can you imagine..., 02 Mar 2007
I was going to mention Clapton's christening of the Les Paul, Marshall setup, but others have beaten me to it. I liken it's impact to what happened to harp playing when Little Walter and other's deciding to blow through the PA or an early guitar amp. They REDEFINED the sound of the instrument.

So all I'll add is the rhetorical question...can you imagine being a teenage Brit, having been reared on the sounds of the Beatles, Jerry and the Pacemakers, or even the Dave Clark Five, wandering into a London club because someone had recommended the Bluesbreakers, and hearing THIS STUFF? Probably as epiphanic as being a white guy in mid 50's Chicago and having the nerve to wander into the Dew Drop Inn and hearing Muddy, Wolf, or later, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy. Simply put, a life changing experience.

The most important guitar album of all time!, 08 Feb 2007
The best guitar player of the time on top of his game. Classic tracks. The perfect combination of guitar and amp. Incredible solos... Listening to this album it is easy to see why rock took the directions it did. This is the blueprint for pretty much every rock/blues album that followed, and in my opinion the closest Clapton ever got to this ever again is on Layla... This is Essential.

The album that changed my life., 28 May 2006
On a week's holiday with my parent's in Littlehampton in Sussex during the summer of '66, as ever, I found a record shop. Without much money as I was still at school, (just), I had the choice, in my mind anyway, between two albums; The Mother's Of Invention's 'Freakout,' and 'Bluesbreakers.' Maybe there had been a lot of publicity at the time about 'Freakout,' I can't remember, but for some reason I was torn between which one to buy. Probably the fact that I was a Yardbirds fan and had listened to 'Five Live' a great deal made up my mind, and I plumped for 'Bluesbreakers.' It was to be the wisest move and the best purchase I ever made. As a then, and still now, 'would-be' guitarist, this album, for its time in rock history, had everything you wanted and more, and has pretty much stayed that way over the ensuing years. To play with this degree of skill and feeling at Clapton's age of 21 at the time, was and is incredible. At 15, he was almost an old man to me being 6 years older, yet even so, the bluesmen I had heard were in their 30's and over, (really old men!), and even now this album begs the question "Why was Clapton so great at such a young age?" We will never know, and if put to the question, probably neither would he? It was just something he was drawn to and did, and has had the good fortune to do so for the rest of his life. If you're a guitarist, Clapton fan, blues enthusiast, whatever, and you don't own this album, simply buy it now - it will remain a classic for as long as planet Earth keeps turning.

Life Changing..., 15 Feb 2006
I first listened to this disc as a fifteen year-old and music was never the same thereafter. I started hunting straight away for the original US musicians who had inspired first Mayall and then the unbelievably young Clapton. And I'm still listening to the fruits of that search. Meantime it opened me up to the expanding British Blues scene and subsequently other new British genres, all the way from Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack, to The Groundhogs, Steeleye and Fairport. The music itself is quite simply inspired, mainly by the fusion of the very different talents of the individuals involved. I'm not sure that Mayall ever wrote, sang or played as well again 'though Clapton went on to far greater things. Just listen to Track 5, Double Crossin' Time, written by the both of them, which displays their different talents perfectly. This disc is one of those very rare seminal recordings which brings as much pleasure now as on the day it came off the presses.

sheer tone, 07 Jul 2005
This is the album that launched the Gibson Les Paul + Marshall amp combination that has defined the sound of rock for so long. It is worth buying for that alone. Absolute, pure, smooth but crunchy, toney goodness! Thankfully, the music is top notch, ranging from the energetic opener to the instrumental "Steppin Out", to the drum solo and tribute to the Beatles' "Day Tripper" on "What'd I Say?". Excellent stuff.

As emblematic of its time as of its sorcerer-like creator, 1967's Are You Experienced? unleashed Jimi Hendrix onto a world in the midst of such cultural and musical shake-ups that it really didn't seem as "far out" as it actually was. It wasn't just Hendrix's virtuosic skill as a pure player that was so impressive; it was, even more, the range and scope of sheer sound that he coaxed, cajoled and ripped out of his instrument. "Purple Haze", "Manic Depression" and "I Don't Live Today" filled ears with indelible sonic images and songs like "Foxey Lady" and "Fire" pointed the way toward a new brand of rock-charged soul music. And how about a hand for drummer Mitch Mitchell? --Billy Altman

can you imagine..., 02 Mar 2007
I was going to mention Clapton's christening of the Les Paul, Marshall setup, but others have beaten me to it. I liken it's impact to what happened to harp playing when Little Walter and other's deciding to blow through the PA or an early guitar amp. They REDEFINED the sound of the instrument.

So all I'll add is the rhetorical question...can you imagine being a teenage Brit, having been reared on the sounds of the Beatles, Jerry and the Pacemakers, or even the Dave Clark Five, wandering into a London club because someone had recommended the Bluesbreakers, and hearing THIS STUFF? Probably as epiphanic as being a white guy in mid 50's Chicago and having the nerve to wander into the Dew Drop Inn and hearing Muddy, Wolf, or later, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy. Simply put, a life changing experience.

The most important guitar album of all time!, 08 Feb 2007
The best guitar player of the time on top of his game. Classic tracks. The perfect combination of guitar and amp. Incredible solos... Listening to this album it is easy to see why rock took the directions it did. This is the blueprint for pretty much every rock/blues album that followed, and in my opinion the closest Clapton ever got to this ever again is on Layla... This is Essential.

The album that changed my life., 28 May 2006
On a week's holiday with my parent's in Littlehampton in Sussex during the summer of '66, as ever, I found a record shop. Without much money as I was still at school, (just), I had the choice, in my mind anyway, between two albums; The Mother's Of Invention's 'Freakout,' and 'Bluesbreakers.' Maybe there had been a lot of publicity at the time about 'Freakout,' I can't remember, but for some reason I was torn between which one to buy. Probably the fact that I was a Yardbirds fan and had listened to 'Five Live' a great deal made up my mind, and I plumped for 'Bluesbreakers.' It was to be the wisest move and the best purchase I ever made. As a then, and still now, 'would-be' guitarist, this album, for its time in rock history, had everything you wanted and more, and has pretty much stayed that way over the ensuing years. To play with this degree of skill and feeling at Clapton's age of 21 at the time, was and is incredible. At 15, he was almost an old man to me being 6 years older, yet even so, the bluesmen I had heard were in their 30's and over, (really old men!), and even now this album begs the question "Why was Clapton so great at such a young age?" We will never know, and if put to the question, probably neither would he? It was just something he was drawn to and did, and has had the good fortune to do so for the rest of his life. If you're a guitarist, Clapton fan, blues enthusiast, whatever, and you don't own this album, simply buy it now - it will remain a classic for as long as planet Earth keeps turning.

Life Changing..., 15 Feb 2006
I first listened to this disc as a fifteen year-old and music was never the same thereafter. I started hunting straight away for the original US musicians who had inspired first Mayall and then the unbelievably young Clapton. And I'm still listening to the fruits of that search. Meantime it opened me up to the expanding British Blues scene and subsequently other new British genres, all the way from Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack, to The Groundhogs, Steeleye and Fairport. The music itself is quite simply inspired, mainly by the fusion of the very different talents of the individuals involved. I'm not sure that Mayall ever wrote, sang or played as well again 'though Clapton went on to far greater things. Just listen to Track 5, Double Crossin' Time, written by the both of them, which displays their different talents perfectly. This disc is one of those very rare seminal recordings which brings as much pleasure now as on the day it came off the presses.

sheer tone, 07 Jul 2005
This is the album that launched the Gibson Les Paul + Marshall amp combination that has defined the sound of rock for so long. It is worth buying for that alone. Absolute, pure, smooth but crunchy, toney goodness! Thankfully, the music is top notch, ranging from the energetic opener to the instrumental "Steppin Out", to the drum solo and tribute to the Beatles' "Day Tripper" on "What'd I Say?". Excellent stuff.

The Clamps Are Off, 06 Oct 2008
Born in 1940's Seattle, Jimi Hendrix would go on to be the ultimate guitar Legend in both his native America and more crucially here in the UK. In the mid sixties, Eric Clapton was God having given the blues sound a complete overhaul, however in the late sixties Clapton was revealed to be just a mere prophet for Hendrix had arrived to save us all.

It's well documented that Hendrix had a gift for creating noises from his guitar that only he could create, this much is true, problem is he raised the bar to a level which has not even been sniffed at since the time of his tragic death in 1970, which certainly has left a big hole on mankind's ability to create.

Despite Hendrix's ability and obvious talent, it was only in the last 5 years of his life that he managed to have the huge impact his talent deserved. In 1966, The Animals were on the verge of breaking up, and their bassist Chas Chandler decided he would try his arm at management. Luckily for us, a chance viewing in New York of Hendrix playing blues in a club convinced a gob smacked Chandler that he needed to get this guy over to England.

In England, a rhythm section was forged around him, arguably one of the best rhythm sections ever created, Mitch Mitchell, possibly one of the greatest drummers ever to pick up a pair of sticks and Noel Redding on bass, both with the key ability to keep up with Hendrix and produce the glue needed to make the songs sound the way they did. This new three piece would be called The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Their first record in the UK was a triumph, released in 1967 on MCA, Are You Experienced was a stunning debut, incorporating at its base the fundamentals of Blues, Rock and Soul with a more futuristic fuzz trying to kick out from all angles, there was also an undeniable jazz influence coming from Hendrix's rhythm section which probably allowed all these elements to gel with such wonderful results, The Jimi Hendrix Experience had arrived.

Nothing more demonstrates the power in Hendrix's fingers then Foxey Lady, imagine if you will just sitting there having placed the needle on the record to hear that guitar slowly marauding its way through your amp and breaking through to produce one of the most hypnotic guitar riffs ever created, brilliant. Yet more Psychedelic wonders and memorable riffs follow with Manic Depression and Purple Haze, but there is much more then just that. There's a mental instrumental with Third Stone From The Sun, and even a tender side being demonstrated on the album, with beautifully poetic songs like The Wind Cries Mary and Hey Joe

This is album is frenzied and raw yet at the same time is beautiful, this album was responsible for launching Hendrix onto a stage much bigger then those days where he was in the Isley Brothers backing band a few years earlier, the clamps were now off and he was loose, this was where the legend began.

Thanks to later issues, there is now no missing links between the UK version of this album and the US version, its now all available on one album, if you're one of those collector types, you might want to buy both versions, but if not, I'm sure the 17 track version will do you fine.


