Rock Encyclopedia

Rock Band Platform Offers More Songs Than Any Other Rhythm Video Game

It’s official and ahead of schedule!  Harmonix, the world’s premier music video game developer, and MTV Games,a part of Viacom’s MTV Networks, announced that next week’s downloadable content release of tracks from The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s seminal album, Are You Experienced, will push the Rock Band platform past the 2,000-song milestone, with the classic song “Are You Experienced?” coming in at No. 2,000.  More than 2,000 tracks will be available for play in Rock Band 3 when it is released Oct. 26 in North America and Oct. 29 in the rest of the world for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Nintendo DS.

“The success of our song downloads has afforded us the opportunity to approach Rock Band as an interactive music platform and reshape the way gamers think of expansion content,” said Paul DeGooyer, senior vice president of electronic games, music and programming for MTV Networks.   ”Our commitment to weekly releases, disc export, forward compatibility of downloads and the launch of the Rock Band Network were milestones in the development of Rock Band‘s vibrant digital business.  Now, with the release of our 2,000th song, we are reaffirming our commitment to present new music every week – and with the new features in Rock Band 3, there will be more ways than ever to experience it.”

Featuring the music of more than 800 different bands, including Jimi Hendrix, The Who, AC/DC, Green Day, Queen, Slayer, Metallica, Journey, Bob Marley and many more, the Rock Band platform leads the way in providing the best selection of interactive musical content, songs and artists. To see the complete listing of bands and a host of fun stats, please click here. (more…)

Experience Hendrix LLC & Legacy Recordings Launch Monumental Jimi Hendrix Catalog Project With Collection Documenting Pivotal Creative Period in 1969 Valleys of Neptune Available Everywhere Tuesday, March 9

Experience Hendrix LLC and Sony Music Entertainment’s Legacy Recordings will launch their monumental 2010 Jimi Hendrix Catalog Project on Tuesday, March 9, with the release of Valleys of Neptune, a newly curated album of 12 fully realized studio recordings, more than 60 minutes of music never commercially available on a Jimi Hendrix album, from the artist Rolling Stone magazine called the greatest guitarist of all time.

Centered around tracks recorded during a pivotal and turbulent four-month period in 1969, Valleys of Neptune unveils the original Jimi Hendrix Experience’s final studio recordings, as the group lays down the foundation for its follow-up to Electric Ladyland, alongside the guitar superhero’s first sessions with bassist Billy Cox, an old army buddy he’d recruited into his new ensemble.

Valleys of Neptune provides an essential, compelling, and up-til-now largely unseen view of what Jimi Hendrix was up to musically in the critical period between the release of Electric Ladyland in October 1968 and the 1970 opening of his own Electric Lady Studios, the state of the art facility in Greenwich Village where he would begin his final project, the ambitious double album First Rays of the New Rising Sun.

Janie Hendrix, CEO of Experience Hendrix LLC, the Hendrix family-owned company entrusted with preserving and protecting the legacy of Jimi Hendrix, noted, “My brother Jimi was at home in the studio. Valleys of Neptune offers deep insight into his mastery of the recording process and demonstrates the fact that he was as unparalleled a recording innovator as he was a guitarist. His brilliance shines through on every one of these precious tracks.”Valleys of Neptune is originality electrified, offering more than 60 minutes of previously unreleased Jimi Hendrix music, originally recorded, and newly mixed for this historic release, by Hendrix’s longtime engineer Eddie Kramer, who first worked with the guitarist on Are You Experienced? in 1967. Valleys of Neptune is produced by Janie Hendrix, John McDermott (who contributes detailed liner notes to the album) and Eddie Kramer.

“Valleys of Neptune” has long been one of the most sought after of any commercially unavailable Jimi Hendrix recording. The song will be released as a single globally on February 2, 2010, nearly forty years after Jimi finished recording the track at New York’s Record Plant in May of 1970.

