#0105: Axis: Bold As Love - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Apparently this is a contractual obligation album.  The last such album I listened to began with a song called "Sit On My Face".  This one begins with a bizarre news magazine program recording.  It's either a spoof or audio of a real program; I have no idea which but I think Jimi's voice can be heard towards the end as they're being sped up and made to sound like they're aliens or being possessed or some shit.  It's bonkers and quite fun and then there's about a minute of fucking about with stereo panning, distortion and feedback that's like having a pin cushion turned inside out and shoved up yer jacksie.  Not a great start but Hendrix has some credit to play with.

When the real first track starts it's not what you might've expected in 67 having tasted the Experience's debut.  Up From The Skies is a tasty little strut that could easily have supported a jazz solo and it's got groovy sewn into the sauce.  Not knowing what to expect now, the brief silence between this and Spanish Castle Magic is fraught with anticipation.

It comes crashing in with a sound our contemporary ears would most readily associate with Crosstown Traffic and as it swings between the lyrics spun over heavy punctuation and the cymbal washed driver groove, you're carried along on the wave of decadent denouement as his solo slices thru the smokey air and fills your mind with what-the-fuck-just-happened.

There it is: a development of his multi-string hammer-on technique rippling over the fretboard backwards (to some of us) as the guitarists in the room sotto voce "motherfucker" in unison.  The infectious chorus fills your veins and demands disappointment as the track starts to fade.  And that's how it's done.  Wait Until Tomorrow is immediately one of my favourite Hendrix tracks I've never heard.   

Ain't No Telling ain't showing no signs of letting up.  Son. Of. A. Bitch.  This is *awesome*.  All one minute and 48 seconds of it.

Ooh, it's that Sting song.

My friend Robbie was a Hendrix nut and he would play Little Wing on an acoustic guitar to the delight of many.  Crafty old bastard wouldn't do it on demand tho so whenever the mood took him and he decided to play it, everybody would pay attention. 

Hendrix seems to have picked all the best hippy words in his abstraction of the muse's imagination, form or presence; whichever he is describing.  Butterflies and zebras and moonbeams swirl like consciousness deliquesced to mercury in water, the phasing of the vocal effect adding to the ethereal mood until reality takes a big wet bite out of your ass when his solo comes in, effortlessly smashing and redefining your reverie.

I used to think If 6 Was 9 was a bit rude but actually, it's sort of a social liberation song isn't it?  It presents the idea of defying or breaking convention across the board, not just in the rat race, the white collar world referred to in the middle section but the hippies too, as he points out that he's fine even if they wanna cut off all their hair.

Just for the record, I'm fine with that too.  I just think there'd be a *lot* more bald people if they did.  Hippies basically pulled off the best combover in the history of hair.

It's not one of my favourite tracks but it does have a certain potency that draws me in regardless.

You Got Me Floatin' now recaptures the surging energy of Wait Until Tomorrow just in case we were flagging and then it's time for one of those songs I'd've thought would be a pointless answer but would probably score 1 or 2 and fuck up your jackpot.  Castles Made Of Sand wouldn't be among the first 10 songs I'd list by Jimi Hendrix and I'm kinda bummed about that. 

It's a track I think if you were covering it you'd be tempted to play slower than this recording, not just cuz I get the impression it's fucking difficult to play but cuz you'd want to pore over those licks and really sit back on the rhythm.  You'd lose that tightness when you get to the last line of the verses tho and that's where I think the genius of this song lies: in the pace.  I don't know whether all the pieces would fit together as well outside a short radius of this tempo.

But I digress.  Next up, Noel Redding on bass takes the vocal for She's So Fine.  Not a great deal of guitar present in this and that possibly illustrates a dependency between Hendrix's vocals and guitar playing.  Of course, it could just be that Redding wanted his song to remain his song, unfettered by the overpowering personality of the Hendrix axe.  And it's a good song.  The most distinctive thing about it is the drums so not really a launch pad for Noel Redding as a singer songwriter I wouldn't say but it's not so out of place that you'd think it was filler. 

One Rainy Wish is a slow waltz that's a setup for a surging, anthemic chorus that allows for some phantom time changes over the actual time change to 4/4 that make the transition back to 3 look a lot more ingenious than it is.

I really like that track but I'm starting to tire a bit and I'm hoping for something different.  As if by magic Little Miss Lover to satisfy my request with a bass hook that can only be the harbinger of Zeppelin.  Gets a bit chaotic toward the end but then fades soon after and it's another well timed retirement for a solid idea.

Rounding off the second outing for this legendary trio, then is what's as close to the title track as we're gonna see.  Bold As Love sees many of the themes and techniques from other tracks revisited but not quoted.  It's very much its own song but having noticed these similarities and that it's the finale piece, I can't help but see the parallel between this, with its repeating pattern so rich with the feel of a curtain call and many theatre shows whose closing number often involves a medley of reprised themes.

All in all, the bat rang out like the report of a .22 and the ball almost became birdstrike.  It seems I'm a much bigger fan of Jimi Hendrix than I thought.  5 stars.