The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Winterland” 4CD/8LP Live Box Set
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
“Winterland” 4CD and 180gram 8LP Live Box Set
October-November 1968
Experience Hendrix LLC and Song/Legacy
The partnership between The Hendrix estate and Song/Legacy is making huge strides in the world of Jimi Hendrix releases. A complete reissue of the entire catalog in an expanded series format has occured over the last year and a half along with the new 4 cd and 1 dvd box set West Coast Seattle Boy, the 1969 studio compilation Valleys of Neptune and much more. With the initial phase of reissue work that always comes after a catalogue is given rights to a new major label, the rare and interesting material starts to surface. Sony/Legacy has done such a marvelous job with artists like Miles Davis and John Coltrane that it was only right that Jimi Hendrix be given the full red carpet treatment and brought into their system of releases.
Earlier this week the joint affair released a very special box set to the world. A 4 CD and 8xLP 180 gram audiophile live compilation box set that includes material The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in October of 1968. Mitch Mitchell was behind the kit and Noel Redding carried bass duties with Hendrix’s unbelievable guitar abilities and creativity. The group started together in 1966 and was now seeing the period of the bands two year anniversary during the time these performances at the famed Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco were captured on tape professionally. The Experience played two sets a nigth between October 10-12, 1968 and each show had a little something different than the others. The Experience laid down almost 6 hours of music those 3 consecutive days and left behind a very important archive for young musicians and fans to enjoy for decades to come.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience had released two full length albums (Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love) up to this point of the October Winterland shows. The group was two weeks away from releasing the ground breaking fusion master piece Electric Ladyland. The Experience had grinded out a very extensive tour in the spring, summer and fall of 1968 with supporting acts by groups such as the marvelous Soft Machine, The Buddy Miles Express and Vanilla Fudge. These shows were ground breaking and The Experience had broke every amp imaginable from the soaring high volumes they played and the amount of miles they lugged that gear around in a small U haul van. This wasn’t the days of immediate luxury for the band and they stuck through it to really benefit from the concert circuits that Bill Graham and others had provided all those cutting edge artists of the 60′s and 70′s.
For these Winterland Ballroom shows that comprise the box Winterland, the Experience were almost at the end of the years touring schedule and they finally had time to rest and take residence in Laurel Canyon, CA after the sets of shows in October. The group would begin sessions in Laurel Canyon at the famous TTG studios on The Experiences’s 4th LP. This studio had just acquired the first 16 track recorder and Jimi was among the first to book extensive time for experimentation and formal sessions. Frank Zappa and many others were already residents of this area and was a historic center for creative activity behind the scenes. The group began their 1968 touring schedule with shows at the Fillmore and Winterland Ballroom, all of which were very unique and showed the foundations of his love for blues, jazz, classical and all music, not just the psychedelic and pop euphoria that surrounded his image. The Winterland sets in October of 1968 show less of a psychedelic spectrum of Hendrix and begin to reveal how Hendrix was searching to find his roots again and create more earthly sounds. With technical difficulties abound in all concerts, The Experience still push through 6 spell-binding 50 minute sets over three days and the famous mobile sound engineer Wally Heider was on site to record everything. Wally had a remote van that would be placed some distance from the stage and recorded hundreds of acts during his time engineering. He was a regular in the Bill Graham circuit.
Calm, smooth, loose, and veracious, there is a spirit in this performance that reflects the groups love and support of the free willing nature of the Bay Area Community. These were shows Hendrix knew he could let it hang out and really cut loose with new numbers like the jazz and blues heavy Swedish cover ‘Tax Free’, the ethereal closer for his first LP ‘Are You Experienced?’, his own blues masterpieces ‘Red House’ and ‘Hear My Train A Comin’, and the crowd pleasing and ferocious number that would be a center piece to his next LP Electric Ladyland, ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)’. ‘Spanish Castle’ from his second LP Axis: Bold as Love is given full on creative embellishment and expansion and his other blues masterpiece Red House is taken to new heights than had before these concerts. Hendrix had a huge amount of respect for Eric Clapton and The Cream and his version of Sunshine of Your Love showed the rich flourishing growth that fusion, pop, jazz, blues and these other genres Jimi loved so much were infusing into his music and the covers he was playing. There are moments on Winterland where the band isn’t as strong as they are in other sections, but with 6 shows no man is perfect and the band took some huge risks with diving into the numbers the way they do. I love when Jimi asks everyone including himself Are You Experienced? than shortly after remarks, “well I’ll prove it to you…” and goes into a mind bending solo excursion that showed his ability to take the guitar to heights never achieved up until that point.
The packaging is superb on Winterland, showing many unpublished photos along with those that have been in circulation for years. Some are slightly out of focus or very grainy and it adds to the feeling of the music and how free it is. Jimi Hendrix was covering a lot of material at this point of his career and this box highlights how the band was using other musicians songs as vehicles of expression inside the Experiences sound. Bob Dyland’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ from the second day of shows is phenomenal and is more laid back and angelic than the versions most have heard from Monterrey Pop in 1967.