Other highlights on Valleys of Neptune include blazing studio covers of Elmore James’ classic “Bleeding Heart” and Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” as well as premier performances of original Hendrix compositions like “Ships Passing Through The Night,” “Lullaby For The Summer” and the original un-dubbed Jimi Hendrix Experience rendition of “Hear My Train A Comin’.” Also included in Valleys of Neptune is “Mr. Bad Luck,” a Jimi Hendrix Experience track, produced by Chas Chandler during the 1967 Axis: Bold as Love sessions.

As part of the opening wave of releases for the Jimi Hendrix Catalog Project, Legacy Recordings will also be releasing new deluxe CD/DVD editions of Are You Experienced?, Axis: Bold As Love, Electric Ladyland, and First Rays of the New Rising Sun, also available on vinyl, on March 9.

Each of the essential titles in the Jimi Hendrix catalog to be newly reissued on Legacy will feature a bonus DVD featuring newly created documentaries directed by the Grammy award winning Bob Smeaton [Beatles Anthology, Festival Express, Beatles: The Studio Recordings] and featuring interviews with Experience members Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell, Billy Cox, original producer Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer. In addition, Smash Hits, Jimi’s original compilation, will be reintroduced. The critically acclaimed Live At Woodstock will be available as a standard DVD as well as a Blu-ray Disc.

“No artist has ever transformed the pop music landscape as profoundly or as permanently as Jimi Hendrix,” said Adam Block, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Legacy Recordings. “We are proud to be partnering with Experience Hendrix in releasing Valleys of Neptune, a treasure for Hendrix fans both new and experienced. It’s an auspicious start in fulfilling a shared vision for the Jimi Hendrix catalog going forward.”

Valleys of Neptune

Stone Free
Recorded: Record Plant, New York, April 7, 9, 14, May 17,1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Vocal, Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Bass: Billy Cox
Drums: Mitch Mitchell
Backing Vocals: Roger Chapman, Andy Fairweather Low

Valleys Of Neptune
Recorded: Record Plant, New York, September 23, 1969, May 15, 1970
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Vocal, Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Drums: Mitch Mitchell
Bass: Billy Cox
Percussion: Juma Sultan

Bleeding Heart
Recorded: Record Plant, New York, April 24, 1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Vocal, Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Bass: Billy Cox
Drums: Rocky Isaac
Tambourine: Chris Grimes
Maracas: Al Marks

Hear My Train A Comin’
Recorded: Record Plant, New York, April 7, 1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Vocal, Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Bass: Noel Redding
Drums: Mitch Mitchell

Mr. Bad Luck
Recorded: Olympic Studios, London, May 5, 1967
Producer: Chas Chandler
Additional bass and drum recording, Air Studios, London, June 5, 1987
Vocal, Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Bass: Noel Redding
Drums: Mitch Mitchell

Sunshine Of Your Love
Recorded: Olympic Studios, London, February 16, 1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Bass: Noel Redding
Drums: Mitch Mitchell
Percussion: Rocki Dzidzornu

Lover Man
Recorded: Olympic Studios, London, February 16, 1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Vocal, Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Bass: Noel Redding
Drums: Mitch Mitchell

Ships Passing Through The Night
Recorded: Record Plant, New York, April 14, 1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Guitar, Vocals: Jimi Hendrix
Bass: Noel Redding
Drums: Mitch Mitchell

Fire
Recorded: Olympic Studios, London, February 17, 1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Vocal, Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Bass, Backing Vocal: Noel Redding
Drums: Mitch Mitchell

Red House
Recorded: Olympic Studios, London, February 17, 1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Vocal, Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Bass: Noel Redding
Drums: Mitch Mitchell

Lullaby For The Summer
Recorded: Record Plant, New York, April 7, 1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Mixed By Eddie Kramer
Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Bass: Noel Redding
Drums: Mitch Mitchell

Crying Blue Rain
Recorded: Olympic Studios, London, February 16, 1969
Producer: Jimi Hendrix
Additional bass and drum recording, Air Studios, London, June 5, 1987
Vocal, Guitar: Jimi Hendrix
Percussion: Rocki Dzidzornu
Bass: Noel Redding
Drums: Mitch Mitchell

Experience Hendrix Tour 2010, the fourth edition of the biennial concert tour that features an all-star line up of music greats paying homage to the music and legacy of Jimi Hendrix gets underway in early March of next year with special performances across the country.

