CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: BOLD AS ATMOS
“It took us just 16 days to make the last LP,” assessed Jimi Hendrix in the December 5, 1967, Manchester Independent. “They usually take three or four months, but we had to get it out to put it in all the kiddies’ stockings for Christmas. It’s called Axis: Bold as Love…”
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Seasonal bounty circa 2025: Bold as Love in both CD and LP configurations, accompanied by the Atmos releases of Electric Ladyland and (yet again) the Jimi Hendrix Experience concert at Los Angeles Forum from April, 1969.
A box set covering Axis: Bold as Love serves as the anchor release in this year’s spate of Jimi Hendrix releases, accompanied by two unrelated Atmos mix projects, as once again Experience Hendrix and Sony Music Entertainment’s Legacy take haphazard aim at Jimi’s enduring impact. In recent years we have gone from Band of Gypsys to material recorded in 1965-1967 to Maui 1970 to shows recorded in 1969 then 1967 followed by a deep dive into recordings made at Electric Lady Studios in 1970.
Is there a narrative of careful curation at play here? Obviously not. The notion of Jimi Hendrix as a substantive, groundbreaking artist whose career is worthy of deeply respectful evaluation contrasts disastrously with Experience Hendrix’s notion of Jimi as pop star, to be marketed as though he remains a current recording artist with his visage freshly plastered across items of cheap apparel and assorted gewgaws.
Alas, we should all be used to the company’s distracted attention span by now; we have just wrapped up the third decade of their curious decisions, missed anniversaries, frustrating release schedules, and standoffish attitudes with Jimi Hendrix’s most dedicated fanbase.
Happy holidays!
Well, what can a poor boy do but to deal with the cards we have been dealt this year. And so, onward!
The CD and LP versions of Bold as Love, the contents bound by the exterior slipcovers.
But first, the standard reminder I always add to the beginning of these free online chapters. When Modern Listener Guide: Jimi Hendrix was originally published in 2018, I endeavored to never let this entity become out of date or behind the times. My solution was to write a new chapter of the book with each official Jimi Hendrix title that is released, easily available online and completely free of charge to the world. This process began with Chapter Twenty-One and the 50th anniversary edition of Electric Ladyland, and has continued to where we are now with Chapter Twenty-Nine and Bold as Love.
As I note in each chapter introduction, these free supplemental chapters have a more conversational and less formal format than the chapters that make up the printed publication of Modern Listener Guide: Jimi Hendrix. For a good look at the printed book’s tone and approach, you can click up top on the link titled “Inside the Book.” There you will find a healthy sampling of actual book content extracted from “Chapter Eleven: ‘We’re Just Jamming, That’s All.’” This material sets up and analyzes Jimi Hendrix’s performance with the Gypsy Sun and Rainbows band at Woodstock. But here in the bonus chapter realm, things are more casual, though certainly no less in depth.
SIGHTS FOR THE SOUNDS
When the advance peeks at the new box set Bold as Love first began to appear, a number of grumpier consumers complained about the childish, amateur artwork depicting a rainbow dragon on the front and a matching rainbow horse on the back. Apparently, it did not matter to them that the child creating the amateur art was Jimi Hendrix himself!
I personally find it endearing, and the die-cut cardboard slipcover that binds the set together effectively provides the set’s title and a glimpse of Jimi’s handiwork in both the four-CD and Blu Ray and the numbered five-LP and Blu Ray box set configurations. As an aside, I will be writing about this set as configured for vinyl, as the content of each album provides quite logical breaks in the music’s presentation. The CDs present the all the same music, but topics are merged. For example, the fourth CD is a mix of both studio efforts and live performances, where the vinyl LPs present either one or the other.
Once the main content box is removed from the slipcover, in both editions the contents slide out from an opening on the right. The liner notes booklet is on top, with the cardboard fold-out for the four CDs or the five individual LPs beneath.
The fully unfolded front side of the Bold as Love CD packaging.
