JIMI HENDRIX
Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight
(Experience Hendrix/MCA)
This 1970 concert, Hendrix's last major public appearance before his death, has passed into legend over the years; now we finally get to hear if it's deserving. Of course, there are those who argue that any scrap of Hendrix music should be enshrined in the heavens, and if you're one of those, you might as well stop reading, as you've already formed your opinion and nothing anyone can say will change it. For the rest of us, Blue Wild Angel presents a portrait of a musician not at his best. By all accounts, the sound was technically deficient (Hendrix complains about it throughout) and the musicians (including bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell) were exhausted; Hendrix himself was unhappy with this performance. The guitarist sounds alternately engaged and indifferent, and while Mitchell has his moments of typical brilliance, other times he sounds like he's trying to catch up. A perfunctory medley of "God Save the Queen," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Spanish Castle Magic" is not the best way to start a show or a CD, and the competent but uninspired runs through "All Along the Watchtower" and "Red House" don't exactly engender confidence. Hendrix sounds much more interested in his more recent material, most of it then-unreleased. Fierce versions of "Lover Man" and "Dolly Dagger" and a seriously groovin' take on "Freedom" show where his heart was at the time, and if "Machine Gun" starts to meander about half-way through its quarter-hour-plus running time, at least it sounds like it's going where Hendrix meant it to go. The laidback "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" sounds like a gentle comedown from the previous fury, though the bluesy hard rock of "In From the Storm," featuring a searing solo, revs things back up. This album is one of the more uneven in Hendrix's posthumous oeuvre, but that's not to say there isn't music worthy of merit, just that this is not the definitive Hendrix concert performance by any means. Hendrix completists will be delighted, but newbies (if there is such a thing) and casual fans can probably live without it. Michael Toland [buy it]

For fans of: Cream, 90s Buddy Guy, Michael Hill's Blue Mob