When the very first disc starts, the crowd noise slightly wavers in and out as people are cheering for what they know is about to come. This is the second of the two concerts on the first day of performances and Hendrix remarks, “[...]it’s a true feeling type of thing [...]“, as he is greeting the crowd and preparing them for the new ideas and worlds Hendrix was soaking in with the number ‘Tax Free’. All three discs are really special and contain material from all 3 Experience LP’s, covers, and tons of expanded material that never saw a studio recording. The Experience had a very different presentation with their live shows and their studio albums and these 6 shows highlight how different their performances really were to the albums. Jack Cassidy of the Jefferson Airplane also makes a guest appearance on this set on the first day and adds a really big presence. He would grace the Electric Ladyland LP with the heavy blues piece Voodoo Chile and formed a strong bond with the band from early tours.
Jimi had also fully incorporated the National Anthem into his live sets many months before his famous rendition at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. This set documents more than one version which always bridges itself into the massively heavy anthem ‘Purple Haze’. Even though the Experience had played it to death at this point in their career it was still a perfect gateway for the band to really explode outward and loose themselves inside the music. A way to remember their strength in their communication on stage and a means of forgetting any turmoil a band naturally accumulates over a constant rigorous touring and recording schedule. The version of ‘Wild Thing’ on the third and final night is a perfect closing statement from the Experience. The feedback and amp assault that occurs is out of this world and the tones that bleed forth from his massive Marshall amps is beautiful in the most surreal way.
Hendrix apologizes for the hang ups, referring of course to the amp problems that persisted that week. Regardless of this small infraction, the group showed the world that their live shows were some of the most memorable of that period. This period of his career launched Hendrix into a level of respect from his contemporaries that led him to meet more musicians in the genres of music he wanted to explore outside of what the Experience had done. Miles Davis and Jimi would cross paths quite frequently after this period and Jimi would jam with Rashaan Roland Kirk for a second time. Jimi Hendrix was expanding in so many directions and these concerts show professional level recordings of Jimi right before this transition took full affect.
The bonus and fourth disc of Winterland comprises material that didn’t make the final cut but was just as strong. A very special and quite long interview Jimi Hendrix did backstage at a performance the Experience did in Boston November of 1968 is included at the very end of the disc and is the prized collection of the entire box. With a guitar in hand and a field of questions, Hendrix gives a really unique interview unlike any others I have heard from the vast archives out there. He strums through song ideas he has, traditional blues numbers and all sorts of interesting styles of playing. Electric Ladyland had just come out when this interview was conducted and Jimi’s camp planned some very nice shows for the Experience at this point. The east coast of the United States was booked in full, including a stint at the Philharmonic. He was the first rock act to play there and regardless of exhaustion from the year, the Experience were turning in phenomenal show after show. Winterland is a really beautiful box set that is very much worth owning, we highly recommend it. – Erik Otis
It should also be noted from Experience Hendrix: “Amazon will offer an exclusive bonus CD to be bundled with all orders of the four CD and 8 LP Winterland box sets sold through Amazon during 2011 consisting of recordings from Jimi’s February 4, 1968 Winterland performance: “Killing Floor,” “Red House,” “Dear Mr. Fantasy (Part One)” and “Dear Mr. Fantasy (Part Two).” These tracks have been previously available only as part of the rare Dagger Records official bootleg Paris ’67/San Francisco ’68 and have never been available for retail sale.”
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Music video by The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing “Like A Rolling Stone” (from Winterland). (C) 2011 Experience Hendrix L.L.C., under exclusive license to Sony Music Entertainment
Track Listing:
Disc One (October 10, 1968)
Tax Free
Lover Man
Sunshine Of Your Love
Hear My Train A Comin’
Killing Floor
Foxey Lady
Hey Joe
Star Spangled Banner
Purple Haze
Disc Two (October 11, 1968)
Tax Free
Like A Rolling Stone
Lover Man
Hey Joe
Fire
Foxy Lady
Are You Experienced
Red House
Purple Haze
Disc Three (October 12, 1968)
Fire
Lover Man
Like A Rolling Stone
Manic Depression
Sunshine of Your Love
Little Wing
Spanish Castle Magic
Red House
Hey Joe
Purple Haze
Wild Thing
Disc Four (Bonus)
Foxy Lady (October 12, 1968)
Are You Experienced? (October 10, 1968)
Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (October 10, 1968)
Red House (October 10, 1968)
Star Spangled Banner (October 11, 1968)
Purple Haze (October 11, 1968)
Boston Garden Backstage Interview (November 16, 1968)
The Wolfgang’s Vault has a few of the concerts unedited and in full streaming quality. Check out a stellar 15 minute version of ‘Red House’ captured during the early show on the first day of performances, October 10, 1968.
