Jimi Hendrix - Valleys of Neptune (2010)

I read something about this not too long ago. I guess the reason I'm posting a note about it now and in here is I will give this thing a go.

It's being released on March 9th, and the title track I guess is 1 of the singles.



1 Stone Free
2 Valleys of Neptune
3 Bleeding Heart
4 Hear My Train a Comin’
5 Mr. Bad Luck
6 Sunshine of Your Love
7 Lover Man
8 Ships Passing Through the Night
9 Fire
10 Red House
11 Lullaby for the Summer
12 Crying Blue Rain

the significance of this album, as they talked about on Sound Opinions this week, is it was some studio work that included Billy Cox with Mitch Mitchell.

edit: although just scanning the Wiki page, it appears Redding played on some of this. Of course many of these tracks are previously released songs by Jimi or covers. 5 tracks are unreleased and original I guess.

and here's the title track/single



I suppose it might be worth adding a bit of my background with Hendrix.

After being exposed to as a kid music from The Beatles and 80's top 40, Huey Lewis and Duran Duran, Michael Jackson and Prince, I discovered classic rock, namely with Led Zeppelin and then Rush along with Pink Floyd and some others. 1 of those others was Jimi Hendrix. But I only ended up collecting a couple of compilations from him along with "Are You Experienced?," "Electric Ladyland" and "Axis Bold as Love."

I also bought in high school the "Stages" boxed set which I found to be pretty sweet. 4 concerts from 4 different tours in successive years. Although a lot of the same songs were on each.



But that all happened when I was in High School, 16-19 years ago. Since, I never really found myself looking for the wealth of content his estate and other people released. Of course the Band of the Gypsies stuff, and a number of the demos and well regarded live releases.

Why? the biggest reason probably being investing time into other music. But also it was like a neverending task to try and own or hear even a fraction of his work. I just kind of threw in the towel. And what that speaks to is those people involved (record labels namely) just milking and raping his estate for everything it's worth. It kind of disgusted me.

So why now, am I going to be checking some of it out? I guess partially due to the fact this is technically a *new release.* Much like Soundscape, maudlin of the Well and Kevin Gilbert in 2009, having some brand spanking newly-released Jimi, even if it's only about an ep's worth of material, sounds like something I'd enjoy for nostalgia sake, like those from last year. And who knows, perhaps hearing this new release will get me to go back and seek out at least the cream of the crop of the work I haven't heard before.