Featured artists who will be performing music written and inspired by Jimi Hendrix include some of the best known and most respected artists in contemporary rock and blues including Joe Satriani, Jonny Lang, Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Brad Whitford (of Aerosmith), Doyle Bramhall II, Ernie Isley, Living Colour, Double Trouble’s Chris Layton, along with bassist Billy Cox. Cox, who first befriended Hendrix when the two were in the 101st Airborne Division of U.S. Army, played in both the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys and performed with Hendrix at such landmark festivals as Woodstock and the Isle of Wight. Cox commented, “It’s a thrill for me to play Jimi’s music for audiences now as it was in the 1960s.”

March 4 – Santa Barbara, CA – Arlington Theater (1)
5 – Los Angeles, CA – Gibson Amphitheater (1)
6 – Las Vegas, NV – The Joint @ Hard Rock (1)
7 – Mesa, AZ – Ikeda Theater (1)
9 – Fresno, CA – Table Mountain (1)
10 – San Francisco, CA – Warfield Theater (1, 2)
12 – Reno, NV – Silver Legacy (1, 2)
14 – Denver, CO – Paramount Theatre (1, 2, 3)
16 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater (1, 2, 3)
17 – Minneapolis, MN – Orpheum Theater (1, 2, 3)
18 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theater (1, 2, 3)
20 – St. Louis, MO – Fox Theatre (2, 3)
21 – Milwaukee, WI – Riverside Theater (2, 3)
23 – Akron, OH – Civic Theatre(2)
24 – Montclair, NJ – Wellmont Theatre (2)
25 – Red Bank, NJ – Count Basie Theater (2)
27 – Atlanta, GA – Fox Theatre (2)

1 = David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas appearing
2 = Sacred Steel featuring Robert Randolph appearing
3 = Susan Tedeschi appearing

For more information, visit www.jimi-hendrix.com

Source: Legacy Recordings

Historic Jimi Hendrix concerts… a legendary performance from Nirvana… U2′s remastered The Unforgettable Fire… every recording by Buddy Holly… nearly every Rolling Stones album since 1971… and a collection from famed sideman Klaus Voormann. With new box sets and albums from UMe, holiday gift-giving has never sounded so good.

Buddy Holly:

He had a brief three-year professional recording career, but Buddy Holly left the music world a vast recorded legacy of 203 tracks–all of them on the limited edition six-CD Hip-O Select box set Not Fade Away/The Complete Studio Recordings And More.

The tracks range from his earliest recordings to demos with Bob Montgomery; from his earliest recordings with The Crickets to his first studio recordings for Decca in Nashville; from the Coral and Brunswick recordings and hits that made him famous to his heralded apartment tapes. There are six previously unreleased tracks plus another 11 previously unreleased in the U.S. All of the original, locatable undubbed recordings and all 57 overdubbed versions recorded after the “day the music died” are here. Many are hard-to-find or make their CD debuts.

Jimi Hendrix:

Two box sets from Dagger Records (Experience Hendrix through Geffen/UMe), offered exclusively through Amazon.com, are each presented with exclusive reproductions of Hendrix memorabilia, including a poster, postcard set replicating classic Hendrix concert posters, set of badges reminiscent of the era, Hendrix iPod Skin, PikCARD with four guitar picks adorned with Hendrix artwork from the concert posters and more.