The fully unfolded rear side of the Bold as Love CD packaging.
And now, a pet peeve. The cardboard envelope holding the Blu Ray disc is adorned with artwork from the original Axis: Bold as Love design, but does no-one at Experience Hendrix or Legacy plan for the presence of Blu Ray discs in these sets? As has happened before, it is almost like the Blu Ray is a packaging afterthought. In the LP edition the Blu Ray is simply loose and rambling around its vinyl brethren. In the CD set the situation is even worse – the Blu Ray is wedged in out of sight behind the audio disc in the opening for the first CD. There are legitimate concerns about this potentially scratching the CD, and beyond that is the concern that this first pocket of the packaging received an overload of glue, either accidentally or beefed up for the addition of the Blu Ray jammed behind the disc itself. Once I got the Blu Ray out, I noticed my first CD thereafter putting up resistance whenever I tried to remove it – when, that is, it did not threaten to disappear entirely into the black hole of the expanse now that the Blu Ray package was removed. Further investigation revealed a strip of glue or adhesive material extending at least two inches into the CD storage area from the panel’s spine. It would be a prudent idea to store this first disc in another location, or at the least put it within a protective sleeve before re-inserting it into its original location. While my issues were limited to the first CD, I have seen a discomfortingly large number of reports describing more extensive glue damage in this set’s packaging.
Taking you, the reader, deep behind the scenes: a rectangular strip of thick glue extending into the disc storage area of my Bold as Love’s CD one.
Now that we have dealt with that sticky problem, from an overall art perspective, Bold as Love carries over many of the visual cues that have become hallmarks of recent Hendrix packaging: high-contrast images, bold graphic elements, and lots of purple and orange. Of some interest is that the art and design for this package is from Scott Sandler at Mr. Scott Design Co. rather than the tried-and-true Smay Design, who seemed to have a permanent grip on Hendrix projects. Regardless, Bold as Love looks so characteristic that I simply assumed it was a Smay project until I was poring over the credits.
The booklets in both editions start off matching each other page for page, but variations eventually become apparent – and necessary – to match the different running orders between the two sets. And in what may be a first, the smaller CD booklet contains several photos and images that do not cross over into the much larger LP booklet.
Jimi Hendrix soundchecking in his full psychedelic finery, depicted in a photograph from the CD liner notes booklet that is missing entirely in the vinyl edition booklet.
David Fricke’s original essay on the life and times of Axis: Bold as Love is typically colorful and welcoming. But the detailed notes on individual songs appear sourced largely from Ultimate Hendrix, the 2009 book by Billy Cox, Eddie Kramer, and (mostly) Experience Hendrix historian John McDermott. The problem here is that in the time spanning well over a decade since that book emerged, there have been significant advancements in Hendrix documentation through projects like Ben Valkhoff and Luigi Garuti’s multi-volume Hendrix Day by Day which appear to have not been consulted.
As for the media packaging, the four-CD panel slipcase unfolds with eight panels visible, six bearing colorful graphics in the style of booklet graphics, one panel replicating the Hindu iconography top half of the most familiar cover art for Axis: Bold as Love, and the final panel replicating the Série Panache Axis release in France on Barclay depicting Mitch, Noel, and Jimi on French television as documented by J.P. Leloir.
The five LP covers from the vinyl edition of Bold as Love, along with the front cover of the liner notes booklet.
The LP set’s packaging is, as expected, more elaborate. The stereo Axis: Bold as Love is housed in a complete reproduction of the original stereo Reprise vinyl release, complete with the full Hindu front cover and the stark black-and-white graphics with lyrics on the interior. The mono LP reproduces the entire cover of the French Axis on Barclay referred to above. Albums three, four, and five then revert to similar bold graphics as seen in the CD housing, although they are even more striking due to their increased dimensions.
