Crash Landing (Jimi Hendrix album)

For the Die Toten Hosen album, see Crash-Landing (Die Toten Hosen album).

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Crash Landing is a posthumous compilation album by American guitarist Jimi Hendrix. It was released in March and August 1975 in the United States and the United Kingdom respectively. It was the first Hendrix album to be produced by Alan Douglas.

Background

Before Hendrix died in 1970, he was in the final stages of preparing what he intended to be a double studio LP, which was given various titles such as 'First Rays of the New Rising Sun', 'People, Hell & Angels', and 'Strate Ahead' [sic]. Most of the tracks intended for this LP were spread out over three posthumous single LP releases: The Cry of Love (1971), Rainbow Bridge (1971), and War Heroes (1972). In the case of the last two of these LPs, a demo track, a live track, and unreleased studio tracks were used to fill out the releases. In late 1973, his international label prepared to issue an LP titled Loose Ends which contained eight tracks, six of which were generally regarded as incomplete or substandard (the only two "finished" tracks on this release were "The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice", a heavily re-mixed stereo version of the B-side which had been released in the original mono mix on the 1968 European and Japanese versions of the Smash Hits, and a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Drifter's Escape", both of which would ultimately be re-released on the South Saturn Delta CD in 1997). Loose Ends was not released in the USA by Reprise because they considered the quality of the tracks to be subpar.

Hendrix had amassed a great deal of time in the studio in 1969 and 1970, resulting in a substantial amount of songs, some close to completion, that were available for potential release. After the death of Hendrix' manager in 1973, Alan Douglas was hired to evaluate hundreds of hours of remaining material that was not used on earlier posthumous albums. "Peace in Mississippi," "Somewhere," and "Stone Free" were recorded with the original Jimi Hendrix Experience line up, while the rest of the material used on Crash Landing consisted of recordings Hendrix originally made with Billy Cox on bass and either Mitch Mitchell or Buddy Miles on drums and on one occasion by Rocky Isaacs.

Controversy

Crash Landing was the first release produced by Douglas, and immediately caused controversy. The liner notes of the album indicated that Douglas used several session musicians, none of whom had ever even met Hendrix, to re-record or overdub guitar, bass, drums, and percussion on the album, erasing the contributions of the original musicians and changing the feel of the songs (Hendrix' vocals and guitar contributions were retained). This was evidently done to give a finish to songs that were works in progress or may have been recorded as demos. Douglas also added female backing vocals to the title track. The album peaked at #5 in the U.S. and #35 in the UK, the highest chart positions since The Cry of Love.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Jimi Hendrix. Alan Douglas claimed co-writer credits on five tracks

Side one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Message to Love"	3:14
2.	"Somewhere Over the Rainbow"	3:30
3.	"Crash Landing"	4:14
4.	"Come Down Hard on Me"	3:16

Side two

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Peace in Mississippi"	4:21
2.	"With the Power" (Correct title: "Power of Soul")	3:28
3.	"Stone Free Again"	3:25
4.	"Captain Coconut"	4:06

Captain Coconut is actually a composite of three separate pieces of music that had nothing to do with each other. Engineer John Jansen was going through the Hendrix catalogue to find music to be used in the film "Rainbow Bridge". He merged these three pieces of music together, and it was put into the vaults, until Alan Douglas came upon it in 1975 and named it "Captain Coconut" for use on this release. It is not called "MLK", those were just three stray markings on the original tape box.

Other appearances of songs

Three versions of songs on Crash Landing had appeared on previous Hendrix albums. "Message to Love" and "With the Power" were on the original Band of Gypsys album recorded at the Fillmore East (the latter was listed under the title "Power to Love"), released in 1970. "Come Down Hard on Me" originally appeared on Loose Ends in 1974, and the version on Crash Landing is a wiped, overdubbed, edited version.

Message to Love: The original recording of "Message to Love" that was used as the basis for the Crash Landing version can be found on the West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology box set.

Somewhere: A posthumous version featuring 1971 overdubbed drums by Mitch Mitchell and without the Douglas era-overdubs can be found on the The Jimi Hendrix Experience box set from 2000. Another version was released on People, Hell and Angels, albeit doctored up. Despite using a take of a backing track featuring original musicians Buddy Miles on drums and Stephen Stills on bass from the same March 13, 1968 Sound Centre sessions that utilized the original master take, Eddie Kramer flown in Jimi's vocals onto this version via Pro-Tools. The same vocals that can be heard on both Crash Landing and The Jimi Hendrix Experience version.

