September Songs

Among all his remarkable and varied compositional talents, Purcell was the supreme craftsman when it came to setting his native language to music. Addison wrote of Purcell’s ‘Tunes so wonderfully adapted to his Words’ and Playford, in his introduction to the first volume of Orpheus Britannicus (1706) commented that ‘The Author’s extraordinary Tallent in all sorts of music, is sufficiently known; but he was particularly admir’d for his Vocal, having a peculiar Genius to express the Energy of English Words, whereby he mov’d the Passions as well as caused Admiration in all his Auditors’. Purcell combined an innate sense of the natural rhythms of speech and a wonderful melodic flair with a richness of harmonic language that few composers have ever matched.

Songs For Groovy Children assembles all four historic debut concerts by Jimi Hendrix’s newly assembled Band of Gypsys at New York’s Fillmore East on New Years Eve 1969 and New Years Day 1970. Presented in their original performance sequence and encompassing 43 tracks across 5 CDs or 8LPs, the set boasts over two dozen tracks that have either never before been released commercially or have been newly remixed plus the full extended versions of songs originally released on the 1970 Band of Gypsys album. Measured alongside his triumphs at Monterey Pop and Woodstock, Hendrix’s legendary Fillmore East concerts illustrated a critical turning point in a radiant career filled with indefinite possibilities. Earlier in 1969, The Jimi Hendrix Experience had closed a musical chapter and the guitarist assembled a new trio dubbed Band of Gypsys, consisting of Hendrix, his longtime friend Billy Cox, on bass, whom he had befriended when both were serving with the 101st Airborne Division Cox and Electric Flag drummer Buddy Miles, who would also contribute occasional lead vocals.

Live songs of iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE is a two-CD compilation sent to U2.Com subscribers as the annual subscriber gift for 2019. The CDs are housed in a photographic book documenting the tours, and they contain live music from the band. The booklet is similar in size to a 7-inch record. The set features one disc of live versions of songs from the Songs of Innocence album. The second disc features live versions of songs from the Songs of Experience album. Both releases are roughly sequenced to match the song flow from the 2015 and 2018 tours. All of the songs performed live from those two albums are represented on this release, with the exception of two bonus tracks, “Lucifer’s Hands” and “Ordinary Love.” The version of “The Little Things that Give You Away” is taken from the 2017 tour. All of the songs on the first disc are taken from 2015 with the exception of “Iris (Hold Me Close)” which is taken from the 2018 tour. There are 23 songs in total in this collection. The first disc is labeled “Live Songs of iNNOCENCE” and the second disc in the set is labeled “Live Songs of eXPERIENCE.” Both are manufactured in the Czech Republic.

Imagine that years after your favorite television series had ended (be it Seinfeld, The Sopranos, Stath Lets Flats, Twin Peaks or any other), you learned that additional episodes had been shot during the show’s best years and were about to be released in pristine quality. Would it matter that you had already watched dozens of episodes from the same season?