AXIS AS THE ANCHOR
Oh dear, we did not get very far before we have stepped into a digital morass. Once “finished” music passes into the hands of assorted tech boffins in studios and then into the clutches of the recording industry, it enters another realm entirely, one that is nearly guaranteed to engender endless hot debate – as has been the case with this box set. Confusion over just what listeners are hearing often rules the Hendrix world and Bold as Love offers no respite.
Compacts discs one and two and vinyl LPs one and two offer original stereo and mono mixes of Axis: Bold as Love. And the hype stickers from both the CD and LP box sets proclaim, “The 1967 stereo and mono mixes remastered by Bernie Grundman from the original flat master tapes.” If only it was all as simple as it sounds.
For guidance navigating these murky waters I have turned to Gordon Johnson. Gord recently compiled the definitive analysis of the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the BBC for the authoritative Hendrix publication Jimpress, and maintains a website rich in content dedicated to Hendrix on vinyl at https://jmhvinyl.co.uk/
While I was recovering from a recent surgery, Gord was kind enough to bring me up to speed on what he and others have deduced about the actual origins of the Axis: Bold as Love presentations within the box sets:
“The mono mastered Axis: Bold as Love in both the vinyl and CD set is that from the 2013 Experience Hendrix mono release, just a fraction lower.
The vinyl stereo mastering is similar but not identical to the one that appeared from Experience Hendrix in 2019.
As for CD stereo mastering, my opinion is that it is from Grundman but is detrimentally compressed.
I checked ‘Up from the Skies’ on this box set stereo CD with previous releases from 1997 and 2010. The compression added to the box disc is even more evident in any A/B comparison.
So, the question becomes: is this a recycle of something released previously, or is it a newer mastering that has been overly compressed?”
Thank you, Gord!
Of course, perception of compression levels and appreciation of the art of mastering always comes down to your very own ears. Still, these sonic variations are a topic worthy of note. And a more forthcoming stance regarding information from Experience Hendrix would be a most welcome – and, sadly, unlikely – development.
Anyway, after all that, perhaps the best sounding stereo version of Axis: Bold as Love included in this box set is something we will be getting to toward the end of this chapter. Stay tuned!
But in all the debates and opinions, let us not forget Axis: Bold as Love as an artistic entity. My focus when writing Modern Listener Guide: Jimi Hendrix has always been on the creation of Jimi’s music, from its inspiration and circumstances to its emergence from his amplification. So, for a detailed analysis of the wonders of the Axis: Bold as Love album as the world has come to know and love it, I humbly direct you to the print edition of Modern Listener Guide: Jimi Hendrix and “Chapter Five: Asking the Axis.”
LIBERATED FROM THE VAULTS
Let us start this look at the efforts that led to Axis: Bold as Love with a hypothetical side observation. Beginning in 1964, Pillsbury introduced a series of powdered drink mixes targeted towards kids called Funny Face. In the heavily advertised promotional campaign in print and on television, colors were assigned personalities. I have often wondered if that was at least partially the inspiration behind the color characters Jimi describes in the song “Bold as Love…”
That possible influence aside, I will note once again that we will be touring this set’s contents in the Bold as Love LP order. There is a fair amount of variation in the two running orders, though I have been unable to figure out a rational reason. For example, “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” from the British broadcast of Top of the Pops is the third from the last song on the fourth and final CD, while it is the very last song on the fifth and final LP. Why? Who knows? Rest assured though, that despite the order differences, all the same musical content is included in both sets. If I mention something on the LP, it is on the CD, too, likely in the same general area.
Being impatient I went directly for the unreleased material upon opening Bold as Love, which kicks off on the third album with a pass through “Mr. Bad Luck,” a song that would eventually be presented on the posthumous album Rainbow Bridge as “Look Over Yonder.” This version is more basic, recorded at Olympic Studios on May 5, 1967, the same day work was ongoing for “If 6 was 9” and the day “The Wind Cries Mary” was released as a single in England.
