New Jimi Hendrix Reissues On The Way

There are two kinds of Jimi Hendrix fans; those who know the awesome majesty of the BBC Sessions album, and those who don’t. On October 19, that incendiary live collection will be reissued as a deluxe edition by Experience Hendrix LLC and Legacy Recordings, along with a deluxe edition of Jimi Hendrix: Blues (which features perhaps the greatest Hendrix rarity of all time), Live At Woodstock, and Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year, a holiday-themed EP.

From the press release:

Originally released in 1994, the Jimi Hendrix: Blues album features 11 blues performances recorded by Hendrix between 1966 and 1970 showcasing the guitarist’s mastery of the 12-bar form. The new deluxe Legacy edition comes packaged in a six-panel digipak with an expanded, 36 page booklet and includes a bonus DVD featuring an expanded, 30 minute version of “Jimi Hendrix and the Blues” from the Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues series. Directed and Produced by Alex Gibney, Janie Hendrix and John McDermott, the film features interviews and live performances not seen in the original PBS television broadcast. A double-disc 12″ vinyl LP audiophile edition of Jimi Hendrix: Blues will also be available.

The Legacy edition of Jimi Hendrix Experience: BBC Sessions brings together recordings from Hendrix’s appearances on a variety of BBC radio and television broadcasts from 1967 through 1969. The two CD Jimi Hendrix Experience: BBC Sessions comes packaged in a six-panel digipak and includes a never before released 30 minute bonus DVD documentary. The film features the group’s famed January 1969 appearance on “Happening For Lulu” which featured Hendrix interrupting the live broadcast to perform a ferocious rendition of Cream’s “Sunshine Of Your Love” together with interviews with Jimi Hendrix Experience bandmates Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding as well as BBC staff producers Jeff Griffin and Bernie Andrews detailing the legendary sessions. The acclaimed 2 CD set includes Hendrix’s unique interpretations of such classics as Bob Dylan’s “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?,” Muddy Waters “Hoochie Coochie Man” [with noted British blues enthusiast Alexis Korner on slide guitar], the Beatles “Day Tripper” as well as two songs featuring the dream pairing of Stevie Wonder with Hendrix. A single CD “best-of” the BBC Sessions as well as a three-disc 12″ audiophile vinyl LP edition of the album will also be available. Both the 2 CD and 3 LP BBC sets feature a previoulsy unreleased version of “Burning Of The Midnight Lamp” sourced from the August 24, 1967 of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on Top of The Tops.

Jimi Hendrix’s watershed Live At Woodstock album, the artist’s most popular live performance, will be reissued in a two CD set, available in both digipak and brilliant box configurations as well as an audiophile, three-disc 12″ vinyl LP edition.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, the Jimi Hendrix seasonal single, features the celebrated 1969 medley of “Little Drummer Boy,” “Silent Night,” and “Auld Lang Syne” backed with “Three Little Bears.” Merry Christmas & Happy New Year will be reissued as a CD as well as on 7″ vinyl in a picture sleeve.

The upcoming wave of 2010 Jimi Hendrix titles culminates in the long awaited release of West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology, a definitive career-spanning four CD box set which tracks Hendrix’s remarkable journey from R&B sideman to international stardom. The deluxe set is filled with previously unreleased Jimi Hendrix Experience recordings plus demos, alternate takes and more. The newly curated and assembled Jimi Hendrix anthology will include a new Hendrix documentary directed by the Grammy award winning Bob Smeaton (Beatles Anthology, Festival Express, Beatles: The Studio Recordings).

Legacy’s first round of Jimi Hendrix releases opened with the release of Valleys of Neptune, a long-awaited album of previously unavailable Jimi Hendrix studio recordings, which debuted on the Billboard 200 best-selling albums chart at #4 while four additional Hendrix catalog titles — Are You Experienced (#44), Electric Ladyland (#60), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (#63), and Axis: Bold As Love (#67) — rocketed back into the Billboard 200 four decades after their original release dates. A testimony to the enduring vitality and importance of the trailblazing artist-guitarist-performer, Jimi Hendrix had five albums in America’s Top 100 in March 2010.

“Jimi’s music is as alive today as it was 40 years ago, and the success of our most recent releases with Sony Legacy provides thrilling confirmation. We have long maintained that the power of Jimi’s music and the power of his message would stand the test of time and provide its own bridge to the future,” said Janie Hendrix, CEO of Experience Hendrix LLC. “Being partnered with Legacy enables us to reach a more global audience with that message. And the best is yet to come. What we have in store will propel Jimi into a new decade, with unseen footage and unheard versions of his songs that will absolutely amaze today’s music lovers. And we’re confident that the distribution is in good hands, opening the door to new and fresh markets. The focus of our endeavors is, and always will be, all about Jimi’s music.”

“The partnership we’ve formed with Experience Hendrix to bring Jimi’s music to new generations continues to be a potent one and the fan and critical response to our Jimi Hendrix catalog project is so gratifying ,” said Adam Block, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Legacy Recordings. “The soul and spirit Jimi’s music is truly universal, reaching across time with its eternal vitality, power and beauty.”