Friday, May 20, 2016

Jimi Hendrix - 1971 [1988] "Isle Of Wight"

Isle of Wight was a posthumous live album by Jimi Hendrix, released in November 1971 by Polydor in the U.K. only. The album documents Hendrix's performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival on August 30, 1970, his last performance in England before his death in September. The album was engineered by Carlos Ohlms (a British based engineer). The record company did not use a picture from the Isle of Wight concert. The cover photo is from a live concert from Berlin, Deutschlandhalle, September 4, 1970. The album spent only two weeks in the U.K. albums chart, peaking at No. 17.
Isle of Wight contains just part of the concert, but this release has a unique mix compared to the Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight 2002 release). The entire performance was released on the 2002 album Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight.

 In August 1970 Jimi Hendrix was at the Isle of Wight festival along with another 600,000 people. His performance took place in the early hours of the morning of August 31. Less than a month later on September 18 Jimi Hendrix died.
The Hendrix set of 62 minutes has not been regarded as one of his best performances. Nevertheless it was good. Hendrix could play his guitar. His musical ability and phrasing was quite extraordinary. Amongst some of the favourites that he played were Machine Gun (where the security personnel’s radio was picked up through the amp), All Along the Watchtower and Red House. He was very much alive.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Jimi Hendrix, except where noted.

1.     "Midnight Lightning"       7:21
2.     "Foxy Lady"       8:40
3.     "Lover Man"       3:18
4.     "Freedom"       4:21
5.     "All Along the Watchtower" (Bob Dylan)     4:27
6.     "In from the Storm"       6:08

Personnel

    Jimi Hendrix – guitar, vocals
    Mitch Mitchell – drums
    Billy Cox – bass guitar

5 comments: