In his lifetime, Jimi Hendrix released only three studio albums before his overdose death a month short of his twenty-eighth birthday. Sure we all have The Ultimate Experience in our CD collection, and a greatest hits compilation is usually good enough for a career that short, but all three releases from The Jimi Hendrix Experience are worth getting individually, and you might as well start at the beginning with Are You Experienced? this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Yes The Ultimate Experience has the stand out tracks like Purple Haze (one of the great track 1’s of all time), Manic Depression (with frantic drumming from Mitch Mitchell), Hey Joe (one of the great break up songs ever), The Wind Cries Mary (maybe the best song Hendrix ever wrote), Fire (a great jukebox anthem), the bluesy Red House, and of course, Garth Alger
’s favorite song, Foxey Lady.But The Ultimate Experience was so loaded that even the title track from Are You Experience? didn’t even make the cut. The song was Hendrix at his psychedelic best and his experience doesn’t necessarily involve being stone which he suggests in the song. The even trippier, somewhat instrumental Third Stone from the Stone also gets left off most compilations. And May This Be Love is like a more melodic Wind Cries Mary.
Forty years after his death, some of Jimi Hendrix’s unreleased works are officially seeing the light of the day with the recent release of Valley of Neptune with many more to come over the next couple years. I am a little hesitant when it comes to posthumous releases of unfinished work, but at least we have three albums full of songs the way we know Hendrix intended them to be.
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