The greatest guitarist of all time., 21 Jul 2008
This was the first Hendrix record I ever bought and it hits you like a tyson punch, Jimi displays everything and more in just 17 songs. Ranging from the sexy 'Foxy lady' to the rock of 'can you see me' to the bluesy 'red house' to the physedelic 'purple haze'. Theres killer riffs (purple haze), fantastic solo's (Hey joe) and brilliant drumming by M.Mitchell on Fire and Manic depression just to name a few.
If you like this as i do i recomend any other Hendrix album partically Electric ladyland and Axis as bold as love.

Fortieth anniversary of an immensely influential musical milestone... too bad that some of the tracks only offer sub-par sound , 22 Mar 2007

The other evening, I listened to this CD and, as the music flew out of the speakers, I felt that the sound quality of the first track ("Foxey Lady") was definitely not... right. Similar problems appeared on other - though not all - of the tracks.

Now, do not get me wrong. As a fan of older musical styles, I can immerse myself in the music extracted from the oft-damaged grooves of vintage 78 rpm pressed before 1930.

Consequently, I am still both moved and amazed at Hendrix' genius on this monumental recording, which I originally bought in 1967. What bugs me is that it should sound so much better... and that it does not. Moreover, I have read lots of professional and fan reviews of this CD. I agree wholeheartedly with most of the praise afforded to its intrinsic artistic value but I find it strange that almost nothing is ever said about the actual sound quality, or sometimes lack thereof.

Hendrix' first album was recorded about 40 years ago. The recordings took place - approximately - between October 1966 and March 1967, mostly at the state-of-the-art Olympic studios. The original engineer was the very gifted Eddie Kramer whilst producer Chas Chandler had lots of studio expertise. All the right ingredients were there to have very good sonics.

After listening through the speakers, I turned them off and listened through a pair of Sennheiser headphones.

At this point, I feel that I should remind the reader that the second part of the sixties saw the appearance of affordable stereo listening equipment. The increased interest in stereo records among the pop and rock public led the record companies - which owned huge back catalogues of older, mono recordings - to devise a process to electronic "re-channel" these mono takes into something mimicking stereo.
To this effect, a simple, low-cost process was set up; it only implied to separate the two tracks of the master tape so as to spread the sound across the stereo field by directing higher-frequency sound into one channel and lower-frequency sound into the other.
This perversion of the original stereo concept gave awful results (just think about those "fake stereo" releases - both on LP's and CD's - of the Rolling Stones Decca/London material released prior to "Aftermath" (1966). It was not until the release of the 2002 Abkco "DSD" remasters that it was possible to have again access to this music the way it was originally designed to sound.

"Foxey Lady", on the Hendrix CD under review is, definitely, a "fake stereo" (or "re-channeled mono) recording; the "stereo content" relies essentially on Jimi's vocals being panned to the left and the background "foxy" vocal interjections being panned to the right. This effect is highly unnatural. The bass guitar is not well defined and the drums lack real punch. The overall sound is muffled.

The very same problem is already apparent on the first US CD reissue (Reprise 6261-2 in "long box" presentation). Noted engineer Joe Gastwirt takes credit for the digital remastering.
Joe Gastwirt stated, in 1997, that "I don't wish to get into a major controversy, but I know the tapes that I worked from had edits and splices all over them. And it is very, very unlikely that a copy of a master tape would have splices on it."

On the "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" 4-CD box set (MCA 112316), Kramer remastered an early, alternate version of "Foxey Lady." The actual musical performance on this alternate take is artistically inferior to the standard version. However, the alternate take comes in true mono and exhibits a much-improved sound quality. Consequently, the track sounds much more as if a real power trio was performing on it. This is true for Hendrix' vocals and guitar as well as for Noel Redding's and Mitch Mitchell's contributions.

Extending the analytic process to the whole CD under review, I came to the conclusion that ten tracks from the latest MCA remaster appear either in true mono or true stereo, without any obvious post-recording trickery involved. They are: "Red House" (mono), "May This Be Love" (stereo), "Fire" (stereo), "Third Stone From The Sun" (stereo), "Remember" (stereo), "Are You Experienced" (stereo), "Hey Joe" (stereo!), "51st Anniversary" (mono), "The Wind Cries Mary" (stereo) and "Highway Chile" (mono.)

Conversely, the seven remaining tracks feature inferior, "fake stereo" sound quality. They are: "Foxey Lady", "Manic Depression", "Can You See Me", "Love or Confusion", "I Don't Live Today", "Stone Free" and "Purple Haze."

As both Kramer and Gastwirt are definitely skilled "good guys", the evoked problems are linked to the recording tapes that they had to use to do the CD remastering.

At the time of the latest MCA remasters, the company claimed that: "For the first time, the [ORIGINAL] two-track master tapes were used to remaster [...] "Are You Experienced?" [...] [This album], released on MCA's Experience Hendrix label, mark[s] the recovery of the original master tapes after some two decades in limbo." Well, I think that this assertion is very... bold (just like the axis!) It is also misleading.

True, the overall sound on Kramer's latest MCA remasters is noticeably cleaner than on earlier CD's. This is because the quality of the analog-to-digital converters has improved a lot since Gastwirt's earlier work. Aural evidence reported above clearly shows that Eddie Kramer could NOT fix any of the "fake stereo" problems already encountered by Gastwirt.

In my opinion, it is obvious that some of the original master tapes have disappeared. Such an occurence is not exceptional in the case of vintage recording masters. Actually, in an interview, Eddie Kramer declared that the case of the missing masters was no mystery: "We [Kramer and members of the Hendrix family] went on a long search and found 85 percent of the masters [from all the studio sessions.] We found tapes in studios and buried in record company libraries. Some tapes [had even to be] bought from collectors."

For this reason, the only way to listen to the original, superior sounding mono mixes of the seven inferior tracks mentioned above is to listen to good copies of the "Are You Experienced" and "Smash Hits" mono Track LP's (no mean feat nowadays.)

It is also quite possible that a remastering based on original vinyl sources (or repressings based on good condition metal parts) could yield better sonic results. This process has already been used for fairly recent material. I do not know if it could be used here.

One last advice: the easiest way to discriminate between "true stereo" tracks and "fake stereo" tracks is to switch the sound from stereo to mono. If the sound, especially on the vocals, appears to "collapse" (the vocals are heard at a much lower volume level) when switching to mono, then the track is definitely mastered from a "fake stereo" source. When the mastering is from a true stereo source, the balance between the vocal and instrumental sounds will stay fairly constant when switching to mono. This effect is more perceptible still on headphones.


Earth to Hendrix: Come back, come back...., 14 Feb 2007

Well, there's very little I can say that you haven't already heard from my fellow reviewers, but this bandwagon deserves jumping on.

What a smashing debut from a band with no history together. Having said that of course, musically speaking, Jimi had already walked a long hard road and arrived in England with many songs he was itching to give sound to. Much of this album reflects Jimi's experience and maturity, a couple of brilliant examples being Red House, which has become a blues standard, and Are You Experienced, which is an absolutely mesmerising number with one of his most beautiful (though fairly brief) solos.

If you are new to Jimi's music (is there anyone in the Western Hemisphere who hasn't heard Purple Haze?), or are an Experience fan already (congratulations), but haven't already got this album (how the hell have you missed it?), then I recommend that you buy it.

PS. Note to Experienced fans: if you haven't yet discovered Jimi's post-Experience work (when he hooked up again with an old army buddy -Billy Cox- on bass), then I URGENTLY suggest that you do. You're in for a treat - esp. Woodstock, Band Of Gypsys and Rainbow Bridge concerts.

WOW!! What a start!, 19 Jan 2007
This is a must what a debut it turned out to be.This man served his apprenticeship trawling the clubs and bars of North America in all sorts of bands R&B jazz anyone who would employ him, He had mastered the instrument of his choice the electric guitar and all he wanted was to hit the world with his thing! Of course it took an English man to realize this guitarist had potential and also the said English man introduced Jimi to his two new partners ,Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchel they made a name for themselves here UK and Germany . This trio were like a bomb going off shattering the swinging sixties Europe.This CD version is the brain child that all musicians would have loved to have been involved with it is a very fresh exciting new concept in the field of recorded rock music, try this album remastered with extra tracks , it is so important that the earth wobbled on its axis! Super smashing brilliant

If it's true that songwriters have a vision in their head of what their dream album would be, Electric Ladyland was the project Jimi Hendrix hoped would be as close to perfection as possible. No longer content with the rush-recorded psychedelic pop-rock of Experienced and Axis, Ladyland was an exploration of what could be achieved with time, money and experience. Jimi's soul roots from his session days shine through for the first time with the laid-back groove of the title track and the doo-woppy "Long Hot Summer Night" showing a vocal style reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield. It's hard to pick a standout piece as the quality of the album is so high, but the four-part dream segue of "Rainy Day", "1983", "Moon Turn the Tides" and "Still Raining" is a monumental piece of early prog rock continuing the acid-soaked ideal of extraterrestrials, love, peace and war that he started earlier on with "Third Stone from the Sun". However, it's not all spectacular drawn-out blues jams and sublime soundscapes, Electric Ladyland managed to produce Jimi's only UK No. 1 single, "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" plus the timeless classics "Crosstown Traffic" and "All Along the Watchtower" making it arguably the best studio album the Experience produced in their brief career together.--David Trueman

can you imagine..., 02 Mar 2007
I was going to mention Clapton's christening of the Les Paul, Marshall setup, but others have beaten me to it. I liken it's impact to what happened to harp playing when Little Walter and other's deciding to blow through the PA or an early guitar amp. They REDEFINED the sound of the instrument.

So all I'll add is the rhetorical question...can you imagine being a teenage Brit, having been reared on the sounds of the Beatles, Jerry and the Pacemakers, or even the Dave Clark Five, wandering into a London club because someone had recommended the Bluesbreakers, and hearing THIS STUFF? Probably as epiphanic as being a white guy in mid 50's Chicago and having the nerve to wander into the Dew Drop Inn and hearing Muddy, Wolf, or later, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy. Simply put, a life changing experience.

The most important guitar album of all time!, 08 Feb 2007
The best guitar player of the time on top of his game. Classic tracks. The perfect combination of guitar and amp. Incredible solos... Listening to this album it is easy to see why rock took the directions it did. This is the blueprint for pretty much every rock/blues album that followed, and in my opinion the closest Clapton ever got to this ever again is on Layla... This is Essential.

