Crash Landing (Jimi Hendrix album)

For the Die Toten Hosen album, see Crash-Landing (Die Toten Hosen album).

Crash Landing
Studio album by Jimi Hendrix
Released	March 1975 (1975-03)
Recorded	1968–1974
Genre	Psychedelic rock, blues rock, hard rock, funk rock, acid rock
Length	29:34
Label	Reprise
Producer	Alan Douglas, Tony Bongiovi
Jimi Hendrix chronology
Loose Ends (1974) Crash Landing (1975) Midnight Lightning (1975)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
Robert Christgau	(B+)[2]

Crash Landing was the eighth studio album by American guitarist Jimi Hendrix, released in March and August 1975 in the United States and the United Kingdom respectively. It was the fifth Hendrix studio album released after his death and was the first to be produced by Alan Douglas.

Background

Before Hendrix died in 1970, he was in the final stages of preparing what he intended to be a double studio LP, tentatively titled First Ray of the New Rising Sun. Most of the tracks intended for this LP were spread out over three posthumous single LP releases: The Cry of Love (1971), Rainbow Bridge (1971), and War Heroes (1972). In the case of last two of these LP's, a demo track, a live track, & unreleased studio tracks were used to fill out the releases. In late 1973, his International label prepared to issue an LP titled Loose Ends which contained eight tracks, six of which were generally regarded as incomplete or substandard (the only two "finished" tracks on this release were "The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice", a B-side which had been released in 1969 on the European and Japanese versions of the Smash Hits, and a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Drifter's Escape", both of which would ultimately be re-released on the South Saturn Delta CD in 1997). Loose Ends was not released in the USA by Reprise because they considered the quality of the tracks to be subpar .

Hendrix had amassed a lot of time in the studio in 1969 and 1970, resulting in a substantial amount of songs, some close to completion, that were available for potential release. After the death of Hendrix' manager in 1973, Alan Douglas was hired to evaluate hundreds of hours of remaining material that was not used on earlier posthumous albums. Except for "Peace In Mississippi" (recorded in late 1968 at TTG Studios) and "Stone Free Again" (an April 1969 re-recording of "Stone Free") both with the original Jimi Hendrix Experience line up, the material used on Crash Landing consisted of recordings Hendrix originally made with Billy Cox on bass and either Mitch Mitchell or Buddy Miles on drums.

Controversy

Crash Landing was the first release produced by Douglas, and immediately caused controversy. The liner notes of the album indicated that Douglas used several session musicians, none of whom had ever even met Hendrix, to re-record or overdub guitar, bass, drums, and percussion on the album, erasing the contributions of the original musicians and changing the feel of the songs (Hendrix' vocals and guitar contributions were retained). This was evidently done to give a finish to songs that were works in progress or may have been recorded as demos. Douglas also added female backing vocals to the title track. Fans and critics were also chagrined to learn that Douglas credited himself as co-writer of five of the eight songs on the album. Despite all this, the album peaked at #5 in the U.S.^[3] and #35 in the UK^[4], the highest chart positions since The Cry of Love.

Other appearances of songs

Some of the tracks on Crash Landing had appeared on previous Hendrix albums. "Message to Love" and "With the Power" were on the original 6-song Band of Gypsys album recorded at the Fillmore East on New Year's Eve of 1969/70 (the latter was listed under the title "Power to Love") released in early 1970. "Message to Love" was recorded in two sessions on December 1969 and January 1970. Besides its appearance on Crash Landing, "Message to Love" was re-released on Douglas' 1995 compilation Voodoo Soup, along with the instrumental track "Peace in Mississippi" and the "New Rising Sun" segment of the "MLK/Captain Coconut" composite. The 1997 compilation South Saturn Delta contained an extended, reworked version of "Message to Love" entitled "Message to the Universe" as well as a longer version of "With the Power"/"Power of Soul". "Somewhere" was recorded in March 1968 prior to the sessions for Electric Ladyland. "Come Down Hard On Me" is a slightly re-worked version of the same song that originally appeared on Loose Ends in 1974. This song was recorded in July, 1970 and mixed by Hendrix and engineer Eddie Kramer in August. "Stone Free Again" was recorded in April 1969 by the original Jimi Hendrix Experience line-up two months before Noel Redding's departure. It was intended for release as a possible single in the U.S. but was shelved when the original version of the song was included on Smash Hits that summer. "Message to Love", "Somewhere", "Come Down Hard on Me", and "Stone Free (Again)" were included on The Jimi Hendrix Experience box set from 2000 with the original musicians restored.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Jimi Hendrix. Alan Douglas claimed co-writer credits on five tracks. 

Side one
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Message to Love"	3:14
2.	"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (Correct title: "Somewhere")	3:30
3.	"Crash Landing"	4:14
4.	"Come Down Hard on Me"	3:16

Side two
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Peace in Mississippi"	4:21
2.	"With the Power"	3:28
3.	"Stone Free Again"	3:25
4.	"Captain Coconut"	4:06

Captain Coconut is actually a composite of three separate pieces of music that had nothing to do with each other. Engineer John Jansen was going through the Hendrix catalogue to find music to be used in the film "Rainbow Bridge". He merged these three pieces of music together, and it was put into the vaults, until Alan Douglas came upon it in 1975 and named it "Captain Coconut" for use on this release. It is not called "MLK", those were just three stray markings on the original tape box.

Personnel

• Jimi Hendrix – guitars, lead vocals, backing vocals
• Buddy Miles – drums on tracks 1, 6, backing vocals on tracks 1 and 6
• Billy Cox – bass on tracks 1, 6 and 8, backing vocals on tracks 1 and 6
• Noel Redding – backing vocals on track 7
• Juma Sultan – percussion on track 1

Added in 1975:

• Jimmy Maeulen – percussion on tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8
• Jeff Mironov – guitars on tracks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7
• Allan Schwartzberg – drums on tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8
• Bob Babbitt – bass on tracks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7
• Linda November – backing vocals on track 3
• Vivian Cherry – backing vocals on track 3
• Barbara Massey – backing vocals on track 3

References

• Shapiro, Harry; Caesar Glebbeek (1995-08-15). "Appendix 1: Music, Sweet Music: The Discography". Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy (3rd Edition ed.). New York: St. Martin's Griffin. pp. 545–46. ISBN 9780312130626. 

1. ^ Henderson, Alex (2011 [last update]). "Crash Landing - Jimi Hendrix | AllMusic". allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r9224. Retrieved 27 August 2011. 
2. ^ Christgau, Robert (2011 [last update]). "Robert Christgau: Album: Jimi Hendrix: Crash Landing". robertchristgau.com. http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_album.php?id=7001. Retrieved 27 August 2011. 
3. ^ Billboard album charts info - Jimi Hendrix Crash Landing at Allmusic. Retrieved 5 September 2011.
4. ^ "UK chart history - Jimi Hendrix Crash Landing". www.chartstats.com. http://www.chartstats.com/release.php?release=37954. Retrieved 5 September 2011.