Voodoo Soup

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Voodoo Soup is a posthumous album by Jimi Hendrix. It was released on April 11, 1995 by MCA Records and was compiled by Alan Douglas, who was also responsible for the posthumous Hendrix releases Midnight Lightning and Crash Landing in the 1970s. The album was made up of unfinished studio recordings which were intended to be released on Hendrix's newest studio album, which was never-to-be. Douglas is a controversial figure amongst Hendrix fans, as on his previous releases he had brought in musicians who had never worked with Hendrix to overdub damaged/badly recorded drum, bass and even guitar parts. For the production of this album, two tracks' drum parts were overdubbed by Bruce Gary of The Knack, "Room Full of Mirrors" and "Stepping Stone". Most of the tracks on this album were released - in one form or another - on either First Rays of the New Rising Sun or South Saturn Delta in later years, with the exception of the instrumentals "The New Rising Sun" and "Peace in Mississippi". A portion of the instrumental released on this album as "The New Rising Sun" can be heard in the song "Captain Coconut" on the Crash Landing album, originally released in 1975. The version of "Peace In Mississippi" included on Voodoo Soup is the genuine original version of the song, as recorded by Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding in 1968, and different from the version of "Peace In Mississippi" included on Crash Landing, in which Mitchell and Redding's contributions were supplanted by overdubbed drum and bass parts performed by other musicians in 1975; the version on Crash Landing also included overdubbed guitar and percussion parts performed in 1975. In addition, the version on Voodoo Soup is about a minute longer than the one on Crash Landing. Voodoo Soup is no longer available to purchase, as it was deleted when the Hendrix family gained control of his recordings, and has been replaced by First Rays of the New Rising Sun.

The album was badly received by some fans who objected to the overdubbing, and it also omits several notable songs, such as "Dolly Dagger" and "Izabella". However, the album was praised by Charles Shaar Murray, the author of the acclaimed book Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-War Pop, who claimed that it "more than earns its place in the pantheon of great Hendrix albums" and said that it "brought the Hendrix studio quartet -finally!- to a satisfactory conclusion."

The album cover artist is Moebius.

Track listing

All songs written by Jimi Hendrix.

1. "The New Rising Sun" – 3:21 (previously unreleased)
2. "Belly Button Window" – 3:34 (from (The Cry of Love)
3. "Stepping Stone" – 4:07 (from War Heroes)
4. "Freedom" – 3:25 (from The Cry of Love)
5. "Angel" – 4:18 (from The Cry of Love)
6. "Room Full of Mirrors" – 3:09 (from Rainbow Bridge)
7. "Midnight" – 6:01 (from War Heroes)
8. "Night Bird Flying" – 3:46 (from The Cry of Love)
9. "Drifting" – 3:52 (from The Cry of Love)
10. "Ezy Ryder" – 4:08 (from The Cry of Love)
11. "Pali Gap" – 4:42 (from Rainbow Bridge)
12. "Message to Love" – 3:33 (from Crash Landing)
13. "Peace in Mississippi" – 5:22 (from Crash Landing)
14. "In From the Storm" – 3:39 (from The Cry of Love)

Personnel

• Jimi Hendrix – vocals, guitar, piano
• Billy Cox - bass guitar, backing vocals
• Mitch Mitchell - drums
• Buddy Miles - drums on "Room Full of Mirrors" and "Ezy Ryder"
• Juma Sultan - percussion

Notes

• Track 1 re-released on West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology in full length
• Tracks 2-6, 8, 9 and 10 re-released on First Rays of the New Rising Sun
• Track 14 was re-released in its unedited form as the b-side of "Bleeding Heart" vinyl-only single in 2011
• Tracks 7, 11, and 12 re-released on South Saturn Delta

See also

• List of best-selling music artists
• Jimi Hendrix discography