John Mcdermott

Buddy Guy coaxes the audience to go along with him and Junior Wells way down deep, and way back to the rawest roots of urban blues in a tribute to Muddy Waters. The tune begins with silence – the room is dead. And you suddenly realize that Guy is plucking out barely audible chordal accompaniment on his guitar, anticipating Wells’ murderously bittersweet harmonica bends and subtle lines. They slink along together as the rest of the band comes in to offer support. Wells’ voice emerges quietly, but right from the beginning it seems to traverse the full range of a blues voice, as if multiple bluesmen were all being channeled at once – we get soft and sweetly melancholy, gut-wrenching scoops, growls, shouts and all the rest you can imagine.

Given that Jimi Hendrix's career as a frontman lasted only about three years, it might be hard to believe that there's still great material that hasn't been officially released even 40 years after his death (of course, unofficially released is a different matter). But here is Jimi's three-night stand at Winterland in San Francisco from October of 1968, which, despite excellent recordings by Wally Heider, sat largely unreleased until 2011. A single disc was compiled and released by Rykodisc in the late '80s (there was also a hard-to-find three-track bonus disc), but had been out of print for years when this box set arrived…

On March 9, Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, proudly release Both Sides of the Sky, a dynamic new Jimi Hendrix album featuring 13 studio recordings made between 1968 and 1970—10 of which have never before been released. The album will be released on multiple formats including CD, digital, and as a numbered 180 gram audiophile vinyl 2LP.

The opening riff to "Foxey Lady" provides the foundation for the instrumental "Trash Man," and no amount of bastardization can take away from the genius guitarist his legacy. If you take this work at face value, without the baggage of what "producer" Alan Douglas did to the tapes, this time with Tony Bongiovi along for the ride, it's still Hendrix…