The album that changed my life., 28 May 2006
On a week's holiday with my parent's in Littlehampton in Sussex during the summer of '66, as ever, I found a record shop. Without much money as I was still at school, (just), I had the choice, in my mind anyway, between two albums; The Mother's Of Invention's 'Freakout,' and 'Bluesbreakers.' Maybe there had been a lot of publicity at the time about 'Freakout,' I can't remember, but for some reason I was torn between which one to buy. Probably the fact that I was a Yardbirds fan and had listened to 'Five Live' a great deal made up my mind, and I plumped for 'Bluesbreakers.' It was to be the wisest move and the best purchase I ever made. As a then, and still now, 'would-be' guitarist, this album, for its time in rock history, had everything you wanted and more, and has pretty much stayed that way over the ensuing years. To play with this degree of skill and feeling at Clapton's age of 21 at the time, was and is incredible. At 15, he was almost an old man to me being 6 years older, yet even so, the bluesmen I had heard were in their 30's and over, (really old men!), and even now this album begs the question "Why was Clapton so great at such a young age?" We will never know, and if put to the question, probably neither would he? It was just something he was drawn to and did, and has had the good fortune to do so for the rest of his life. If you're a guitarist, Clapton fan, blues enthusiast, whatever, and you don't own this album, simply buy it now - it will remain a classic for as long as planet Earth keeps turning.

Life Changing..., 15 Feb 2006
I first listened to this disc as a fifteen year-old and music was never the same thereafter. I started hunting straight away for the original US musicians who had inspired first Mayall and then the unbelievably young Clapton. And I'm still listening to the fruits of that search. Meantime it opened me up to the expanding British Blues scene and subsequently other new British genres, all the way from Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack, to The Groundhogs, Steeleye and Fairport. The music itself is quite simply inspired, mainly by the fusion of the very different talents of the individuals involved. I'm not sure that Mayall ever wrote, sang or played as well again 'though Clapton went on to far greater things. Just listen to Track 5, Double Crossin' Time, written by the both of them, which displays their different talents perfectly. This disc is one of those very rare seminal recordings which brings as much pleasure now as on the day it came off the presses.

sheer tone, 07 Jul 2005
This is the album that launched the Gibson Les Paul + Marshall amp combination that has defined the sound of rock for so long. It is worth buying for that alone. Absolute, pure, smooth but crunchy, toney goodness! Thankfully, the music is top notch, ranging from the energetic opener to the instrumental "Steppin Out", to the drum solo and tribute to the Beatles' "Day Tripper" on "What'd I Say?". Excellent stuff.

The Clamps Are Off, 06 Oct 2008
Born in 1940's Seattle, Jimi Hendrix would go on to be the ultimate guitar Legend in both his native America and more crucially here in the UK. In the mid sixties, Eric Clapton was God having given the blues sound a complete overhaul, however in the late sixties Clapton was revealed to be just a mere prophet for Hendrix had arrived to save us all.

It's well documented that Hendrix had a gift for creating noises from his guitar that only he could create, this much is true, problem is he raised the bar to a level which has not even been sniffed at since the time of his tragic death in 1970, which certainly has left a big hole on mankind's ability to create.

Despite Hendrix's ability and obvious talent, it was only in the last 5 years of his life that he managed to have the huge impact his talent deserved. In 1966, The Animals were on the verge of breaking up, and their bassist Chas Chandler decided he would try his arm at management. Luckily for us, a chance viewing in New York of Hendrix playing blues in a club convinced a gob smacked Chandler that he needed to get this guy over to England.

In England, a rhythm section was forged around him, arguably one of the best rhythm sections ever created, Mitch Mitchell, possibly one of the greatest drummers ever to pick up a pair of sticks and Noel Redding on bass, both with the key ability to keep up with Hendrix and produce the glue needed to make the songs sound the way they did. This new three piece would be called The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Their first record in the UK was a triumph, released in 1967 on MCA, Are You Experienced was a stunning debut, incorporating at its base the fundamentals of Blues, Rock and Soul with a more futuristic fuzz trying to kick out from all angles, there was also an undeniable jazz influence coming from Hendrix's rhythm section which probably allowed all these elements to gel with such wonderful results, The Jimi Hendrix Experience had arrived.

Nothing more demonstrates the power in Hendrix's fingers then Foxey Lady, imagine if you will just sitting there having placed the needle on the record to hear that guitar slowly marauding its way through your amp and breaking through to produce one of the most hypnotic guitar riffs ever created, brilliant. Yet more Psychedelic wonders and memorable riffs follow with Manic Depression and Purple Haze, but there is much more then just that. There's a mental instrumental with Third Stone From The Sun, and even a tender side being demonstrated on the album, with beautifully poetic songs like The Wind Cries Mary and Hey Joe

This is album is frenzied and raw yet at the same time is beautiful, this album was responsible for launching Hendrix onto a stage much bigger then those days where he was in the Isley Brothers backing band a few years earlier, the clamps were now off and he was loose, this was where the legend began.

Thanks to later issues, there is now no missing links between the UK version of this album and the US version, its now all available on one album, if you're one of those collector types, you might want to buy both versions, but if not, I'm sure the 17 track version will do you fine.


The greatest guitarist of all time., 21 Jul 2008
This was the first Hendrix record I ever bought and it hits you like a tyson punch, Jimi displays everything and more in just 17 songs. Ranging from the sexy 'Foxy lady' to the rock of 'can you see me' to the bluesy 'red house' to the physedelic 'purple haze'. Theres killer riffs (purple haze), fantastic solo's (Hey joe) and brilliant drumming by M.Mitchell on Fire and Manic depression just to name a few.
If you like this as i do i recomend any other Hendrix album partically Electric ladyland and Axis as bold as love.

Fortieth anniversary of an immensely influential musical milestone... too bad that some of the tracks only offer sub-par sound , 22 Mar 2007

The other evening, I listened to this CD and, as the music flew out of the speakers, I felt that the sound quality of the first track ("Foxey Lady") was definitely not... right. Similar problems appeared on other - though not all - of the tracks.

Now, do not get me wrong. As a fan of older musical styles, I can immerse myself in the music extracted from the oft-damaged grooves of vintage 78 rpm pressed before 1930.

Consequently, I am still both moved and amazed at Hendrix' genius on this monumental recording, which I originally bought in 1967. What bugs me is that it should sound so much better... and that it does not. Moreover, I have read lots of professional and fan reviews of this CD. I agree wholeheartedly with most of the praise afforded to its intrinsic artistic value but I find it strange that almost nothing is ever said about the actual sound quality, or sometimes lack thereof.

Hendrix' first album was recorded about 40 years ago. The recordings took place - approximately - between October 1966 and March 1967, mostly at the state-of-the-art Olympic studios. The original engineer was the very gifted Eddie Kramer whilst producer Chas Chandler had lots of studio expertise. All the right ingredients were there to have very good sonics.

After listening through the speakers, I turned them off and listened through a pair of Sennheiser headphones.

At this point, I feel that I should remind the reader that the second part of the sixties saw the appearance of affordable stereo listening equipment. The increased interest in stereo records among the pop and rock public led the record companies - which owned huge back catalogues of older, mono recordings - to devise a process to electronic "re-channel" these mono takes into something mimicking stereo.
To this effect, a simple, low-cost process was set up; it only implied to separate the two tracks of the master tape so as to spread the sound across the stereo field by directing higher-frequency sound into one channel and lower-frequency sound into the other.
This perversion of the original stereo concept gave awful results (just think about those "fake stereo" releases - both on LP's and CD's - of the Rolling Stones Decca/London material released prior to "Aftermath" (1966). It was not until the release of the 2002 Abkco "DSD" remasters that it was possible to have again access to this music the way it was originally designed to sound.

"Foxey Lady", on the Hendrix CD under review is, definitely, a "fake stereo" (or "re-channeled mono) recording; the "stereo content" relies essentially on Jimi's vocals being panned to the left and the background "foxy" vocal interjections being panned to the right. This effect is highly unnatural. The bass guitar is not well defined and the drums lack real punch. The overall sound is muffled.

The very same problem is already apparent on the first US CD reissue (Reprise 6261-2 in "long box" presentation). Noted engineer Joe Gastwirt takes credit for the digital remastering.
Joe Gastwirt stated, in 1997, that "I don't wish to get into a major controversy, but I know the tapes that I worked from had edits and splices all over them. And it is very, very unlikely that a copy of a master tape would have splices on it."

On the "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" 4-CD box set (MCA 112316), Kramer remastered an early, alternate version of "Foxey Lady." The actual musical performance on this alternate take is artistically inferior to the standard version. However, the alternate take comes in true mono and exhibits a much-improved sound quality. Consequently, the track sounds much more as if a real power trio was performing on it. This is true for Hendrix' vocals and guitar as well as for Noel Redding's and Mitch Mitchell's contributions.

Extending the analytic process to the whole CD under review, I came to the conclusion that ten tracks from the latest MCA remaster appear either in true mono or true stereo, without any obvious post-recording trickery involved. They are: "Red House" (mono), "May This Be Love" (stereo), "Fire" (stereo), "Third Stone From The Sun" (stereo), "Remember" (stereo), "Are You Experienced" (stereo), "Hey Joe" (stereo!), "51st Anniversary" (mono), "The Wind Cries Mary" (stereo) and "Highway Chile" (mono.)

Conversely, the seven remaining tracks feature inferior, "fake stereo" sound quality. They are: "Foxey Lady", "Manic Depression", "Can You See Me", "Love or Confusion", "I Don't Live Today", "Stone Free" and "Purple Haze."

As both Kramer and Gastwirt are definitely skilled "good guys", the evoked problems are linked to the recording tapes that they had to use to do the CD remastering.

At the time of the latest MCA remasters, the company claimed that: "For the first time, the [ORIGINAL] two-track master tapes were used to remaster [...] "Are You Experienced?" [...] [This album], released on MCA's Experience Hendrix label, mark[s] the recovery of the original master tapes after some two decades in limbo." Well, I think that this assertion is very... bold (just like the axis!) It is also misleading.

True, the overall sound on Kramer's latest MCA remasters is noticeably cleaner than on earlier CD's. This is because the quality of the analog-to-digital converters has improved a lot since Gastwirt's earlier work. Aural evidence reported above clearly shows that Eddie Kramer could NOT fix any of the "fake stereo" problems already encountered by Gastwirt.

