Band of Gypsys
| Band of Gypsys | ||||
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| Hendrix live album | ||||
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Publication |
1970 |
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| Label (s) | Capitol Records | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
8th |
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running time |
45:16 |
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| occupation |
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Heaven Research, a pseudonym Jimi Hendrix ' |
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Band of Gypsys is a live album by Jimi Hendrix in collaboration with Buddy Miles and Billy Cox , titled "Hendrix". The trio itself is often referred to as the "Band of Gypsys". The album was released in 1970 on Capitol Records .
History of origin
At the end of 1968 Hendrix began to become increasingly dissatisfied with his formation The Jimi Hendrix Experience . Also because of the frequent tours and the constant recording sessions, the personal relationship with Noel Redding in particular was so strained that in April 1969 he finally met Billy Cox in Memphis . Hendrix had known him since they were in the army together in Fort Campbell and offered him to join the band. This happened in the summer of 1969 when the original Experience formation broke up after further concert commitments had been fulfilled in the meantime. Hendrix, Cox, and Mitch Mitchell then retired near Woodstock and began rehearsing. According to Cox, the rural tranquility was intentional in order to be able to concentrate fully on the musical work. In August 1969, the first appearance of this group took place at the Woodstock Festival , in which the guitarist Larry Lee and the two conga players Juma Sultan and Gerardo Velez were also part of the band. To the concert goers Hendrix described this formation as Gypsy Sun & Rainbow, a Band of Gypsys or simply as what the audience would like to call the band. However, after Woodstock, Gypsy Sun & Rainbow quickly shrank back to the trio of Hendrix, Cox and Mitchell.
Mitchell returned to England in October 1969. According to Cox, this was not leaving the group, but should only represent a break. At that time, pressure on Hendrix grew due to legal obligations.
Hendrix had worked for the Curtis Knight and the Squires R&B group from October to December 1965 . He signed a one-page contract with the manager Ed Chalpin and PPX Productions, who not only tied Hendrix for the Knight sessions, but also guaranteed exclusive rights for a period of three years. As the recordings were not a commercial success, Knight and Hendrix soon parted ways, so that Hendrix considered the contractual relationship to be over. According to Cox, these types of agreements were common at the time and the musicians signed them in hopes of enhancing their musical careers. Hendrix had received one US dollar for the signing. After his commercial breakthrough in late 1966 / early 1967 with Hey Joe and Are You Experienced , financial claims were made due to this contractual relationship, which led to legal proceedings. In June 1968, Hendrix manager Michael Jeffrey in cooperation with Hendrix 'then US distributor Warner Bros. reached an agreement with the other party, in which it was determined that a completely newly recorded album would be assigned to Capitol Records . When the demands from this agreement were increasingly demanded in autumn 1969, Jeffrey decided to record the upcoming concerts at the turn of the year 1969/1970 at the Fillmore East and use them for the required album.
The drums position, orphaned by Mitchell's absence, was filled with Buddy Miles, who had already achieved some notoriety with The Electric Flag and was often present at Hendrix's jam sessions at Record Plant Studios . This formation was then called the Band of Gypsys . From October 1969 the group began to work on new songs and developed a repertoire sufficient for the planned concerts. Most of the rehearsals took place at Baggy's Studios in New York.
The four planned concerts at Fillmore East were designed so that an early and a late set should be played on New Year's Eve 1969 and New Year's Eve 1970, respectively. Since the two late gigs lasted until well after midnight or only started on December 31st and the date line was exceeded, it was agreed to speak of the first and second show of the respective evening to avoid misunderstandings. The original 1970 album contains recordings from New Years Day only, with Who Knows and Machine Gun from the first show and the remaining four songs from the second show. Both sets on New Year's Eve had technical problems at the beginning, so that, according to Cox Hendrix, concerns were raised as to whether there would be enough material of sufficient quality for the required album. Therefore, Hendrix would have played very concentrated and calm at both shows on New Years and focused on the music. Only during the encores did he show the tricks and gimmicks known to him on the guitar.
In late January 1970, Hendrix and Eddie Kramer met at Juggy Sound Studios in New York to decide which songs should be used for the proposed album. Band of Gypsys was released in March 1970 . It was to be the last album that Hendrix had personally authorized and thus also the only live album that was released during his lifetime.
The band themselves had their next gig in January 1970 at Madison Square Garden . Here, however, the concert was canceled and Jeffrey took the opportunity to fire Miles. Jeffrey expected more success from a reissue of the experience. This newer version of the Experience included Hendrix, Cox, and the returning Mitchell on drums. With this group then began work on the planned next double studio album, which should be entitled First Rays of the New Rising Sun and some of the songs that had their origins in the rehearsals of the Band of Gypsys should contain. Due to Hendrix's death in September 1970, however, it was no longer completed and the corresponding recordings were mainly placed on the two posthumously released albums The Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge .
influence
The album is considered to be instrumental in the development of funk rock and black music in general in the 1970s. On the 1999 Band of Gypsys: Live at the Fillmore East DVD , Slash , Vernon Reid of Living Color, and Lenny Kravitz described the inspiration and enduring influence the Band of Gypsys sparked. In the liner notes of the 1988 album What's Bootsy Doin '? by Bootsy Collins put this Hendrix number one on a list of the greatest innovators of the 1960s. The long guitar solo by Eddie Hazel on the song Maggot Brain , which was recorded in 1971 for the album of the same name by the band Funkadelic , has some parallels with the Machine Gun contained in the Band of Gypsys album . George Clinton always described Hendrix as an important influence on Funkadelic.