Almost immediately the spotlight turns to Noel Redding’s “She’s So Fine” as we go back in time one day in pursuit of a backing track. It was a composition Noel had imagined earlier that same day when the Experience were promoting “Purple Haze” on BBC’s Top of the Pops. This surging instrumental put focus on the verse drone notes, contrasted with the fleet orchestrated ascents in the chorus. And this is a wonderful example of Mitch Mitchell at his most flamboyant, early-Experience driving-the-band style, calling to mind the dramatically aggressive approach of Keith Moon with The Who.
Demoed nearly two months earlier in the spring of 1967, “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” makes its first of many appearances on Bold as Love as the Experience attempt to solidify a backing track for the unusual composition. Recorded less than a month after Monterey International Pop Festival, this version of the song at Mayfair Studios in New York offers a basic vocal take without ornamental guitar overdubs or solo phrases, the basic construction laid bare.
Final work on “The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam’s Dice” would also take place at Mayfair, but before leaving the West Coast post-Monterey the Experience did the initial work on this song at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles. This is the first of two appearances of the song on Bold as Love, complete with the spontaneously generated crowd scene enjoying Jimi’s tour of outer space accompanied by an agreeably growling bass track.
It is back to Mayfair and another look at “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” edging closer to completion. This instrumental depicts Jimi prominently hammering out harpsichord notes over wah-wah guitar. Though there is no lead vocal, the swelling chorus background voices are now in place, offering their heavenly support. That chorus is particularly effective in the act of uplifting Jimi’s aggressive guitar solo.
Then it is back to the cosmos as “The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam’s Dice” is nearly ready for a final vocal. Here the presentation of the backing track emphasizes the backwards guitar Jimi applied throughout over trebly bass plonking, though the Milky Way tour section does get monotonous without Jimi’s amusing narration.
“Stone Free/Up from the Skies” is a brief but unusual demo captured with a more barebones focus on performance documentation. Recorded at London’s Regent Sound Studios a month after the Experience had returned to London from the States in the summer of 1967, the by-now-familiar “Stone Free” is briefly reimagined before yielding to the primitive promise of “Up from the Skies.” At the least it hints at the direction Jimi would take the song, though it lacks the cool shuffle vibe of the final track.
Having moved to Olympic Studios by October 29 for a more formal recording session, on the next track Mitch Mitchell begins to develop that shuffle approach in this second appearance of “Up from the Skies.” It is now an instrumental getting close to the heart of the song before dissolving into studio chatter.
“Ain’t No Telling” was also given the quick-and-dirty demo recording approach at Regent. The fast-paced song is heard rough and raw but the entire set of song components are fully developed and ready for final assembly, enhanced with an intriguing mid-song alternate break.
That final assembly of “Ain’t No Telling” began in earnest days later at Olympic, and Bold as Love next presents the rollicking musical fabrication underway as an instrumental nearly ready for Jimi’s final vocals.
The pattern of capturing rougher demos at Regent continues with “Little Miss Lover.” This selection again reveals a composition ready for studio attention, though here it lacks a focus on the grinding progression that would become a mid-song highlight.
“One Rainy Wish” would become an ethereal highlight of Axis: Bold as Love, but heard here early on at Olympic in its very first take the goal of the Experience may well have been to just get all the way through the song. The subtle dynamics and atmosphere that elevated the finished track would come after nearly two dozen takes of refinement.
“You Got Me Floatin’” brings a surge of energy through the excitement of a first take at Olympic. One of the most propulsive tracks on Axis: Bold as Love, here “You Got Me Floatin’” diverts into an interesting mid-song breakdown. Mitch’s driving percussion provides the real firepower, at least until Jimi’s aggressive and chaotic soloing frames the charge to the ending, startlingly cut by the halt of the tape machine.
Between takes in the studio Jimi Hendrix would occasionally generate unaccompanied deployments of fascinating-if-brief improvised guitar. Fortunately engineer Eddie Kramer frequently rolled tape to document Hendrix’s off-the-cuff and in-the-moment musical bursts. One such instance is presented as “Untitled Guitar Experiment,” a delay-treated exploration of chordal melodies translated through Jimi’s bright-and-shimmering clean Fender Stratocaster tones.
