Jimi Hendrix -
Axis: Bold As Love
Posted: October 3rd, 2008
Date: December 1967
Release: MCA #10894
Cover Art: view / download
Buy the Album
An early peak in the painfully short career of the greatest guitarist ever. Axis: Bold as Love was a mind blowing journey through the uncharted sounds and emotions of an artist sharing his pure soul. Love was to be the axis of the new galactic order Jimi envisioned, with his music serving as the otherworldly vehicle designed to take us there at 33 1/3 rpm. Innovative beyond compare, Jimi made extraordinary use of the limited 4-track technology at his finger tips, crafting a complex and pivotal album of enduring brilliance. With “Little Wing,” “Castles Made of Sand,” and “One Rainy Wish,” Jimi showed himself capable of creating gently textured songs of poetry that were no less powerful and compelling than the more jamming tunes like “Spanish Castle Magic.” On the electrifying “If 6 Was 9,” Jimi righteously sets forth the philosophy he lived by: “I’m the one who’s gonna die when it’s time for me to die/So let me live my life, the way I want to…” In the jazzed “Up From the Skies,” Jimi sings of the world from the point of view of an extraterrestrial brother hovering high above the clouds. He brings his inventiveness to bear on the solid rhythm and blues of “Ain’t No Telling,” “You Got Me Floatin’, and “Little Miss Lover,” songs which were shamefully ignored by most R&B radio stations across the United States.
Although largely appreciated by a white audience, Jimi really expanded the possibilities of black music, paving the way for the heavy funk explorations of Miles Davis, Curtis Mayfield, Funkadelic, and others. Although Jimi was raised to the status of a rock god, he did a hell of a lot more than simply rock. Axis: Bold as Love covers a nearly cosmic spectrum of sounds, violating musical conventions, and defying what was once thought possible in the realm of the electric guitar and recorded music. It still has one of the all-time best endings of any album, with the title track “Bold As Love” closing out the record in a sweeping climax. An essential recording for all collections.
Players:
- Jimi Hendrix – Guitar, Vocals, Flute (only on “If 6 Was 9″)
- Noel Redding – Bass, Vocals
- Mitch Mitchell – Drums
Tracks:
- EXP (1:55)
- Up From The Skies (2:55)
- Spanish Castle Magic (3:00)
- Wait Until Tomorrow (3:00)
- Ain’t No Telling (1:46)
- Little Wing (2:24)
- If 6 Was 9 (5:32)
- You Got Me Floatin’ (2:45)
- Castles Made of Sand (2:46)
- She’s So Fine (2:37)
- One Rainy Wish (3:40)
- Little Miss Lover (2:20
- Bold As Love (4:09)
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
- ADD:
paxnovus -
I agree 100%!! I am a 46 year old woman AND I still love this LP and still have my original ( well from the early 80s anyway!!) An absolute work of genius that has more 3-d sound with even more dimension than a diamond and more colors than a rainbow!! If you haven’t taken the time or opportunaity to listen to this masterpiece, it isn’t too late!
May 7th, 2009 at 12:59 pmJD Skin -
Although I am certainly no self professed expert of the vast and expansive universe, I am reasonably sure of the creator’s intention for mankind to create his own music. What else are we good for? Bearing this in mind, man can confidently seat himself in the performing theater of the cosmos. ONLY the musicians of the planets may be seated there. It is where they belong. They will not leave it to the ultra conceited, pseudo-journalism, over educated, self-important newsprint socialites at Rolling Stone magazine to pass judgement on where their creations should be ranked in the order of what ever some skull excrement occurred to them at the moment. Axis of Love is worthy of God’s work. I can say no more.
May 12th, 2009 at 3:07 am