Jimi Hendrix is one of the great artists of all time.
Incredible spiritual vision.
And he left behind four great recordings.
Four symphonies.
His four albums.
And for me, while all four are incredible, three of the four stand out as his finest moments.
Not the three Experience albums.
Are You Experienced, Electric Ladyland, and Band of Gypsies.
I think that it is time for a reassessment of Band of Gypsies.
Now, Axis: Bold as Love is a masterpiece too. Some of his finest songs are on it.
But the other three albums are just towering masterpieces. Like Beethoven symphonies.
Huge, coherent, immense, complete masterpieces, like Beethoven symphonies.
Band of Gypsies is an incredible jam album.
It charts unique artistic territory.
It contains Jimi's incredible playing on Machine Gun.
And something else.
Band of Gypsies is a concept album.
A theme album.
And its theme is something that you can live your life by.
This is his philosophical testament.
Something to guide our lives.
It starts, after an introduction, with facing war
And rejecting it.
Rejecting violence.
Machine Gun.
Then coming out the other side.
Emerging from the war, trying to move on.
Like a Vietman vet trying to get back to living life.
Trying to move on with life.
A journey to find a new life.
And then finding it.
In love.
Here we hear Jimi tell us
'With the power of soul anything is possible'
Jimi takes us on a look at the jellyfish story Whether we should go with the flow When we should do more than just float on by
Jimi meditates on Love
And finally Jimi tells us that we gotta live together.
Jimi has laid out his philosophical testament in this album.
And he did it with the cinematic scope of a Steven Spielberg!
A cinematic scope that he showed across large parts of Electric Ladyland
But on Are You Experienced only in the final track (the title track) and '3rd Stone from the Sun'
But that played out across the entire Band of Gypsies album like it does in the best Steven Spielberg movies!
All on an album with a whole new, unique sound
One of the finest jam albums or sets ever
With the great vocal back and forth between the contrasting voices of Jimi and Buddy Miles
And perhaps Jimi's greatest guitar solo ever
All on an album that stands out most of all for its lyrics, its spiritual journey that it takes us on, and its message
Jimi's philosophical testament
One of Jimi Hendrix's three greater recorded masterpieces
Three Magnum Opuses
With Are You Experienced and Electric Ladyland
Above even Axis: Bold as Love
Itself one of the great albums of all time
One of Jimi's three masterpieces
Each unique with different strengths
Are you Experienced?'s vivid color, colorful variety, and vivid dramatic punch, punch delivered not as a crude blow but with the depth and sophistocation of a Beethoven
Electric Ladyland's mix of vivid color, colorful variety, and immense grand cinematic scope
And Band of Gypsies's mix of cinematic scope, spiritual journey, deep natural flow and philosophical lyrics
It's time for a reassessment of band of Gypsies
It's time to give it its due place as one of Jimi's masterpieces
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
P. S. I would like to also give my assessment of Axis: Bold as Love.
Jimi's weakest album But still a towering masterpiece
Jimi's Magical Mystery Tour
(the LP version of Magical mystery Tour, with the singles like Penny Lane on it)
A beautiful colorful psychedelic masterpiece
A little less grand and coherent as a single grand coherent album statement
But still a fine coherent album
With a few of his finest songs
Songs among Jimi's finest moments
On Magical Mystery Tour songs like I Am the Walrus and Strawberry Fields
On Axis songs like Little Wing
Castles Made of Sand
Beautiful jewels with fine stories
Axis was Jimi's Magical Mystery Tour
(The LP Magical Mystery Tour, with Strawberry Fields, not the EP, as it is known to a child of the 90's that knows Strawberry Fields Forever solely through this album)
And still one of the great albums of all time