In my opinion, it is obvious that some of the original master tapes have disappeared. Such an occurence is not exceptional in the case of vintage recording masters. Actually, in an interview, Eddie Kramer declared that the case of the missing masters was no mystery: "We [Kramer and members of the Hendrix family] went on a long search and found 85 percent of the masters [from all the studio sessions.] We found tapes in studios and buried in record company libraries. Some tapes [had even to be] bought from collectors."

For this reason, the only way to listen to the original, superior sounding mono mixes of the seven inferior tracks mentioned above is to listen to good copies of the "Are You Experienced" and "Smash Hits" mono Track LP's (no mean feat nowadays.)

It is also quite possible that a remastering based on original vinyl sources (or repressings based on good condition metal parts) could yield better sonic results. This process has already been used for fairly recent material. I do not know if it could be used here.

One last advice: the easiest way to discriminate between "true stereo" tracks and "fake stereo" tracks is to switch the sound from stereo to mono. If the sound, especially on the vocals, appears to "collapse" (the vocals are heard at a much lower volume level) when switching to mono, then the track is definitely mastered from a "fake stereo" source. When the mastering is from a true stereo source, the balance between the vocal and instrumental sounds will stay fairly constant when switching to mono. This effect is more perceptible still on headphones.


Earth to Hendrix: Come back, come back...., 14 Feb 2007

Well, there's very little I can say that you haven't already heard from my fellow reviewers, but this bandwagon deserves jumping on.

What a smashing debut from a band with no history together. Having said that of course, musically speaking, Jimi had already walked a long hard road and arrived in England with many songs he was itching to give sound to. Much of this album reflects Jimi's experience and maturity, a couple of brilliant examples being Red House, which has become a blues standard, and Are You Experienced, which is an absolutely mesmerising number with one of his most beautiful (though fairly brief) solos.

If you are new to Jimi's music (is there anyone in the Western Hemisphere who hasn't heard Purple Haze?), or are an Experience fan already (congratulations), but haven't already got this album (how the hell have you missed it?), then I recommend that you buy it.

PS. Note to Experienced fans: if you haven't yet discovered Jimi's post-Experience work (when he hooked up again with an old army buddy -Billy Cox- on bass), then I URGENTLY suggest that you do. You're in for a treat - esp. Woodstock, Band Of Gypsys and Rainbow Bridge concerts.

WOW!! What a start!, 19 Jan 2007
This is a must what a debut it turned out to be.This man served his apprenticeship trawling the clubs and bars of North America in all sorts of bands R&B jazz anyone who would employ him, He had mastered the instrument of his choice the electric guitar and all he wanted was to hit the world with his thing! Of course it took an English man to realize this guitarist had potential and also the said English man introduced Jimi to his two new partners ,Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchel they made a name for themselves here UK and Germany . This trio were like a bomb going off shattering the swinging sixties Europe.This CD version is the brain child that all musicians would have loved to have been involved with it is a very fresh exciting new concept in the field of recorded rock music, try this album remastered with extra tracks , it is so important that the earth wobbled on its axis! Super smashing brilliant

A masterpiece in guitar playing., 21 Jul 2008
The definitive Hendirx cd, brilliantly produced it ranges from low beat blues records such as 'voodoo chile' to upbeat rock records in 'crosstown traffic' to great covers in the form of 'all along the watchtower'.
The 'wah-wah' effect on 'voodoo child slight return' is ledgendary and will be remembered until the end of man.
The guitar playing on '1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)' is brilliant and really suits the pysecdelic theme of the song.

what a legend the best guitarist ever!!, 20 Jul 2008
he is amazing this album is one of the best ever!! its fantastic in my opinion he is the best ever guitarist ever!! and this album i love it phycadelic 60s rock buy it you wont regret it!!

If he's looking down on us...., 06 Jun 2008
... I reckon Jimi would be saying "no no guys - the stuff I was working on before I left was even better than this stuff!!!".

I do feel that the direction Jimi was taking in the first light of the 70s would have solidified him as THE pre-eminent recording artist of his time. As it stands - we are only left with tantalising glimpses of his future, unrealised, creations (i.e. "first rays of the new rising sun").

I won't bother repeating all of the superlatives that others have bestowed in these review. Suffice to say - he was inventive, imaginative (wildly so), fabulously talented, charismatic, and peerless. As a recording artist - I think his is the greatest loss of all the 'legends' of yore - as he probably hadn't nearly peaked in terms of his writing skills. Almost everything you hear on this album belonged to Jimi's production and direction, including the fabulous bassline in "All Along The Watchtower", played by Jimi upside down on Noel Redding's Fender Bass.

My number 1 album of all time, enough said.

This album changes lives . . . , 01 Feb 2008
Well, it did mine. Totally blew my mind when I first heard it over thirty years ago, and it still makes it for me now. Definitely one for Desert Island Discs. Buy it and be transported to a million different landscapes of the mind.

his master piece, 08 Nov 2007
what makes this album really different from the first two is that jimi had more time to spend on recordings.on are you experience there is penny pinching and the sound is rubbish.the tunes are not allowed beyond a certain lenght. i personally think it is unlistenable. the difference is best shown on all along the watchtower. compare the version that he did with dave mason on bass that is on the albums that came out after his death and the same basic track he took with him to america and put on those over dubs for electric ladyland version. the difference is enormous. the chas chandler produced version is a just good song but the hendric version is a contendor for the greatest song ever.I wish he had done same for spanish castle magic and put some overdubs and the result would have the same for spanish castle.the whole lady album is fused with a soulfull sound in the playing and works beautifully all the way through the album until the last track. voodoo chile slight return. this track just destroys anything before it , not just on this album but all the music before that has gone. when it is finished you know music will never be the same. i heard it on the radio at work recently and it was so shocking sonically. how many records can you say that about nearly 40 years later.

can you imagine..., 02 Mar 2007
I was going to mention Clapton's christening of the Les Paul, Marshall setup, but others have beaten me to it. I liken it's impact to what happened to harp playing when Little Walter and other's deciding to blow through the PA or an early guitar amp. They REDEFINED the sound of the instrument.

So all I'll add is the rhetorical question...can you imagine being a teenage Brit, having been reared on the sounds of the Beatles, Jerry and the Pacemakers, or even the Dave Clark Five, wandering into a London club because someone had recommended the Bluesbreakers, and hearing THIS STUFF? Probably as epiphanic as being a white guy in mid 50's Chicago and having the nerve to wander into the Dew Drop Inn and hearing Muddy, Wolf, or later, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy. Simply put, a life changing experience.

The most important guitar album of all time!, 08 Feb 2007
The best guitar player of the time on top of his game. Classic tracks. The perfect combination of guitar and amp. Incredible solos... Listening to this album it is easy to see why rock took the directions it did. This is the blueprint for pretty much every rock/blues album that followed, and in my opinion the closest Clapton ever got to this ever again is on Layla... This is Essential.

The album that changed my life., 28 May 2006
On a week's holiday with my parent's in Littlehampton in Sussex during the summer of '66, as ever, I found a record shop. Without much money as I was still at school, (just), I had the choice, in my mind anyway, between two albums; The Mother's Of Invention's 'Freakout,' and 'Bluesbreakers.' Maybe there had been a lot of publicity at the time about 'Freakout,' I can't remember, but for some reason I was torn between which one to buy. Probably the fact that I was a Yardbirds fan and had listened to 'Five Live' a great deal made up my mind, and I plumped for 'Bluesbreakers.' It was to be the wisest move and the best purchase I ever made. As a then, and still now, 'would-be' guitarist, this album, for its time in rock history, had everything you wanted and more, and has pretty much stayed that way over the ensuing years. To play with this degree of skill and feeling at Clapton's age of 21 at the time, was and is incredible. At 15, he was almost an old man to me being 6 years older, yet even so, the bluesmen I had heard were in their 30's and over, (really old men!), and even now this album begs the question "Why was Clapton so great at such a young age?" We will never know, and if put to the question, probably neither would he? It was just something he was drawn to and did, and has had the good fortune to do so for the rest of his life. If you're a guitarist, Clapton fan, blues enthusiast, whatever, and you don't own this album, simply buy it now - it will remain a classic for as long as planet Earth keeps turning.

Life Changing..., 15 Feb 2006
I first listened to this disc as a fifteen year-old and music was never the same thereafter. I started hunting straight away for the original US musicians who had inspired first Mayall and then the unbelievably young Clapton. And I'm still listening to the fruits of that search. Meantime it opened me up to the expanding British Blues scene and subsequently other new British genres, all the way from Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack, to The Groundhogs, Steeleye and Fairport. The music itself is quite simply inspired, mainly by the fusion of the very different talents of the individuals involved. I'm not sure that Mayall ever wrote, sang or played as well again 'though Clapton went on to far greater things. Just listen to Track 5, Double Crossin' Time, written by the both of them, which displays their different talents perfectly. This disc is one of those very rare seminal recordings which brings as much pleasure now as on the day it came off the presses.

sheer tone, 07 Jul 2005
This is the album that launched the Gibson Les Paul + Marshall amp combination that has defined the sound of rock for so long. It is worth buying for that alone. Absolute, pure, smooth but crunchy, toney goodness! Thankfully, the music is top notch, ranging from the energetic opener to the instrumental "Steppin Out", to the drum solo and tribute to the Beatles' "Day Tripper" on "What'd I Say?". Excellent stuff.

The Clamps Are Off, 06 Oct 2008
Born in 1940's Seattle, Jimi Hendrix would go on to be the ultimate guitar Legend in both his native America and more crucially here in the UK. In the mid sixties, Eric Clapton was God having given the blues sound a complete overhaul, however in the late sixties Clapton was revealed to be just a mere prophet for Hendrix had arrived to save us all.

It's well documented that Hendrix had a gift for creating noises from his guitar that only he could create, this much is true, problem is he raised the bar to a level which has not even been sniffed at since the time of his tragic death in 1970, which certainly has left a big hole on mankind's ability to create.

Despite Hendrix's ability and obvious talent, it was only in the last 5 years of his life that he managed to have the huge impact his talent deserved. In 1966, The Animals were on the verge of breaking up, and their bassist Chas Chandler decided he would try his arm at management. Luckily for us, a chance viewing in New York of Hendrix playing blues in a club convinced a gob smacked Chandler that he needed to get this guy over to England.

In England, a rhythm section was forged around him, arguably one of the best rhythm sections ever created, Mitch Mitchell, possibly one of the greatest drummers ever to pick up a pair of sticks and Noel Redding on bass, both with the key ability to keep up with Hendrix and produce the glue needed to make the songs sound the way they did. This new three piece would be called The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Their first record in the UK was a triumph, released in 1967 on MCA, Are You Experienced was a stunning debut, incorporating at its base the fundamentals of Blues, Rock and Soul with a more futuristic fuzz trying to kick out from all angles, there was also an undeniable jazz influence coming from Hendrix's rhythm section which probably allowed all these elements to gel with such wonderful results, The Jimi Hendrix Experience had arrived.

