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.
Fifty years after the three-day concert made rock’n’roll history, a gargantuan, 38-disc set attempts to tell the full story of the event for the very first time. The mythological status of 1969’s Woodstock Music and Arts Festival can sometimes feel overpowering. The festival is the ultimate expression of the 1960s. Moments from the three-day concert have crystallized as symbols of the era, with details like Richie Havens’ acoustic prayer for freedom, Roger Daltrey’s fringed leather vest, or Jimi Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner” held up as sacred countercultural relics.
It’s been a while since MARC REECE’s much acclaimed solo album “Let It Burn” (Inakustik, 2009) had seen the light, but now the Blues/Rock guitarist puts the waiting to an end by releasing his highly anticipated new work, that goes by the name “Dreamer”.Extensive touring all across Europe and Asia during the past years, either with his own power trio or as a line-up member in the bands of other renowned artists, was the reason it took until 2019 for Marc to finally manage to start the recordings for his fourth studio album.
This internationally-acclaimed power trio returns with their highly-anticipated, second full-length release for Moonjune Records. Mercy, Pity, Peace & Love is a concept album deriving its inspiration as much from William Blake's visionary aesthetics (the title is taken from the poet's Songs of Innocence and Experience) as from 20th century musical icons ranging from Jimi Hendrix, King Crimson and Tortoise to Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen. Rather than a linear sequence describing one musical event, this record is a multilayered sonic adventure that has a lot of stuff going on. Alternately fiery and mellow, groovy and meditative, Mercy, Pity, Peace & Love is a marked departure from the free rock and jazz models of its predecessor.
As the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) had done a year earlier, Super Session (1968) initially ushered in several new phases in rock & roll's concurrent transformation. In the space of months, the soundscape of rock shifted radically from short, danceable pop songs to comparatively longer works with more attention to technical and musical subtleties. Enter the unlikely all-star triumvirate of Al Kooper (piano/organ/ondioline/vocals/guitars), Mike Bloomfield (guitar), and Stephen Stills (guitar) – all of whom were concurrently "on hiatus" from their most recent engagements. Kooper had just split after masterminding the groundbreaking Child Is Father to the Man (1968) version of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Bloomfield was fresh from a stint with the likewise brass-driven Electric Flag, while Stills was late of Buffalo Springfield and still a few weeks away from a full-time commitment to David Crosby and Graham Nash. Although the trio never actually performed together, the long-player was notable for idiosyncratically featuring one side led by the team of Kooper/Bloomfield and the other by Kooper/Stills.