Jimi Hendrix: Blues (1994)

April 20th, a.k.a. Cannabis Culture Day, snuck up on me this year, but I think this record is a pretty good fit ...

There’s always been some controversy surrounding 1994’s simply named Blues, which is a shame because it has little (and note that “little” is more than “nothing”) to do with the music, but rather the epic, decade-spanning struggle for control over Jimi Hendrix’s legacy.

Starting with his passing at the fateful age of 27, in September of 1970, Jimi’s catalog was subjected to wanton exploitation and outright malfeasance, culminating in the catalog’s sale to MCA without the consent of his father, Al, who promptly filed suit with financial backing from none other than Microsoft founder and fan Paul Allen.

Yet even while the battle raged in court, finally returning control to Al (who later bequeathed them to his adopted stepdaughter, Janie, removed Jimi’s brother, Leon, and launched another decade of intra-family bitterness), MCA wasted no time seeding the marketplace with a series of CD reissues.

First came deluxe editions of the three studio albums released during Hendrix’s lifetime, then a greatest hits set dubbed The Ultimate Experience, and then Blues: a collection of eleven songs recorded between 1966 and 1970, eight of which had never before seen official release.

Such a complicated story for such a simple premise: the greatest electric guitarist who ever lived revisiting the elemental building blocks of rock and roll.

So it’s fitting that the album starts with Jimi in rare, 12-string acoustic, Delta blues mode for his classic “Hear My Train a’ Comin’,” (*) and ends with an epic, cathartic electric version of the same number, originally found on 1971’s posthumous Rainbow Bridge LP.

It’s like listening to most of what constituted 20th Century guitar-playing in just two recordings.

In between, Jimi pays tribute to Albert King (“Born Under a Bad Sign”), Elmore James (“Bleeding Heart”), Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley (on the hybrid “Mannish Boy”), alongside some of his own contributions to the blues cannon, in the wah-wah-driven “Jam 292” and the creeping “Once I had a Woman.”

Another pair of notables -- “Voodoo Chile Blues” and “Electric Church Red House” -- come with major caveats, as they were studio concoctions marrying different performances, Frankenstein’ed by producer Alan Douglas, so it’s impossible to completely ignore their dubious provenance.

Not least because the blues is so damn pure and elemental -- at least from a rocker’s rose-tinted retrospective perspective -- and what could be purer than bringing it all full circle through Jimi’s incomparable talents?

Well, as we know, nothing is simple when it comes to the Hendrix catalog, which continues to yield all manner of “new” material for his insatiable fans, some of it legit, some of it questionable, but most of it irresistible, irrefutable, and almost always essential.

* The audio was ripped directly from the now priceless Joe Boyd-directed Experience documentary.

Al Hendrix - Monkey Bite

AL HENDRIX - Aftershave Lotion

"Wait till you get a wiff of his aftershave lotion!"

Al Hendrix with his son Jimi.....and the rest is history.