Nothing more demonstrates the power in Hendrix's fingers then Foxey Lady, imagine if you will just sitting there having placed the needle on the record to hear that guitar slowly marauding its way through your amp and breaking through to produce one of the most hypnotic guitar riffs ever created, brilliant. Yet more Psychedelic wonders and memorable riffs follow with Manic Depression and Purple Haze, but there is much more then just that. There's a mental instrumental with Third Stone From The Sun, and even a tender side being demonstrated on the album, with beautifully poetic songs like The Wind Cries Mary and Hey Joe

This is album is frenzied and raw yet at the same time is beautiful, this album was responsible for launching Hendrix onto a stage much bigger then those days where he was in the Isley Brothers backing band a few years earlier, the clamps were now off and he was loose, this was where the legend began.

Thanks to later issues, there is now no missing links between the UK version of this album and the US version, its now all available on one album, if you're one of those collector types, you might want to buy both versions, but if not, I'm sure the 17 track version will do you fine.


The greatest guitarist of all time., 21 Jul 2008
This was the first Hendrix record I ever bought and it hits you like a tyson punch, Jimi displays everything and more in just 17 songs. Ranging from the sexy 'Foxy lady' to the rock of 'can you see me' to the bluesy 'red house' to the physedelic 'purple haze'. Theres killer riffs (purple haze), fantastic solo's (Hey joe) and brilliant drumming by M.Mitchell on Fire and Manic depression just to name a few.
If you like this as i do i recomend any other Hendrix album partically Electric ladyland and Axis as bold as love.

Fortieth anniversary of an immensely influential musical milestone... too bad that some of the tracks only offer sub-par sound , 22 Mar 2007

The other evening, I listened to this CD and, as the music flew out of the speakers, I felt that the sound quality of the first track ("Foxey Lady") was definitely not... right. Similar problems appeared on other - though not all - of the tracks.

Now, do not get me wrong. As a fan of older musical styles, I can immerse myself in the music extracted from the oft-damaged grooves of vintage 78 rpm pressed before 1930.

Consequently, I am still both moved and amazed at Hendrix' genius on this monumental recording, which I originally bought in 1967. What bugs me is that it should sound so much better... and that it does not. Moreover, I have read lots of professional and fan reviews of this CD. I agree wholeheartedly with most of the praise afforded to its intrinsic artistic value but I find it strange that almost nothing is ever said about the actual sound quality, or sometimes lack thereof.

Hendrix' first album was recorded about 40 years ago. The recordings took place - approximately - between October 1966 and March 1967, mostly at the state-of-the-art Olympic studios. The original engineer was the very gifted Eddie Kramer whilst producer Chas Chandler had lots of studio expertise. All the right ingredients were there to have very good sonics.

After listening through the speakers, I turned them off and listened through a pair of Sennheiser headphones.

At this point, I feel that I should remind the reader that the second part of the sixties saw the appearance of affordable stereo listening equipment. The increased interest in stereo records among the pop and rock public led the record companies - which owned huge back catalogues of older, mono recordings - to devise a process to electronic "re-channel" these mono takes into something mimicking stereo.
To this effect, a simple, low-cost process was set up; it only implied to separate the two tracks of the master tape so as to spread the sound across the stereo field by directing higher-frequency sound into one channel and lower-frequency sound into the other.
This perversion of the original stereo concept gave awful results (just think about those "fake stereo" releases - both on LP's and CD's - of the Rolling Stones Decca/London material released prior to "Aftermath" (1966). It was not until the release of the 2002 Abkco "DSD" remasters that it was possible to have again access to this music the way it was originally designed to sound.

"Foxey Lady", on the Hendrix CD under review is, definitely, a "fake stereo" (or "re-channeled mono) recording; the "stereo content" relies essentially on Jimi's vocals being panned to the left and the background "foxy" vocal interjections being panned to the right. This effect is highly unnatural. The bass guitar is not well defined and the drums lack real punch. The overall sound is muffled.

The very same problem is already apparent on the first US CD reissue (Reprise 6261-2 in "long box" presentation). Noted engineer Joe Gastwirt takes credit for the digital remastering.
Joe Gastwirt stated, in 1997, that "I don't wish to get into a major controversy, but I know the tapes that I worked from had edits and splices all over them. And it is very, very unlikely that a copy of a master tape would have splices on it."

On the "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" 4-CD box set (MCA 112316), Kramer remastered an early, alternate version of "Foxey Lady." The actual musical performance on this alternate take is artistically inferior to the standard version. However, the alternate take comes in true mono and exhibits a much-improved sound quality. Consequently, the track sounds much more as if a real power trio was performing on it. This is true for Hendrix' vocals and guitar as well as for Noel Redding's and Mitch Mitchell's contributions.

Extending the analytic process to the whole CD under review, I came to the conclusion that ten tracks from the latest MCA remaster appear either in true mono or true stereo, without any obvious post-recording trickery involved. They are: "Red House" (mono), "May This Be Love" (stereo), "Fire" (stereo), "Third Stone From The Sun" (stereo), "Remember" (stereo), "Are You Experienced" (stereo), "Hey Joe" (stereo!), "51st Anniversary" (mono), "The Wind Cries Mary" (stereo) and "Highway Chile" (mono.)

Conversely, the seven remaining tracks feature inferior, "fake stereo" sound quality. They are: "Foxey Lady", "Manic Depression", "Can You See Me", "Love or Confusion", "I Don't Live Today", "Stone Free" and "Purple Haze."

As both Kramer and Gastwirt are definitely skilled "good guys", the evoked problems are linked to the recording tapes that they had to use to do the CD remastering.

At the time of the latest MCA remasters, the company claimed that: "For the first time, the [ORIGINAL] two-track master tapes were used to remaster [...] "Are You Experienced?" [...] [This album], released on MCA's Experience Hendrix label, mark[s] the recovery of the original master tapes after some two decades in limbo." Well, I think that this assertion is very... bold (just like the axis!) It is also misleading.

True, the overall sound on Kramer's latest MCA remasters is noticeably cleaner than on earlier CD's. This is because the quality of the analog-to-digital converters has improved a lot since Gastwirt's earlier work. Aural evidence reported above clearly shows that Eddie Kramer could NOT fix any of the "fake stereo" problems already encountered by Gastwirt.

In my opinion, it is obvious that some of the original master tapes have disappeared. Such an occurence is not exceptional in the case of vintage recording masters. Actually, in an interview, Eddie Kramer declared that the case of the missing masters was no mystery: "We [Kramer and members of the Hendrix family] went on a long search and found 85 percent of the masters [from all the studio sessions.] We found tapes in studios and buried in record company libraries. Some tapes [had even to be] bought from collectors."

For this reason, the only way to listen to the original, superior sounding mono mixes of the seven inferior tracks mentioned above is to listen to good copies of the "Are You Experienced" and "Smash Hits" mono Track LP's (no mean feat nowadays.)

It is also quite possible that a remastering based on original vinyl sources (or repressings based on good condition metal parts) could yield better sonic results. This process has already been used for fairly recent material. I do not know if it could be used here.

One last advice: the easiest way to discriminate between "true stereo" tracks and "fake stereo" tracks is to switch the sound from stereo to mono. If the sound, especially on the vocals, appears to "collapse" (the vocals are heard at a much lower volume level) when switching to mono, then the track is definitely mastered from a "fake stereo" source. When the mastering is from a true stereo source, the balance between the vocal and instrumental sounds will stay fairly constant when switching to mono. This effect is more perceptible still on headphones.


Earth to Hendrix: Come back, come back...., 14 Feb 2007

Well, there's very little I can say that you haven't already heard from my fellow reviewers, but this bandwagon deserves jumping on.

What a smashing debut from a band with no history together. Having said that of course, musically speaking, Jimi had already walked a long hard road and arrived in England with many songs he was itching to give sound to. Much of this album reflects Jimi's experience and maturity, a couple of brilliant examples being Red House, which has become a blues standard, and Are You Experienced, which is an absolutely mesmerising number with one of his most beautiful (though fairly brief) solos.

If you are new to Jimi's music (is there anyone in the Western Hemisphere who hasn't heard Purple Haze?), or are an Experience fan already (congratulations), but haven't already got this album (how the hell have you missed it?), then I recommend that you buy it.

PS. Note to Experienced fans: if you haven't yet discovered Jimi's post-Experience work (when he hooked up again with an old army buddy -Billy Cox- on bass), then I URGENTLY suggest that you do. You're in for a treat - esp. Woodstock, Band Of Gypsys and Rainbow Bridge concerts.

WOW!! What a start!, 19 Jan 2007
This is a must what a debut it turned out to be.This man served his apprenticeship trawling the clubs and bars of North America in all sorts of bands R&B jazz anyone who would employ him, He had mastered the instrument of his choice the electric guitar and all he wanted was to hit the world with his thing! Of course it took an English man to realize this guitarist had potential and also the said English man introduced Jimi to his two new partners ,Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchel they made a name for themselves here UK and Germany . This trio were like a bomb going off shattering the swinging sixties Europe.This CD version is the brain child that all musicians would have loved to have been involved with it is a very fresh exciting new concept in the field of recorded rock music, try this album remastered with extra tracks , it is so important that the earth wobbled on its axis! Super smashing brilliant

A masterpiece in guitar playing., 21 Jul 2008
The definitive Hendirx cd, brilliantly produced it ranges from low beat blues records such as 'voodoo chile' to upbeat rock records in 'crosstown traffic' to great covers in the form of 'all along the watchtower'.
The 'wah-wah' effect on 'voodoo child slight return' is ledgendary and will be remembered until the end of man.
The guitar playing on '1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)' is brilliant and really suits the pysecdelic theme of the song.

what a legend the best guitarist ever!!, 20 Jul 2008
he is amazing this album is one of the best ever!! its fantastic in my opinion he is the best ever guitarist ever!! and this album i love it phycadelic 60s rock buy it you wont regret it!!

If he's looking down on us...., 06 Jun 2008
... I reckon Jimi would be saying "no no guys - the stuff I was working on before I left was even better than this stuff!!!".

I do feel that the direction Jimi was taking in the first light of the 70s would have solidified him as THE pre-eminent recording artist of his time. As it stands - we are only left with tantalising glimpses of his future, unrealised, creations (i.e. "first rays of the new rising sun").

