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1. West Coast Horse
2. Hendrix West Coast Seattle Boy

Jimi Hendrix West Coast Seattle Boy —The Jimi Hendrix Anthology, Experience Hendrix/Legacy Evaluating posthumous Jimi Hendrix releases is tricky business. His four masterpieces— Are You Experienced (1967), Axis: Bold as Love (1967), Electric Ladyland (1968), and the live Band of Gypsys (1970)— so completely transformed electric guitar and altered the sound of popular music that any subsequent Hendrix recordings simply pale by comparison. Since Jimi’s sudden death in 1970, most fans greet news of another Hendrix album with trepidation. It’s no wonder: We’ve been burned by poorly recorded bootlegs and hoodwinked by such major-label monstrosities as Crash Landing and Voodoo Soup (both contained overdubs by studio musicians who had never played with Hendrix). The good news is West Coast Seattle Boy—a five-disc set comprising four CDs and one documentary DVD—has both historical merit and genuine musical integrity.

But the truth is, while this collection will satisfy ardent fans and Hendrix completists, it’s not where newcomers should begin exploring his legacy. The set’s first CD features Hendrix as a sideman backing Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, Don Covay, and various R&B singers starting in 1964. The tracks are lively and it’s fun to hear Hendrix unleash some stinging bends behind the vocals, but the Jimi that brought us “Manic Depression” and “Third Stone from the Sun” is not yet in evidence.

West Coast Horse

Instead, we hear a young guitarist reworking the licks and riffs Ike Turner and Curtis Mayfield brought to the table in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Senior Editor Andy Ellis learned to play classical and rock guitar in France and Germany, and then went on to study jazz at Boston's Berklee College of Music. After playing in bands for several years, Andy discovered he had an affinity for music journalism. During the last two-and-a-half decades, he has written hundreds of features, interviews, and lessons.

Hendrix West Coast Seattle Boy

His work has appeared in virtually every guitar magazine and many websites in the U.S., and dozens of his lessons are collected in popular instructional books. Now based in Nashville, Andy backs singer-songwriters on the baritone guitar.