all that odd, I suppose. Nobody tried to stop me. A year later, I did a similar thing at the Isle of Wight concert when Donovan led me and Julian Jones, Brian Jones’ son that Donovan was raising, out onstage. But nothing was like going out to see Jimi.”



As to what he told Hendrix once he got out there, he’s not completely sure.

“What do you say when you see a musical hero? I suppose I would have said, ‘I really love your music,’ or something in that vein. Or, ‘Could you play ‘Foxey Lady?’’ If you watch the clip you can see, in the midst of all that was going on, he managed to be very human. He was very engaged and patient. Looking at me like, hey, this kid here, he’s as important as anyone else. Hendrix’s values were 100 percent. You see the warmth and his normalcy.”

And what of the man that actually shot the image that started this story? Manou also tracked down photographer 'Eric Hayes', who said:

“I was at the Royal Albert Hall a week or so before that concert,” he shared. “I spent some time talking with the band and shot some photos backstage. It was all so casual and intimate. There was really no security and photographers were free to do pretty much whatever they wanted. I had built up a lot of trust by then by shooting some big shows. So I knew who I had a talk to to get access. And then once I had the access, I was just set free to shoot what I wanted.”

Does he remember the photo of Charlie?

“Absolutely,” he recalls. “I remember the whole sequence of what happened. I was in front of the stage shooting. If you’ll notice the angle of the photo, I’m actually on the stage at that point. I had seen Hendrix’s set before and knew that when they did ‘Wild Thing,’ that he would start humping the amplifiers at the back of the stage. To keep the amps from falling down, he would have some guys back there propping them up. I thought that would make an interesting shot. So I got up on the stage a couple of songs early just to get ready. That’s when Charlie decided to wander up. Just the fact that we are talking about this confirms something I’ve always believed as a photographer. There is a story behind every photo. Back then, a kid could get up on stage and nobody freaked out. That was just sort of the relaxed hippie culture.”
[story sourced from ultimateclassicrock.com]


This post consists of MP3's (320kps) ripped from my CD and includes full album artwork.  This CD has also been released by Music World under the title of 'Jimi Hendrix: 32 Great Tracks Vol 1 & 2' (see album artwork below)
Clearly, not all tracks on this recording are true Hendrix recordings, and the Scene Club recordings are nothing to write home about, but what saves this release are the live Royal Albert Hall recordings.
Irrespective, I know that any hard core Hendrix fans will still want this bootleg in their collection, even if its for the alternative artwork.
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Track Listing
01 - Purple Haze (Live)
02 - She's So Fine (aka From This Day On)
03 - Fire (Live)
04 - Wild Thing (Live)
05 - The Sunshine Of Your Love (Live)
06 - Bleeding Heart (Live)
07 - Room Full Of Mirrors (Live)
08 - Smashing The Amps (Live)
09 - Miracle Worker
10 - Blues Blues (aka Woke Up This Morning And You  Find Yourself Dead)
11 - From This Day On
12 - Lime Lime (aka Outside Woman Blues)
13 - Human Heart
14 - Girl So Fine

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Note: Track 2 is incorrectly entitled "She's So Fine" and is in fact "From This Day On" and the same as track 11.

Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze Link (133Mb) New Link 27/02/2024

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