Jimi Hendrix Experience Live 1968 Paris/Ottawa encompasses a pair of concerts, highlighted by performances of “Purple Haze,” “The Wind Cries Mary” and “Little Wing” from the L’Olympia Theater in Paris and a “Hendrixized” version of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” taped at Ottawa’s Capitol Theater later that same year. Jimi Hendrix Experience Paris ’67 is a custom-swirled, colored vinyl album documenting an earlier concert at L’Olympia and featuring performances of “Stone Free,” “Hey Joe,” “Wild Thing,” etc.

Nirvana:

One of the most bootlegged concerts in the annals of rock– Nirvana’s August 30, 1992, headlining appearance at the U.K.’s Reading Festival–Nirvana Live At Reading (DGC/Geffen/UMe) will be issued in a limited edition DVD+CD Deluxe Edition in November. The footage and audio come in the original multi-track masters and are presented in 5.1 Surround Sound. Only two of the 25 performances on the DVD have ever been released before.

The concert ranked #1 in Kerrang’s “100 Gigs That Shook The World” and “Nirvana’s #1 Greatest Moment” by fans in an NME poll includes nearly the entire Nevermind tracklist, early performances of then-unrecorded songs (“All Apologies,” “Dumb” and the first performance of “Tourette’s”) and live versions of songs later heard on Incesticide. The career-spanning set list also reaches back to the band’s beginnings.

The Rolling Stones:

Thirteen of the 14 Rolling Stones albums since 1971 have been newly remastered and are available from UMe separately or in a limited edition collectible box set exclusively through Amazon.com (1972′s Exile On Main St. will be remastered and released in early 2010). Included is a full-color poster of the band’s Sticky Fingers classic promotional image re-created specially for this package.

The box brings together Sticky Fingers (1971, “Brown Sugar,” “Wild Horses”); Goats Head Soup (1973, “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker),” “Angie”); It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (1974, “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)”); Black And Blue (1976, “Hot Stuff,” “Miss You”); Some Girls (1978, “Beast Of Burden,” “Shattered”); Emotional Rescue (1980, “She’s So Cold”); Tattoo You (1981, “Start Me Up”); Undercover (1983, “Undercover Of The Night”); Dirty Work (1986, “Harlem Shuffle”); and Steel Wheels (1989, “Rock And A Hard Place”) plus Voodoo Lounge (1994), Bridges To Babylon (1997) and A Bigger Bang (2005).

U2:

U2′s fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire, has been remastered for the first time with direction from U2 guitarist, The Edge, and will be released by Island/UMe on October 27, 2009. This special edition marks 25 years since the album’s original release in October 1984. Recorded at Slane Castle, Ireland, The Unforgettable Fire was the first U2 album to be produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and spawned the US top 10 hit – “Pride (In The Name Of Love).”

The limited edition super deluxe box set features bonus audio material, including two previously unheard tracks from the Slane Castle sessions: “Yoshino Blossom” and “Disappearing Act” (a track which the band recently completed), and a DVD including music videos, a documentary and unreleased live footage from the Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope Tour in 1986.

Klaus Voormann:

On A Sideman’s Journey (UMe), famed musician Klaus Voormann, who played bass on solo albums for every Beatle as well as for Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Yoko Ono and others, is joined by musical friends in seven studio sessions in London, Memphis, Hamburg, Los Angeles and Munich. The limited edition two-disc box set, available exclusively through Amazon.com, includes three bonus audio tracks, a DVD documentary on the making of the album, a hardbound book of photos (renowned graphic designer Voormann created the Beatles’ Revolver cover) and more.

Featuring Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Yusuf (aka Cat Stevens), Dr. John, Bonnie Bramlett, Van Dyke Parks, Albert Lee, and others, A Sideman’s Journey finds Voormann & Friends performing favorites such as “Blue Suede Shoes,” “All Things Must Pass,” “Mighty Quinn” and “Just Like A Woman.”

Source: Universal Music Enterprises