South Saturn Delta
MCA Records
| Performance 8.5 | Sound 7.5 |
Jimi
never got the chance to release his fourth album, a double record,
before he departed on that fateful day way back in September of 1970.
For over 20 years the music of Jimi Hendrix has been fought over by his
record companies and his father, Al Hendrix. Finally, Al Hendrix has
won the rights to Jimi music and has re-released the three original
records along with increasing amounts of ancillary records like this
effort entitled South Saturn Delta.
The Hendrix estate has take great care to make the master tapes sound
better then we have ever heard them resulting in obviously better
sounding Jimi CD releases. South Saturn Delta contains a compilation of
Hendrix material ranging from an alternate version of "All Along The
Watchtower" all the way to songs only released on import LPs including
cuts like "Pali Gap" and "Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice".
The guitar playing is of the highest caliber, creatively ground
breaking with sweeping passages, burning solos and 3 part rhythms that
after 12 years of guitar study and a University of Southern California
Music Degree, I still can't quite figure out.
The song writing or I should say the production isn't quite up to the
level that you would find on the three first records. Obviously, Jimi
never had the time to be a perfectionist with this final project. It
has been rumored that many of these last songs featured studio
musicians to fill out the tracks. None the less, as a huge Jimi Hendrix
fan, I am satisfied with the resolute and dynamic sonics on this record
plus the fact that I can - once and for all - throw away the crapy CDR
and bootleg copies of the records I had archived these songs on. South
Saturn Delta may have been 20 years in the making but it is worth the
wait.
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