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List Price: $13.98 | | Label: Mca
Salesrank: 845508
Released: July 6, 1999 |
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| Used Price: $24.97 |
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| Media: Audio Cassette |
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Editorial Review:
You want guitar precision, listen to Jim Hall. You want perfect pitch, listen to Ella Fitzgerald. You want raw, electrifying, frightful, unruly, mesmerizing, aggressive, urgent, and occasionally brilliant gutbuckets of sound, listen to Jimi Hendrix's Monday morning Woodstock finale. Most of the masses had gone home, Jimi was nervous, his band unrehearsed, and the sound was as muddy as the grounds, but so what? In August of 1969, Hendrix's band, which he dubbed Gypsy Sun and Rainbows for this performance, was in a period of transition between the heavy psychedelic bluesy Experience and the more soulful, rhythmically dynamic Band of Gypsys. The two percussionists and a rhythm guitarist who augment Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell and Gypsy bassist Billy Cox are either mixed out by the engineer or drowned out by Hendrix's ferocious attack. Throughout the intense performance, finally restored here in sequential order and (almost, save for two Larry Lee vocals) in its entirety, Hendrix seems to touch on every musical style--from jazz to blues to funk to soul to metal, and even a few (fusion, punk) that weren't christened yet. There are crisper Hendrix shows out there, but none more explosive or more historic. --Marc Greilsamer
Live at Woodstock Reviews:
classic 
2009-12-01 - It was not what was in the water or in the air or what happened at Yasger's that weekend. It was what was in Jimi Hendrix in 1969 that makes this a classic concert.
Beleive it or not, the master himself was not quite sure. He knew he was a musician and not a showman, and he thus broke up his Experiance in late 1968.
He was going back to straight blues, but he was talking about working with Miles Davis. He was jamming with John Mcglaughlan. He was jamming with Larry Young. He was jamming with Traffic. Basically, working with as many master musicians he could find, soaking up context and ideas.
This is where Hendrix was the morning of that concert. His large, loose ensamble, Electric Sky Church, jammed with him on straight blues tracks like "Hear My Train 'A Commin,' and "Red House,"
But they were also cuttiing, and cutting hard and heavy, a path to the future. Listen to the angular time cuts of "Back At The House--Beginnings" where Hendrix weaves a complex rhythm pattern far more complicated than anything on the Experiance albums.
It is funk and blues and jazz. And if it sounds like a patch work, so what! How often does a genius open his sketchbook and let you look. Hendrix is working out the new music in front of a mass audiance, and that takes guts. Who knows where he would have taken these ideas. To Miles, George Clinton? Who can say?
But either way, the show sounds great. If we never got to really hear those Beginnings finished, at least we have the Beginnings themselves.
Musical Genius, but Ultimately Not Enough Peace, Love and Happiness
2009-08-08 - This performance captures something of what happens to a romantic prodigy when he runs out of material. First, he perfects the existing material and continues to show off his amazing talent. Second, he pays sardonic homage to a counter culture whose parachute is full of holes and also on fire. Third, he is unsure of, not just himself, but of all these honkies yelling at him to turn up the voice. Fourth, he's had his fill of Mitch Mitchell (Granny Goose) and white people in general - can't blame him. Fifth, he's stuck though, because, without Mitchell, he'd be even deeper in the woods. Sixth, he's stoned out of his mind and not too coherent.
His sound is great and his musicianship sterling. "Isabella" and "Fire" actually stand out as great songs, though you usually hear about the "Star Spangled Banner." His disrespect, if any, is belied by his clothes - red, white and blue and he is one of, if not the, greatest American musician in history. No one will ever catch him either.
But he is still an adolescent, as most great talents are doomed to be. And, I don't agree about the transition argument so much because he had already done great blues work with the Voodoo Chile songs on Electric Ladyland and the all-black Band of Gypsies doesn't achieve the heights met in this performance. I think his artistic development often gets mixed up with his racial identification and issues. Do geniuses actually develop? Seems like he hits the motherlode on Electric Ladyland and then scatters in different directions, rehashing the same material - "Isabella" is lifted from a traditional blues song that appears on the "Hendrix Blues" CD. "Machine Gun" ("Band of Gypsies") is "Hear My Train a Coming" with fewer chord changes and different lyrics. The critic needs artistic development; the genius runs out of SOWUNZZZZ and needs an early death to get out of this great mess he has created.
At Woodstock, when Hendrix is in control, it is melanin-rich and very good. When Hendrix and Mitchell are going head-to-head, it is very good too, as the two are musically joined at the hip. When Mitchell tries to control the show, though, Hendrix drifts off into choppy playing that is usually out of sync with the rhythm. This may be done on purpose to back Mitchell off or maybe it just throws Hendrix off. The second CD opens up into a wonderful jam, where giddiness, not insecurity, is the only weakness, as Hendrix thinks the show is over fifteen minutes before he actually ends it. The guy cracks me up.
But, ultimately, Hendrix got stuck in his own intricate magic man web. He actually reached a point where he told Mike Nesmith that he didn't want to play the guitar anymore. On "Band of Gypsies," the energy is escaping, the sounds are not new and the songs second-rate.
A very angry, confused, soft-spoken introvert, Hendrix most captures the peacenik: lots of personal problems, not into the conventional world and too enlightened to become physically violent, though he did get violent at times. And also very funny. At Woodstock, he says at one point, "waiting all these three years [sic] (try days), with a little bit of rain..." Coming from Seattle, maybe it appeared to him like just a little bit of rain, but the guy just cracks me up.
He is criticized in the liner notes for ending with "Hey Joe," but remember he must have been completely exhausted and would "Wild Thing" have been better? No, he picks the right song and, though his voice is failing, the fingers just keep on going flawlessly. And "Hey Joe" is about leaving, which they are about to do. So, there. Had he lived, I think he would have disappeared like John Lennon, maybe to resurface in 1980 to vent similar disappointments.
A Historical Time For Rock
2007-10-05 - By 1969 the whole hippie thing was starting to fade but this was the last gathering of all of them at WOODSTOCK This is hendrix at woodstock. This to me is a histroical concert ecspecially during Jimis electrifying star spangled banner which really defined what america was going thru at that time this album rocks it has voodo chilid with jimi playing it with his teeth(AMAZING) this album litterlay proves that jimi hendrix is the greatest guitarist of all time. This is hendrix at his best in concert rock on
R.I.P. JIMI HENDRIX
Hendrix at Woodstock
2007-04-10 - A nice collection of Hendrix highlights from Woodstock.....not too many of these sort of Woodstock Highlights for individual artists exist to my knowledge...this one is a real keeper.
Get the DVD instead?
2005-12-21 - Now that a double dvd of Jimi's Woodstock gig has been released, remixed by Eddie Kramer (including a 5.1 surround mix), there's not much need for this CD, especially since the dvd set is cheaper. Just beware that the older single dvd release bears the same title as the new one; "Live At Woodstock".