I won't bother repeating all of the superlatives that others have bestowed in these review. Suffice to say - he was inventive, imaginative (wildly so), fabulously talented, charismatic, and peerless. As a recording artist - I think his is the greatest loss of all the 'legends' of yore - as he probably hadn't nearly peaked in terms of his writing skills. Almost everything you hear on this album belonged to Jimi's production and direction, including the fabulous bassline in "All Along The Watchtower", played by Jimi upside down on Noel Redding's Fender Bass.

My number 1 album of all time, enough said.

This album changes lives . . . , 01 Feb 2008
Well, it did mine. Totally blew my mind when I first heard it over thirty years ago, and it still makes it for me now. Definitely one for Desert Island Discs. Buy it and be transported to a million different landscapes of the mind.

his master piece, 08 Nov 2007
what makes this album really different from the first two is that jimi had more time to spend on recordings.on are you experience there is penny pinching and the sound is rubbish.the tunes are not allowed beyond a certain lenght. i personally think it is unlistenable. the difference is best shown on all along the watchtower. compare the version that he did with dave mason on bass that is on the albums that came out after his death and the same basic track he took with him to america and put on those over dubs for electric ladyland version. the difference is enormous. the chas chandler produced version is a just good song but the hendric version is a contendor for the greatest song ever.I wish he had done same for spanish castle magic and put some overdubs and the result would have the same for spanish castle.the whole lady album is fused with a soulfull sound in the playing and works beautifully all the way through the album until the last track. voodoo chile slight return. this track just destroys anything before it , not just on this album but all the music before that has gone. when it is finished you know music will never be the same. i heard it on the radio at work recently and it was so shocking sonically. how many records can you say that about nearly 40 years later.

With Bonus Tracks Galore!, 19 Aug 2008
The woman in our local corner shop often has her Rod Stewart T-shirts on.
"Have you got the Jeff Beck albums yet?" I ask.
She smiles benignly as if to say; "Idiot! What would my Roddy be doing on a Jeff Beck album, I do wish he'd stop asking me that!"
Jeff Beck's first album after leaving The Yardbirds, and after enjoying (?) 2 or 3 chart singles on which HE took the lead vocals this album was an absolute blessing to hear; this was what we expected from a band fronted by him! And yes, regardless of my disbelieveing corner shop lady, her Roddy sings on all the original album tracks, and makes an especially fine job on every one of them, and would surprise quite a few of those disbeliever's in the process with 'Ol Man River' for starters.
And as if the first 10 tracks were not enough for a more than satisfying first album from The Jeff Beck Group, here we have 8 bonus tracks consisting of B-sides, mono mixes, AND Jeff's 3 chart singles in 'Hi-Ho Silver Lining,' 'Tallyman' and the totally instrumental 'Love Is Blue.'
We must be grateful that we had TWO albums from this band before Rod and Ron Wood split to join up with The Faces, but it was their destiny as much as it was Jeff Beck's to do his jazz-rock thing; though for most of his fans, his blues is far more to our taste and it's where he belongs.

better than original, 07 Nov 2007
I am a bit of a Blues fan but have the original version of this on LP,perhaps I didn't realise at the time how much of a blues album it was as being a teenager got into pop-rock but time has changed me.

The bonus tracks are great and for me they should have been on the original as they are the best tracks on the cd.Rod Stewarts voice is about the best I have heard it and Beck's guitar playing has so much feel to it on the slower tracks.

More than classic rock, 26 Mar 2006
Although everything that has been said in the other reviews is absolutely true, what hasn't been mentioned is the degree of light and shade within the album. Ol' Man River is not an obvious choice for a heavy rock band, yet the performance is surperb, with masterful vocals and some tasty slide playing from Beck. The canned applause on Blues Deluxe is a little irritating, but the execution is excellent once again. Beck's acoustic performance of Greensleaves is a nice change of pace, while Beck's Bolero shows the sheer musicality of the band and their collaborators (Jimmy Page and Keith Moon on this particular track). There's good stuff in the bonus tracks especially I've Been Drinking. It's worth pointing out that this should probably be seen as a band album, with Beck first among equals. Rod Stewart's contribution is just to important to be ignored, and his phenomenal singing throughout just goes to show that he wasn't always naff. An excellent album, with some worthwhile bonus tracks.

What an album, 09 Aug 2005
Well, well, well. I have read a lot about this album, but despite the fact that I am a big JB fan I have never own the album until now. And what a waste of time.
The album is even better than expected, and even the sound quality is rather good despite the age of the recordings. All the musicians does a brilliant job, not strange most of them went on to become rather famous.
I wonder how fare this group could have gone if the work on this album have been continued. If you listen to early Led Zeppelin the similarity is obvious.
I can only give this album, including the bonus tracks, my very very best recommendations.

Wow! Wow! and wow! again..., 26 Jun 2005
The re-release of this lost classic has me frothing at the mouth. Featuring a young (24 year old) Jeff Beck, a then relatively unknown Rod Stewart,a future Rolling Stone in the form of Ronnie Wood this album set the blue print for others to follow, most noteably the mighty Led Zeppelin.
Beck shows on this that he is capable of turning his hand to anything, from blues, folk and jazz to out and out psychedelia and on the way produces a record that would soon become a masterclass in musicianship.
Cobbled together to "record some of the rubbish we'd been playing live", Beck and cohorts recorded one of the most influential albums of the era, possibly of all time, and the beauty of it is that although rapidly approaching 40 years old, this album remains immensely listenable, with Beck showing a wonderful mastery of his instrument and Rod the Mod reveling in the role as the best white blues singer around.
Truly a stunning album

Clapton caught the "unplugged" trend just at the right time, when the public was hungry to hear how well rock stars and their material could hold up when stripped of elaborate production values. Clapton himself seemed baffled by the phenomenon, especially when picking up the armload of Grammys Unplugged earned him, including Record and Song of the Year for "Tears in Heaven", the heart-rending elegy to his young son, Conor. That song and a reworked version of "Layla" got most of the attention, but the rest of the album has fine versions of acoustic blues numbers such as "Malted Milk", "Rollin' & Tumblin' and "Before You Accuse Me" that make it worth investigating further. --Daniel Durchholz

can you imagine..., 02 Mar 2007
I was going to mention Clapton's christening of the Les Paul, Marshall setup, but others have beaten me to it. I liken it's impact to what happened to harp playing when Little Walter and other's deciding to blow through the PA or an early guitar amp. They REDEFINED the sound of the instrument.

So all I'll add is the rhetorical question...can you imagine being a teenage Brit, having been reared on the sounds of the Beatles, Jerry and the Pacemakers, or even the Dave Clark Five, wandering into a London club because someone had recommended the Bluesbreakers, and hearing THIS STUFF? Probably as epiphanic as being a white guy in mid 50's Chicago and having the nerve to wander into the Dew Drop Inn and hearing Muddy, Wolf, or later, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy. Simply put, a life changing experience.

The most important guitar album of all time!, 08 Feb 2007
The best guitar player of the time on top of his game. Classic tracks. The perfect combination of guitar and amp. Incredible solos... Listening to this album it is easy to see why rock took the directions it did. This is the blueprint for pretty much every rock/blues album that followed, and in my opinion the closest Clapton ever got to this ever again is on Layla... This is Essential.

The album that changed my life., 28 May 2006
On a week's holiday with my parent's in Littlehampton in Sussex during the summer of '66, as ever, I found a record shop. Without much money as I was still at school, (just), I had the choice, in my mind anyway, between two albums; The Mother's Of Invention's 'Freakout,' and 'Bluesbreakers.' Maybe there had been a lot of publicity at the time about 'Freakout,' I can't remember, but for some reason I was torn between which one to buy. Probably the fact that I was a Yardbirds fan and had listened to 'Five Live' a great deal made up my mind, and I plumped for 'Bluesbreakers.' It was to be the wisest move and the best purchase I ever made. As a then, and still now, 'would-be' guitarist, this album, for its time in rock history, had everything you wanted and more, and has pretty much stayed that way over the ensuing years. To play with this degree of skill and feeling at Clapton's age of 21 at the time, was and is incredible. At 15, he was almost an old man to me being 6 years older, yet even so, the bluesmen I had heard were in their 30's and over, (really old men!), and even now this album begs the question "Why was Clapton so great at such a young age?" We will never know, and if put to the question, probably neither would he? It was just something he was drawn to and did, and has had the good fortune to do so for the rest of his life. If you're a guitarist, Clapton fan, blues enthusiast, whatever, and you don't own this album, simply buy it now - it will remain a classic for as long as planet Earth keeps turning.

Life Changing..., 15 Feb 2006
I first listened to this disc as a fifteen year-old and music was never the same thereafter. I started hunting straight away for the original US musicians who had inspired first Mayall and then the unbelievably young Clapton. And I'm still listening to the fruits of that search. Meantime it opened me up to the expanding British Blues scene and subsequently other new British genres, all the way from Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack, to The Groundhogs, Steeleye and Fairport. The music itself is quite simply inspired, mainly by the fusion of the very different talents of the individuals involved. I'm not sure that Mayall ever wrote, sang or played as well again 'though Clapton went on to far greater things. Just listen to Track 5, Double Crossin' Time, written by the both of them, which displays their different talents perfectly. This disc is one of those very rare seminal recordings which brings as much pleasure now as on the day it came off the presses.

sheer tone, 07 Jul 2005
This is the album that launched the Gibson Les Paul + Marshall amp combination that has defined the sound of rock for so long. It is worth buying for that alone. Absolute, pure, smooth but crunchy, toney goodness! Thankfully, the music is top notch, ranging from the energetic opener to the instrumental "Steppin Out", to the drum solo and tribute to the Beatles' "Day Tripper" on "What'd I Say?". Excellent stuff.

The Clamps Are Off, 06 Oct 2008
Born in 1940's Seattle, Jimi Hendrix would go on to be the ultimate guitar Legend in both his native America and more crucially here in the UK. In the mid sixties, Eric Clapton was God having given the blues sound a complete overhaul, however in the late sixties Clapton was revealed to be just a mere prophet for Hendrix had arrived to save us all.

It's well documented that Hendrix had a gift for creating noises from his guitar that only he could create, this much is true, problem is he raised the bar to a level which has not even been sniffed at since the time of his tragic death in 1970, which certainly has left a big hole on mankind's ability to create.

