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South Saturn Delta
10/07/1997 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Chip Stern
So brief was Jimi Hendrix's stay on Earth, it belies his prodigious output. Baby boomers and their children have been pouring over every stray scrap of to emerge over the past 27 years, but with egregious music biz bottom-feeder Alan Douglas at the helm, listenerswere treated to the spectacle of the producer as auteur--what hubris. Now that the Hendrix family has regained custody of Jimi's estate, brought original engineer Eddie Kramer back into the fold, and reissued the central core of his original 1967-1970 releases as he meant them to be heard, the doors to the Hendrix tape vaults springs open with South Saturn Delta--a fascinating, coherent collection of works in progress, unreleased masters, alternates and overspill from Experienced, Axis, Ladyland, Band Of Gypsys and First Rays Of The New Rising Sun and posthumous releases such as War Heroes and Rainbow Bridge. We get to hear Jimi on a Les Paul Junior, fleshing out a horn chart on the title tune with its jazzy intimations of things to come; the slick studio versions of some Band Of Gypsys mainstays (far more emotive and direct live); the bare bones of "Little Wing" as an improvised rocker before it cooled into the crystalline ballad we know and love; the original four-track of "All Along The Watchtower" before Jimi added all sorts of bells and whistles (even more here, with added emphasis on the dual guitars of Hendrix and 12-stringer Dave Mason, and Hendrix's own remarkable Fender bass line); and familiar friends from past releases pristinely remastered. I only wish they had made the room for the remarkable orchestrations of his studio "Star Spangled Banner" from Rainbow Bridge, but Jimi's startling Lightnin' Hopkins-like turn on "Midnight Lightning" reassures us that there's plenty of treats to come over the next few years.
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