10 Best Songs. NO Singles: Jimi Hendrix
You might not know what a big Jimi Hendrix fan I am by reading this blog, but I am indeed. I think maybe I gravitate towards writing about artists for whom everything that could possibly be said about them hasn’t already been said? I do think that Jimi (who was alive while I was alive for 13 days) fits into this series though as a way for me to highlight a small handful of my favorite Jimi tracks that range from well known to fairly obscure since his entire output has been cleaned up, stripped of posthumously added overdubs, and released by his family with (mostly) better care over the past 25+ years. I also included live versions for the 10 recordings I wanted to highlight here.
So if you are just a casual fan of the greatest guitar player in history or even if you’re an aficionado I think you’ll dig this list. Let me know what your faves are, because this list could never be definitive in any way - it’s impossible, nor do I rank the songs on these “10 best, no singles” lists. So please add your faves in the comments! For an artist who left us so young he recorded a mammoth amount of music even if much of it wasn’t finished. As for the criteria I decided anything goes that wasn’t released as a single during his lifetime since soooo many attempts to cash in on his catalogue have happened over the years. Let’s get to it:
10 Best Songs. NO Singles: Jimi Hendrix
Hear My Train A’ Comin’ (aka Get My Heart Back Together) - Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival - 2015 (Recorded 7/4/70) I have no fewer than 17 versions of this song in my iTunes - a blues standard in my opinion. Sort of a if you know you know kind of deal, and yet many don’t know. This song was never released on a proper Jimi Hendrix album during his lifetime and doesn’t appear on Greatest Hits collections. So a casual fan who has Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love, Electric Ladyland, Band Of Gypsies and/or a Greatest Hits collection for example may not have ever heard this. And listen, I’m not an expert in the blues overall. I love the blues - and I’ve got a little blues cred as a fan… I saw Bo Diddley live along with BB King and Buddy Guy, I’ve been to Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago and I’ve driven the Mississippi Delta from Vicksburg to Memphis. But it’s not my core strength as an amateur music historian. My humble opinion is that Jimi deserves his place in the pantheon of great American bluesmen, and here’s a nice article from Guitar World that explores this a little further. Jimi never laid down a subpar version of this song, and he’s done it acoustically too. The first time he recorded it with the Experience (Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass) was 12/15/67 and they did 2 takes that day. So he played this song frequently for almost his entire time as a superstar. And while the Internet says the “definitive version” according to music critics is his 1970 performance at Berkely Community Center, for my money it’s the almost 10 minute masterpiece at the Atlanta Pop Festival which was the biggest crowd Jimi ever played to at over a couple hundred thousand people on the 4th of July. He’s backed on this recording by Mitchell and Billy Cox on bass from his Band Of Gypsies. I also found that AllMusic.com holds it in extremely high regard as well. It’s one of my favorite Jimi solos that he gets lost in for several minutes that goes on and on worming its way into your brain. Wow. And by the way the Wiki entry for this song is fantastic - tons of info.
Power Of Soul - Songs For Groovy Children - 2019 (Fillmore East - Recorded 1/1/70 first show) Jimi’s 4 shows over New Year’s Eve at Fillmore East have been released in several incarnations - the first being the Band Of Gypsies album during his lifetime with Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums. The latest definitive record of almost all of the material from all four shows is entitled Songs For Groovy Children and presents the shows as they happened chronologically. Frankly that’s the way I’d rather hear them, and for me the best version of Power Of Soul is the version played at the third show - the first show of the new decade. The first time this version was officially released was on the Live At The Fillmore East 1999 release which was when I first heard it, and I think it’s better than the version on the original Band Of Gypsies album (oddly enough initially printed as Power To Love on the first pressings). Funky as all get out and Jimi plays a blistering solo before any vocals while Buddy Miles kicks ass behind the kit. Just awesome. At 6:15 in length, the first 3 minutes are all instrumental and are in the running for my 3 favorite Jimi minutes of all time. I can’t imagine having seen that in person - if by some chance you are reading this and you were there I’d love to hear about it.
Bleeding Heart - Valleys Of Neptune 2010 (Recorded 4/7/69) An Elmore James blues classic that James recorded in 1961, this is another song that Jimi played around with for years going back to his time with Curtis Knight and the Squires in 1965. This one didn’t appear on an album but there are at least 4 different studio versions that have been released (the other three are on the Blues, South Saturn Delta, & People Hell & Angels collections) and they are ALL radically different which is fascinating to hear. My favorite though is the one recorded on April 7th, 1969 with The Experience at the Record Plant in NYC and released on the Valleys Of Neptune compilation. It’s a high energy uptempo version unlike the slow blues of the original and the extended jamming is fantastic.
Who Knows - Band Of Gypsies (Recorded 1/1/70 first show) Probably the funkiest grooviest thing Jimi ever did and the sample was the basis for the Digital Underground’s The Way We Swing 20 years later. I’m obsessed with the vocal tradeoffs between Jimi and Buddy Miles and Buddy’s scat performance is incredible. Don’t @ me. I love it - and I’m aware that not everyone does. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to this track without walking around singing it to myself for the rest of the day. At about 10 minutes long I think I’d be fine if it was 20. From the same show as the Power Of Soul pick above and I don’t think there’s really another Hendrix song like it.
