Jimi Hendrix Axis: Bold As Love CD

This 1997 reissue of AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE is a newly remastered version that restores the original album artwork. It includes a 24-page booklet with previously-unpublished photos and song lyrics. It is among the first batch of albums on Experience Hendrix, a new label controlled by Hendrix's family.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Jimi Hendrix (vocals, electic guitar); Noel Redding (vocals, bass); Mitch Mitchell (drums, background vocals).
Recorded at Olympic Studios, London, England.
Originally released on Reprise.
Includes liner notes by Jym Fahey.
Personnel: Jimi Hendrix (vocals, guitar); Trevor Burton, Roy Wood (vocals); Mitch Mitchell (drums).
Audio Remasterers: Eddie Kramer; George Marino; Joe Gastwirt.
Liner Note Author: Michael Fairchild.
Photographers: Gered Mankowitz; Eddie Kramer; Leni Sinclair; Ron Rafaelli; Baron Wolman; David Sygall; Ed Thrasher; Bruce Fleming; Linda McCartney.
Unknown Contributor Roles: Gary Leeds; Graham Nash.
Jimi Hendrix's second album followed up his groundbreaking debut effort with a solid collection of great tunes and great interactive playing between himself, Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell, and the recording studio itself. Wisely choosing manager Chas Chandler to record the album, since he was in the midst of a creative hot streak, Hendrix stretched further musically than the first album, but even more so as a songwriter. He was still quite capable of coming up with spacy rockers like "You Got Me Floating," "Up from the Skies," and "Little Miss Lover," radio-ready to follow on the commercial heels of "Foxey Lady" and "Purple Haze." But the beautiful, wistful ballads "Little Wing," "Castles Made of Sand," "One Rainy Wish," and the title track set closer show remarkable growth and depth as a tunesmith, harnessing Curtis Mayfield soul guitar to Dylanesque lyrical imagery and Fuzz Face hyperactivity to produce yet another side to his grand psychedelic musical vision. These are tempered with Jimi's most avant-garde tracks yet, "EXP" and the proto-fusion jazz blowout of "If 6 Was 9." ~ Cub Koda
AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE was the follow-up to ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?, and represented a much more conscious use of the recording studio's possibilities. Where his live shows continued to showcase the raw rocking power of the Experience, the recording studio gave Hendrix the composer/arranger a broader palette.
There are still plenty of powerful blues/rock-inflected songs, such as the menacing "If 6 Was 9," the rolling "Spanish Castle Magic" and the spatial title tune. But "Up From The Skies" is a jazzy trio romp, featuring Hendrix's bluesy, vocalized wah-wah pedal. And on the ballads "Little Wing" and "Castles Made Of Sand," Hendrix shifts the focus from the band to the silvery chord/melody accompaniments he often employed to complement his vocals. They are an orchestral effect unto themselves.Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.116) - Ranked #82 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "...Like Hendrix, AXIS was cryptic and bewitching..."
Q (12/93, p.136) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...AXIS dazzles as the Experience creates a genre probably short-lived because nobody else could play it: jazz metal might be the appropiate tag..."
Down Beat (8/97, p.61) - 4 1/2 stars (out of 5) - "...pales only slightly in comparison [to ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?]..."
Vibe (2/94, p.103) - "...for folks who've never heard Jimi on vinyl, the rainbow fantasia world of Hendrix awaits you in all its polyphonic peacock glory...."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.52) - Ranked #7 in Mojo's "The 50 Most Out There Albums Of All Time" - "Far out indeed."