Despite Hendrix's ability and obvious talent, it was only in the last 5 years of his life that he managed to have the huge impact his talent deserved. In 1966, The Animals were on the verge of breaking up, and their bassist Chas Chandler decided he would try his arm at management. Luckily for us, a chance viewing in New York of Hendrix playing blues in a club convinced a gob smacked Chandler that he needed to get this guy over to England.

In England, a rhythm section was forged around him, arguably one of the best rhythm sections ever created, Mitch Mitchell, possibly one of the greatest drummers ever to pick up a pair of sticks and Noel Redding on bass, both with the key ability to keep up with Hendrix and produce the glue needed to make the songs sound the way they did. This new three piece would be called The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Their first record in the UK was a triumph, released in 1967 on MCA, Are You Experienced was a stunning debut, incorporating at its base the fundamentals of Blues, Rock and Soul with a more futuristic fuzz trying to kick out from all angles, there was also an undeniable jazz influence coming from Hendrix's rhythm section which probably allowed all these elements to gel with such wonderful results, The Jimi Hendrix Experience had arrived.

Nothing more demonstrates the power in Hendrix's fingers then Foxey Lady, imagine if you will just sitting there having placed the needle on the record to hear that guitar slowly marauding its way through your amp and breaking through to produce one of the most hypnotic guitar riffs ever created, brilliant. Yet more Psychedelic wonders and memorable riffs follow with Manic Depression and Purple Haze, but there is much more then just that. There's a mental instrumental with Third Stone From The Sun, and even a tender side being demonstrated on the album, with beautifully poetic songs like The Wind Cries Mary and Hey Joe

This is album is frenzied and raw yet at the same time is beautiful, this album was responsible for launching Hendrix onto a stage much bigger then those days where he was in the Isley Brothers backing band a few years earlier, the clamps were now off and he was loose, this was where the legend began.

Thanks to later issues, there is now no missing links between the UK version of this album and the US version, its now all available on one album, if you're one of those collector types, you might want to buy both versions, but if not, I'm sure the 17 track version will do you fine.


The greatest guitarist of all time., 21 Jul 2008
This was the first Hendrix record I ever bought and it hits you like a tyson punch, Jimi displays everything and more in just 17 songs. Ranging from the sexy 'Foxy lady' to the rock of 'can you see me' to the bluesy 'red house' to the physedelic 'purple haze'. Theres killer riffs (purple haze), fantastic solo's (Hey joe) and brilliant drumming by M.Mitchell on Fire and Manic depression just to name a few.
If you like this as i do i recomend any other Hendrix album partically Electric ladyland and Axis as bold as love.

Fortieth anniversary of an immensely influential musical milestone... too bad that some of the tracks only offer sub-par sound , 22 Mar 2007

The other evening, I listened to this CD and, as the music flew out of the speakers, I felt that the sound quality of the first track ("Foxey Lady") was definitely not... right. Similar problems appeared on other - though not all - of the tracks.

Now, do not get me wrong. As a fan of older musical styles, I can immerse myself in the music extracted from the oft-damaged grooves of vintage 78 rpm pressed before 1930.

Consequently, I am still both moved and amazed at Hendrix' genius on this monumental recording, which I originally bought in 1967. What bugs me is that it should sound so much better... and that it does not. Moreover, I have read lots of professional and fan reviews of this CD. I agree wholeheartedly with most of the praise afforded to its intrinsic artistic value but I find it strange that almost nothing is ever said about the actual sound quality, or sometimes lack thereof.

Hendrix' first album was recorded about 40 years ago. The recordings took place - approximately - between October 1966 and March 1967, mostly at the state-of-the-art Olympic studios. The original engineer was the very gifted Eddie Kramer whilst producer Chas Chandler had lots of studio expertise. All the right ingredients were there to have very good sonics.

After listening through the speakers, I turned them off and listened through a pair of Sennheiser headphones.

At this point, I feel that I should remind the reader that the second part of the sixties saw the appearance of affordable stereo listening equipment. The increased interest in stereo records among the pop and rock public led the record companies - which owned huge back catalogues of older, mono recordings - to devise a process to electronic "re-channel" these mono takes into something mimicking stereo.
To this effect, a simple, low-cost process was set up; it only implied to separate the two tracks of the master tape so as to spread the sound across the stereo field by directing higher-frequency sound into one channel and lower-frequency sound into the other.
This perversion of the original stereo concept gave awful results (just think about those "fake stereo" releases - both on LP's and CD's - of the Rolling Stones Decca/London material released prior to "Aftermath" (1966). It was not until the release of the 2002 Abkco "DSD" remasters that it was possible to have again access to this music the way it was originally designed to sound.

"Foxey Lady", on the Hendrix CD under review is, definitely, a "fake stereo" (or "re-channeled mono) recording; the "stereo content" relies essentially on Jimi's vocals being panned to the left and the background "foxy" vocal interjections being panned to the right. This effect is highly unnatural. The bass guitar is not well defined and the drums lack real punch. The overall sound is muffled.

The very same problem is already apparent on the first US CD reissue (Reprise 6261-2 in "long box" presentation). Noted engineer Joe Gastwirt takes credit for the digital remastering.
Joe Gastwirt stated, in 1997, that "I don't wish to get into a major controversy, but I know the tapes that I worked from had edits and splices all over them. And it is very, very unlikely that a copy of a master tape would have splices on it."

On the "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" 4-CD box set (MCA 112316), Kramer remastered an early, alternate version of "Foxey Lady." The actual musical performance on this alternate take is artistically inferior to the standard version. However, the alternate take comes in true mono and exhibits a much-improved sound quality. Consequently, the track sounds much more as if a real power trio was performing on it. This is true for Hendrix' vocals and guitar as well as for Noel Redding's and Mitch Mitchell's contributions.

Extending the analytic process to the whole CD under review, I came to the conclusion that ten tracks from the latest MCA remaster appear either in true mono or true stereo, without any obvious post-recording trickery involved. They are: "Red House" (mono), "May This Be Love" (stereo), "Fire" (stereo), "Third Stone From The Sun" (stereo), "Remember" (stereo), "Are You Experienced" (stereo), "Hey Joe" (stereo!), "51st Anniversary" (mono), "The Wind Cries Mary" (stereo) and "Highway Chile" (mono.)

Conversely, the seven remaining tracks feature inferior, "fake stereo" sound quality. They are: "Foxey Lady", "Manic Depression", "Can You See Me", "Love or Confusion", "I Don't Live Today", "Stone Free" and "Purple Haze."

As both Kramer and Gastwirt are definitely skilled "good guys", the evoked problems are linked to the recording tapes that they had to use to do the CD remastering.

At the time of the latest MCA remasters, the company claimed that: "For the first time, the [ORIGINAL] two-track master tapes were used to remaster [...] "Are You Experienced?" [...] [This album], released on MCA's Experience Hendrix label, mark[s] the recovery of the original master tapes after some two decades in limbo." Well, I think that this assertion is very... bold (just like the axis!) It is also misleading.

True, the overall sound on Kramer's latest MCA remasters is noticeably cleaner than on earlier CD's. This is because the quality of the analog-to-digital converters has improved a lot since Gastwirt's earlier work. Aural evidence reported above clearly shows that Eddie Kramer could NOT fix any of the "fake stereo" problems already encountered by Gastwirt.

In my opinion, it is obvious that some of the original master tapes have disappeared. Such an occurence is not exceptional in the case of vintage recording masters. Actually, in an interview, Eddie Kramer declared that the case of the missing masters was no mystery: "We [Kramer and members of the Hendrix family] went on a long search and found 85 percent of the masters [from all the studio sessions.] We found tapes in studios and buried in record company libraries. Some tapes [had even to be] bought from collectors."

For this reason, the only way to listen to the original, superior sounding mono mixes of the seven inferior tracks mentioned above is to listen to good copies of the "Are You Experienced" and "Smash Hits" mono Track LP's (no mean feat nowadays.)

It is also quite possible that a remastering based on original vinyl sources (or repressings based on good condition metal parts) could yield better sonic results. This process has already been used for fairly recent material. I do not know if it could be used here.

One last advice: the easiest way to discriminate between "true stereo" tracks and "fake stereo" tracks is to switch the sound from stereo to mono. If the sound, especially on the vocals, appears to "collapse" (the vocals are heard at a much lower volume level) when switching to mono, then the track is definitely mastered from a "fake stereo" source. When the mastering is from a true stereo source, the balance between the vocal and instrumental sounds will stay fairly constant when switching to mono. This effect is more perceptible still on headphones.


Earth to Hendrix: Come back, come back...., 14 Feb 2007

Well, there's very little I can say that you haven't already heard from my fellow reviewers, but this bandwagon deserves jumping on.

What a smashing debut from a band with no history together. Having said that of course, musically speaking, Jimi had already walked a long hard road and arrived in England with many songs he was itching to give sound to. Much of this album reflects Jimi's experience and maturity, a couple of brilliant examples being Red House, which has become a blues standard, and Are You Experienced, which is an absolutely mesmerising number with one of his most beautiful (though fairly brief) solos.

If you are new to Jimi's music (is there anyone in the Western Hemisphere who hasn't heard Purple Haze?), or are an Experience fan already (congratulations), but haven't already got this album (how the hell have you missed it?), then I recommend that you buy it.

PS. Note to Experienced fans: if you haven't yet discovered Jimi's post-Experience work (when he hooked up again with an old army buddy -Billy Cox- on bass), then I URGENTLY suggest that you do. You're in for a treat - esp. Woodstock, Band Of Gypsys and Rainbow Bridge concerts.

WOW!! What a start!, 19 Jan 2007
This is a must what a debut it turned out to be.This man served his apprenticeship trawling the clubs and bars of North America in all sorts of bands R&B jazz anyone who would employ him, He had mastered the instrument of his choice the electric guitar and all he wanted was to hit the world with his thing! Of course it took an English man to realize this guitarist had potential and also the said English man introduced Jimi to his two new partners ,Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchel they made a name for themselves here UK and Germany . This trio were like a bomb going off shattering the swinging sixties Europe.This CD version is the brain child that all musicians would have loved to have been involved with it is a very fresh exciting new concept in the field of recorded rock music, try this album remastered with extra tracks , it is so important that the earth wobbled on its axis! Super smashing brilliant

A masterpiece in guitar playing., 21 Jul 2008
The definitive Hendirx cd, brilliantly produced it ranges from low beat blues records such as 'voodoo chile' to upbeat rock records in 'crosstown traffic' to great covers in the form of 'all along the watchtower'.
The 'wah-wah' effect on 'voodoo child slight return' is ledgendary and will be remembered until the end of man.
The guitar playing on '1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)' is brilliant and really suits the pysecdelic theme of the song.

what a legend the best guitarist ever!!, 20 Jul 2008
he is amazing this album is one of the best ever!! its fantastic in my opinion he is the best ever guitarist ever!! and this album i love it phycadelic 60s rock buy it you wont regret it!!