During the rehearsals of the Band of Gypsys for the concerts at the Fillmore in the fall of 1969, a song was recorded in which a spoken text by Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, also known as Lightnin 'Rod from The Last Poets , was placed over a jam by Hendrix and Miles has been. The track entitled Doriella Du Fontaine was released in 1984 on Celluloid Records and shows an early mix of rock music and spoken word . American hip-hop band Digital Underground sampled for The Way We Swing on the 1990 Sex Packets album Who Knows .
Track list
Original LP from 1970
The song titles refer to the US version of the album released by Capitol in 1970. In England (Track Records) the pieces Power to Love and Message of Love were given the titles Power of Soul and Message to Love , respectively , which are still preferred in CD re-releases and in specialist literature.
Page one
- Who Knows (Jimi Hendrix) - 9:34
- Machine Gun (Jimi Hendrix) - 12:38
Side two
- Changes (Buddy Miles) - 5:11
- Power to Love (Jimi Hendrix) - 6:55
- Message of Love (Jimi Hendrix ) - 5:24
- We Gotta Live Together (Buddy Miles) - 5:51
CD re-release from 1991 in Europe / Japan
- Hear My Train (Jimi Hendrix) - 9:02
- Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix) - 6:32
- Stop ( Jerry Ragovoy , Mort Shuman ) - 4:49
Further editions
The album Band of Gypsys 2 was released in 1986 by Capitol Records and contains on page one of the LP version the three additional songs of the later CD edition from 1991 and with Hey Joe, Hey Baby and Loverman on page two another three songs. These were not recorded with the formation Hendrix / Miles / Cox and also not at the turn of the year 1969/70, but come from the Atlanta Pop Festival and a performance at the Berkley Community Theater. With Live at the Fillmore East, however, a double CD was released by MCA in 1999 , which contains 16 mostly unreleased songs from New Year's Eve and New Year's Eve at the Fillmore East.
Chart successes
The album reached number 5 on the Billboard 200 , number 6 in the British charts and number 15 in Germany. The RIAA awarded it gold in June 1970 , platinum in February 1992 and double platinum in January 1998.
reception
- The music journalist Robert Christgau wrote that due to the limitations of the rhythm section, Hendrix never sounded more grounded than here. Who Knows and Machine Gun are the strongest and most complex songs Hendrix has ever published. On page two, however, he would just play a few simple wah-wah patterns. Band of Gypsys is not bad for a live rock album, but it is not great for a Hendrix album. In the evaluation it got a B +.
- In Rolling Stone , Gary von Tesch wrote that the formation had not been together for long at the time of recording and the music would show this. He criticized the fact that while the bass by Cox Hendrix was inventive, Miles' drumming, on the other hand, was annoying and at times boring. In addition, he complained that the vocals, with the exception of Machine Gun, were too affected and a little less drums and a lot more vocals would have done the recording well. Hendrix can be heard on the album as a musician, as he could show his strength on the guitar with the limited support from bass and drums.
- On Allmusic , Sean Westergaard wrote that, in contrast to the more jazzy style of Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, Buddy Miles was very funky, and since Noel Redding was actually not a bass player, but a transformed guitarist, this new environment would push Hendrix to new creative heights . He would have used the live recordings to present the latest material he was working on. Band of Gypsys is possibly Hendrix's best performance. His playing is precise and focused, his appearance on stage was motionless in contrast to the antics of his earlier appearances. Machine Gun have set completely new standards in what you can do with a guitar and are showing the most groundbreaking and stunning guitar solo of all time. Band of Gypsys is not only an important part of the Hendrix legacy, but one of the greatest live albums ever recorded. In the evaluation it received four and a half stars out of five.
Individual evidence
- ^ Pseudonym Heaven Research at discogs.com
- ↑ Album at discogs.com
- ↑ Essay by John McDermott in the CD booklet of Live At The Fillmore East
- ^ Film screening: Jimi Hendrix: Band of Gypsys at rockhall.com
- ↑ Photos of the cover of What's Bootsy Doin '?
- ^ Maggot Brain at psychedelicsight.com
- ↑ George Clinton & The Cosmic Qdyssey of the P-Funk Empire by Kris Needs at books.google.de
- ↑ Sex Packets at discogs.com
- ↑ 1991 CD Europe edition at discogs.com
- ↑ 1991 CD Japan edition at discogs.com
- ↑ Volume of Gypsys 2 at discogs.com
- ↑ Live at the Fillmore East at discogs.com
- ↑ Chart placement at allmusic.com
- ↑ Chart placement at chartarchive.org
- ↑ Chart placement at charts.de
- ↑ Awards at riaa.com
- ↑ Reviews at robertchristgau.com
- ^ Album at rollingstone.com
- ^ Band of Gypsys at allmusic.com