Crash Landing: The title track was released in 2013 on the album People, Hell and Angels. As with "Somewhere", this is a different take of the backing track with the original musicians and Jimi's vocals flown in via Pro-Tools. The vocal track's a composite of the same take as that of the backing track as well as elements of the vocals that were used and can be heard on the Crash Landing album. The guitar solo differs from the People, Hell and Angels version.

Come Down Hard on Me: This can be found with the original musicians reinstated on The Jimi Hendrix Experience box set.

Peace in Mississippi: This was released on the compilation Voodoo Soup in 1995, in a longer version and featuring the Experience. However the complete original version was not released until being featured as the b-side to the "Valleys of Neptune" single in 2010. It was also later issued on the 2013 reissue of The Jimi Hendrix Experience box set.

Power of Soul/With the Power: The original, longer studio version of "With the Power", entitled "Power of Soul", is found on the b-side of the "Somewhere" single from 2013.

Stone Free Again: appears under the title "Stone Free" with all original musicians restored on the The Jimi Hendrix Experience box set from 2000. However, the guitar solo differs from the version on the box set. The vocals from this and the Crash Landing versions were flown in, via Pro-Tools, onto the backing track with Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox from May 1969 for inclusion on 2010's "Valleys of Neptune".

Captain Coconut: An edited form of the New Rising Sun segment heard at the end was first released on Voodoo Soup in 1995, and then in its full length form on the West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology box set, whereas the full length middle "MLK" segment can be heard in full on the "Ezy Ryder/MLK Jam" found on the Burning Desire compilation. However, the Uni-Vibe drenched flamenco introductory part has yet to be re-released officially. It is possible that the intro was lifted from an unreleased alternate take of the song "Hey Gypsy Boy" recorded during a March 18, 1969 session at Record Plant Studios that is now available on People, Hell and Angels. Some sources have the intro part recorded at Electric Lady Studios during the summer of 1970.

Musicians

• Jimi Hendrix – guitars, lead vocals, backing vocals
• Buddy Miles – drums on tracks 1, 6, backing vocals on tracks 1 and 6
• Billy Cox – bass on tracks 1, 6 and 8, backing vocals on tracks 1 and 6
• Juma Sultan – percussion on track 1

Added in 1975:

• Jimmy Maelen – percussion on tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8
• Jeff Mironov – guitars on tracks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7
• Allan Schwartzberg – drums on tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8
• Bob Babbitt – bass on tracks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7
• Linda November – backing vocals on track 3
• Vivian Cherry – backing vocals on track 3
• Barbara Massey – backing vocals on track 3

Original recording details and wiped backing musicians

• Track 1 recorded at the Record Plant in New York City, New York on December 19, 1969.
• Track 2 recorded at the Sound Center in New York City, New York on March 13, 1968. Wiped: Stephen Stills - bass, Mitch Mitchell - drums
• Track 3 recorded at the Record Plant in New York City, New York on April 24, 1969. Wiped: Billy Cox - bass. Rocky Isaacs* - drums, Al Marks* and Chris Grimes* - percussion & [unknown] - organ (*from the group, the Cherry People)
• Track 4 recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, New York on July 15, 1970. Wiped: Billy Cox - bass, Mitch Mitchell - drums
• Track 5 recorded at TTG Studios in Los Angeles, California on October 24, 1968. Wiped: Noel Redding - bass, Mitch Mitchell - drums
• Track 6 basic track recorded at the Record Plant in New York City, New York on January 21, 1970.
• Track 7 recorded at the Record Plant in New York City, New York on April 7–9, overdubs inc. backing vocals on April 14, 1969. Wiped: Noel Redding - bass, Mitch Mitchell - drums, Roger Chapman & Andy Fairweather Low - backing vocals.
• Track 8 (unknown to Douglas) was a composite of three different bits, of unrelated tracks put together posthumously in 1973 by John Jansen. These were variously recorded at Electric Lady, NYC, in July/August 1970 (possible recording date for the intro); at Record Plant, NYC, January 23, 1970 (the middle Ezy Ryder/MLK Jam); and at TTG Studios, Los Angeles, Ca. on October 23, 1968 (the New Rising Sun outro). Douglas added overdubs to Jansen's original

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

• Moskowitz, David (2010). The Words and Music of Jimi Hendrix. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 0313375925. Retrieved July 1, 2014. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Shapiro, Harry; Caesar Glebbeek (August 15, 1995). "Appendix 1: Music, Sweet Music: The Discography". Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy (3rd ed.). New York: St. Martin's Griffin. pp. 545–46. ISBN 978-0-312-13062-6.

External links

• Crash Landing at Discogs (list of releases)