If he's looking down on us...., 06 Jun 2008
... I reckon Jimi would be saying "no no guys - the stuff I was working on before I left was even better than this stuff!!!".

I do feel that the direction Jimi was taking in the first light of the 70s would have solidified him as THE pre-eminent recording artist of his time. As it stands - we are only left with tantalising glimpses of his future, unrealised, creations (i.e. "first rays of the new rising sun").

I won't bother repeating all of the superlatives that others have bestowed in these review. Suffice to say - he was inventive, imaginative (wildly so), fabulously talented, charismatic, and peerless. As a recording artist - I think his is the greatest loss of all the 'legends' of yore - as he probably hadn't nearly peaked in terms of his writing skills. Almost everything you hear on this album belonged to Jimi's production and direction, including the fabulous bassline in "All Along The Watchtower", played by Jimi upside down on Noel Redding's Fender Bass.

My number 1 album of all time, enough said.

This album changes lives . . . , 01 Feb 2008
Well, it did mine. Totally blew my mind when I first heard it over thirty years ago, and it still makes it for me now. Definitely one for Desert Island Discs. Buy it and be transported to a million different landscapes of the mind.

his master piece, 08 Nov 2007
what makes this album really different from the first two is that jimi had more time to spend on recordings.on are you experience there is penny pinching and the sound is rubbish.the tunes are not allowed beyond a certain lenght. i personally think it is unlistenable. the difference is best shown on all along the watchtower. compare the version that he did with dave mason on bass that is on the albums that came out after his death and the same basic track he took with him to america and put on those over dubs for electric ladyland version. the difference is enormous. the chas chandler produced version is a just good song but the hendric version is a contendor for the greatest song ever.I wish he had done same for spanish castle magic and put some overdubs and the result would have the same for spanish castle.the whole lady album is fused with a soulfull sound in the playing and works beautifully all the way through the album until the last track. voodoo chile slight return. this track just destroys anything before it , not just on this album but all the music before that has gone. when it is finished you know music will never be the same. i heard it on the radio at work recently and it was so shocking sonically. how many records can you say that about nearly 40 years later.

With Bonus Tracks Galore!, 19 Aug 2008
The woman in our local corner shop often has her Rod Stewart T-shirts on.
"Have you got the Jeff Beck albums yet?" I ask.
She smiles benignly as if to say; "Idiot! What would my Roddy be doing on a Jeff Beck album, I do wish he'd stop asking me that!"
Jeff Beck's first album after leaving The Yardbirds, and after enjoying (?) 2 or 3 chart singles on which HE took the lead vocals this album was an absolute blessing to hear; this was what we expected from a band fronted by him! And yes, regardless of my disbelieveing corner shop lady, her Roddy sings on all the original album tracks, and makes an especially fine job on every one of them, and would surprise quite a few of those disbeliever's in the process with 'Ol Man River' for starters.
And as if the first 10 tracks were not enough for a more than satisfying first album from The Jeff Beck Group, here we have 8 bonus tracks consisting of B-sides, mono mixes, AND Jeff's 3 chart singles in 'Hi-Ho Silver Lining,' 'Tallyman' and the totally instrumental 'Love Is Blue.'
We must be grateful that we had TWO albums from this band before Rod and Ron Wood split to join up with The Faces, but it was their destiny as much as it was Jeff Beck's to do his jazz-rock thing; though for most of his fans, his blues is far more to our taste and it's where he belongs.

better than original, 07 Nov 2007
I am a bit of a Blues fan but have the original version of this on LP,perhaps I didn't realise at the time how much of a blues album it was as being a teenager got into pop-rock but time has changed me.

The bonus tracks are great and for me they should have been on the original as they are the best tracks on the cd.Rod Stewarts voice is about the best I have heard it and Beck's guitar playing has so much feel to it on the slower tracks.

More than classic rock, 26 Mar 2006
Although everything that has been said in the other reviews is absolutely true, what hasn't been mentioned is the degree of light and shade within the album. Ol' Man River is not an obvious choice for a heavy rock band, yet the performance is surperb, with masterful vocals and some tasty slide playing from Beck. The canned applause on Blues Deluxe is a little irritating, but the execution is excellent once again. Beck's acoustic performance of Greensleaves is a nice change of pace, while Beck's Bolero shows the sheer musicality of the band and their collaborators (Jimmy Page and Keith Moon on this particular track). There's good stuff in the bonus tracks especially I've Been Drinking. It's worth pointing out that this should probably be seen as a band album, with Beck first among equals. Rod Stewart's contribution is just to important to be ignored, and his phenomenal singing throughout just goes to show that he wasn't always naff. An excellent album, with some worthwhile bonus tracks.

What an album, 09 Aug 2005
Well, well, well. I have read a lot about this album, but despite the fact that I am a big JB fan I have never own the album until now. And what a waste of time.
The album is even better than expected, and even the sound quality is rather good despite the age of the recordings. All the musicians does a brilliant job, not strange most of them went on to become rather famous.
I wonder how fare this group could have gone if the work on this album have been continued. If you listen to early Led Zeppelin the similarity is obvious.
I can only give this album, including the bonus tracks, my very very best recommendations.

Wow! Wow! and wow! again..., 26 Jun 2005
The re-release of this lost classic has me frothing at the mouth. Featuring a young (24 year old) Jeff Beck, a then relatively unknown Rod Stewart,a future Rolling Stone in the form of Ronnie Wood this album set the blue print for others to follow, most noteably the mighty Led Zeppelin.
Beck shows on this that he is capable of turning his hand to anything, from blues, folk and jazz to out and out psychedelia and on the way produces a record that would soon become a masterclass in musicianship.
Cobbled together to "record some of the rubbish we'd been playing live", Beck and cohorts recorded one of the most influential albums of the era, possibly of all time, and the beauty of it is that although rapidly approaching 40 years old, this album remains immensely listenable, with Beck showing a wonderful mastery of his instrument and Rod the Mod reveling in the role as the best white blues singer around.
Truly a stunning album

emperors new clothes, 02 Sep 2008
I have been a guitarist for 47 years, I have never understood why Clapton is so highly rated, believe me his limitations are laughable. If you want blue-based Rock n Roll, Ry Cooder produces better albums, at least they have heart and guts.
Clapton unplugged is so lame, and the sidesmen so timid, trying never to show up the boss, the album is rehearsed to death. I remember B.B. King on one of his visits saying he was off to see a real guitarist at Ronnie Scott - Barney Kessel. I think when Joe Public decides that some-one is God that person ends up believing it, and if they harbour any doubt then they can always to resort to drugs and liquor.

Astounding., 09 Jul 2007
Despite the usual struggle for Blues at populist award ceremonies this album picked up 2 Grammys when it was first released in 1992. And after listening to it, frankly that is no surprise.

You don't even have to be a Blues fan to enjoy this sensational album. It is a must have for everyone. Clapton manages to combine good vocals, excellent guitar playing, raw passion and, not to mention, catchy tunes all into one album.

Others become legends when heard in another perspective., 13 Mar 2007
One of the best Clapton albums ever. Better known for his guitar riffs and accompaniements; Clapton was musically stripped to the bare essentials and in more senses than one, basically deleivered.
Two of the tracks are now classic folklore namely Tears In Heaven and Layla. What made the latter so memorable was that it previously famed for its guitar riff introduction and background. The Unplugged version added another dimension, the slow tempo coupled with a prominent vocal. Some classics are better left unchanged; others become legends when seen or heard in another perspective.

Sobering and thoughtful, 08 Jan 2006
Everyone knows Eric Clapton can play the blues, but until this album, few believed he really understood the genre. Here, Clapton pulled together a set of covers and originals, which re-established him as the premier guitarist of his generation, particularly on the openers, Signe and Before You Accuse Me. The set also shows him at his most relaxed and confident, (Layla) and laying bare his demons (Tears In Heaven).

Barenaked Blues., 23 Feb 2005
The debate whether, when learning to play the guitar, you should begin with an acoustic or an electric instrument, is probably as old as the history of the electric guitar itself; regardless which event you associate most strongly with its invention, and which of the enterprising souls who began experimenting with the amplification of the six-string sound way back in the 1930s you most credit therewith. Many find the sound of an electric guitar more impressive than that of an acoustic; and I'll freely admit that few pieces of music make my inner membranes resonate as instinctively as those featuring a really well-played e-guitar solo. Purists, however, argue passionately in favor of the acoustic guitar, and maintain that you're simply not going to learn to play "cleanly" if you don't start out that way. And there is definitely something to be said for that, because it is much easier to conceal a sloppily-played chord behind an electric guitar's amplified volume or a clever-sounding solo (or behind both) than in the unadulterated sound of an acoustic guitar. The discussion about the early 1990s' trend towards "unplugged" recordings centers around similar arguments. Some pieces of music are of course simply not meant to ever be played on an acoustic guitar. Others, however, live from their amplified soundeffects more than from their intrinsic musical values, and they simply fizzle when reduced to their core and performed acoustically.

And then there is that rare category of pieces which sound equally fantastic both ways, and that rare category of players who manage to dazzle you regardless what type of instrument they're playing. Eric Clapton is such a musician, and some of the songs on the playlist of his "Unplugged" album are such pieces of music. Most notable among those, of course, is "Layla," Clapton's intensely personal dedication to one-time wife Patty Boyd; written in 1970 and at a time when he saw no chance of ever winning her for himself. From the memorable opening riff of the song's original recording to its guitar solos, screaming with despair, it is extremely hard to imagine how this song could ever work in an acoustic version. Yet on a whim and at the last minute, Clapton decided to include it in the "Unplugged" playlist. And transposed by a full octave, reduced to a languid and almost upbeat, somewhat jazzy blues rhythm, it works out wonderfully; and Layla/Patty finds herself miraculously transformed from an object of desire to one of reflection instead. In fact, that track alone, which won the 1992 Grammy as Best Rock Song, turned out to be responsible for a good share of the enormous popularity of this album which (together with 1989's "Journeyman") reestablished Clapton as an artist to reckon with, after his career had threatened to slump over the course of much of the previous decade. And similarly responsible for th