Little Wing - Axis: Bold As Love (1967) Gorgeous and unmistakeable from the first two notes and that glockenspiel in the intro… short and oh so sweet - one of the most soulful tracks recorded by anybody and maybe the most flat out melodic solo Jimi ever played. A song that just lifts you up, and then suddenly….it’s over lol. At 2:27 even another 30 seconds would have been so nice but it’s hard to be mad over such perfection.
Castles Made Of Sand - Axis: Bold As Love (1967) Some of Jimi’s best storytelling here - a rock n roll fable for the ages with a guitar solo that is reversed and added backwards for a trippy feel. “Castles made of sand melt into the sea eventually” - an autobiographical and wistful set of anecdotes about the fleeting nature of existence and how nothing should be taken for granted. I love the groove Mitchell and Redding lay down here as well. This second of three albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience is really something man… equally as important and accomplished as the other two.
Bold As Love - Axis: Bold As Love (1967) The third and (kinda) title track included here from Axis: Bold As Love - all three of which are different shades of mellow - and in this case Jimi’s mellow is not so yellow! Hehe - see what I did there? But what a great closer for this album with that full throated and iconic “YE-AH YE-AH YEAH!!!” after Jimi’s declaration to just ask the Axis about the colors of his rainbow as they all make him bold as love - the axis knows everything! Some great covers have been done of this one over the years too by the likes of Phish and Pretenders.
Voodoo Chile - Electric Ladyland (1968) When they remastered this album in 2010 and I first listened on headphones I was blown away especially by Voodoo Chile. I was able to hear Stevie Winwood on the Hammond organ like never before and this jam with about 20 people in the studio cheering at times is just such a cool improv jam that ended up one of the best tracks of all time. At 15 minutes it’s the longest recording by Jimi and there’s actually another version about half as long from the combined first two takes from the same session on the Blues compilation. Jack Casady from Jefferson Airplane plays bass and Mitch Mitchell is on the drums. Plenty of old school blues ideas here (and I mean that in the best way) starting out with the crazy things that happened “the night I was born” - in this case “Lord I swear the moon turned a fire red….” Love it. This song was the basis for the more famous Voodoo Child (Slight Return) that also appears on the album but no less awesome.
Red House - Valleys Of Neptune (Recorded 2/17/69) One of the greatest blues songs ever written. Full stop. And yes the definitive version is probably the one recorded on 12/15/66 for the debut LP Are You Experienced? even though it was left off the U.S. release and wasn’t released in the states until Smash Hits came out in 1969. A couple side notes: It is Jimi’s only 12-Bar Blues composition, and I learned in Googling for this piece that the December ‘66 version has no bass which I never knew - it’s Noel Redding playing rhythm guitar tuned down a half step with the tone controls set to make it sound like bass. But I want to call your attention to the revelatory version that appears on Valleys Of Neptune also recorded with the Experience over two years later at Olympic Studios in London during rehearsals for upcoming shows at Royal Albert Hall that stretches out to a length of 8:20. Jimi was feeling it this day. It’s just so relaxed - a master revisiting a favorite for the last time in a studio I believe - improvising on his every whim and singing in a soulful falsetto at times that you’ll rarely hear him do. He just sounds so damn inspired but with no pressure to deliver anything big - just doing what comes naturally and just creating - seemingly unfettered. His way. And it’s glorious. Absolutely blows me away each time I hear it.
Rainy Day, Dream Away - Electric Ladyland (1968) Another one from Electric Ladyland with some rare tenor sax played by Freddie Smith and Hammond B-3 organ added by Mike Finnigan. Groovy with some incredible wah-wah from Jimi (not that that’s rare). This one kicks off sort of an (incredible) extended suite including 1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be), Moon, Turn The Tides…Gently Gently Away and the Still Raining, Still Dreaming reprise, but the 3:42 length Rainy Day, Dream Away is my favorite part that I’m putting on this list. It’s such a pleasant jam, kinda funky, jazzy - just lay back and groove. That’s it. A delight.
Belly Button Window - First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (1970) Okay so I’m cheating and adding this enjoyable little ditty as #11. Sung from the viewpoint of Jimi as a baby in the womb looking out his belly button window wondering if he’s wanted, trying to make sense of the fuss and the drama he’s about to deal with upon entering the world. Just Jimi with a couple of guitars on one of the few recordings he was able to make at his brand new Electric Lady Studios, recorded less than a month before his untimely and tragic passing. First Rays Of The New Rising Sun was the family’s attempt to assemble what Jimi’s fourth studio album would have been as he intended it, and while we won’t ever know exactly how that album would have turned out, they do a pretty good job of getting it as right as can be from what is known from his notes.
So there you have it! This was next to impossible… and there are plenty tracks I love that are not here. But I hope you enjoyed it and that you’ll add your faves below!
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can follow Doug’s band Vintage Playboy at their Facebook page here.
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