Jimi Hendrix
Live At Woodstock (LP)

LA RECENSIONE

The Band of Gypsys took the stage at Woodstock on the morning of August 18, 1969. On the same stage in the previous days, Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Jeff Beck had performed, and the few (so to speak) brave spectators who remained (about 250,000) witnessed one of the most shocking concerts of the Seattle guitarist's career.
Hendrix had recently left the Experience and was going through the most difficult and uncertain period of his artistic career. For this reason, Woodstock is a different concert from any of his other live performances: chaotic, confused, improvised, at times you even get the impression that Hendrix neglected its preparation. He apologizes several times to the audience (I'd like to do this song... what song do we now?), lingers long in tuning the guitar between pieces... however, as the performance progresses, magically, it gains incredible energy both in the rendition of classics like "Fire," "Purple Haze," "Hey Joe," "Red House," "Voodoo Child," "Hear My Train Comin’," and in the long improvisations typical of the period: "Jam Back at House," "Woodstock Improvisation," and especially the famous "Star Spangled Banner," here in a literally stunning version.
As David Fricke comments in the booklet: Woodstock wasn't Hendrix's greatest concert, but it was the most "real." Everything that was right, wrong, unresolved about his music and career came out that morning, shouted, direct, unfiltered in any way. Jimi Hendrix wanted to make music as deep as the sea, as big as the sky, as real as his life was real. This concert represents his attempt to do all of this one morning, at the end of a strange, long weekend in August 1969.

The remasterings released today by Classic Records in this elegant three LP box set offer incredible sound quality. The box also includes a 36-page booklet with some beautiful and very rare photos of Hendrix, two thrilling essays by David Fricke and John McDermott, the concert ticket (the date indicated is August 17... in reality, the concert was moved to the next day due to technical issues), a 7' EP containing "Izabella" and "Message to the Universe" recorded in the following days (also at Woodstock), and even a pick, modeled on the one used by Jimi at Woodstock. Finally, the booklet includes a recent interview of Classic Records' patron Michael Hobson with Eddie Kramer - he was the sound engineer at Woodstock - who recounts all the details of how the recordings were made back then. Unmissable.