“Castles Made of Sand” is a remarkable highlight of Axis: Bold as Love, and it should come as no surprise that honing the backing track of this composition presented challenges at Olympic. Bold as Love offers the sixteenth pass through the song in the quest for studio perfection, and finds the Experience very close to that sonic nirvana. The structure is now solidly supporting the song, and the subtleties are emerging.
Did I just mention challenges at Olympic? “Bold as Love,” the climactic summit of the Axis: Bold as Love album, was a testament to creative and studio ingenuity that put Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Kramer, and producer Chas Chandler to the test in the realization of Hendrix’s vision. But long before that sonic peak was achieved Hendrix was dialing in his approach and arrangements. This pass has a surprisingly relaxed feel, crowned by a jaw-dropping solo of progressions, some of which will make the final cut of the song, others of which easily could have.
WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM FOR A STATEMENT FROM THE ATTENTION TO DETAIL DEPARTMENT: On the label for side one of LP four, the first track is listed as “Bold as Love [Take 21].” However, since in every other location – the booklets of both editions, as well as the LP artwork – all refer to this being Take 19, for now we will assume the LP label was printed in error. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
Early in the recording of “Wait Until Tomorrow” at Olympic, the second take of the song in offered by Bold as Love as an instrumental format shining sonic light on Jimi’s concise but brilliant rhythm guitar. A discussion over Mitchell’s drum breaks provides a brief window on the process of guiding songs to their final studio presentations.
The box set moves on to the heaviest song on Axis: Bold as Love, “Spanish Castle Magic.” As with several of the songs presented in early take form, this instrumental version is interesting yet still obviously a foundation requiring more attention. It is not as devastating as the final concoction, lacking the aggressive edge of the track when finished, yet Jimi’s solo nearly makes up for it with a series of swooping bends.
More of a run through the song structure than a serious attempt at laying down a backing track, the Experience’s second pass through “Little Wing” at Olympic finds the progressions in place but the delicate emotion of the final version is still hiding.
The first of two tracks labelled “Untitled Instrumental” recorded the same day early on at Olympic that October has a feel like a more aggressive “Wait Until Tomorrow,” though a mid-song progression emerges that is in the neighborhood of “Valleys of Neptune.” The second instrumental has the propulsion of “Driving South,” one of Jimi’s favorite jams of this era, in a speedy workout that sounds more like blowing off some steam in the studio than anything crying out for further development.
What is described as an “alternate version” of “Little Miss Lover” follows, offering an approach that is harsher than the version heard on Axis: Bold as Love. The better recording made the final cut.
Bold as Love next offers a second glimpse at the early proceedings of “Spanish Castle Magic” through presentation of the fourth take at Olympic. Despite the ferocity of Jimi’s outro solo, this take overall is one still lacking the sonic impact the Experience would attain after another ten attempts.
With Jimi’s snaky rhythm guitar taking center stage, the final backing track of “Wait Until Tomorrow” is next heard as an instrumental awaiting only the addition of vocals.
Focus is turned to an element Jimi relied on frequently in the studio, that of devising a guitar track that was intended to be played back in reverse. Bold as Love presents this method as it was designed for “Castle Made of Sand.” This would arguably have been more interesting hearing what would become backwards guitar offered instead as Jimi played it forward, though those sufficiently interested in this matter can use desktop audio software to create a DIY revelation.
The final offering from the Olympic sessions is an alternate vocal by Jimi over the completed backing track of “One Rainy Wish.” This is mostly notable for the recording being playing back all the way to the bitter end, with no fade out applied.
This fourth album concludes in mono with the August 18, 1967, release in England of two new songs now completed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” with “The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam’s Dice” combined for the band’s fourth single on Track Records.
WHERE YOU HAVE HEARD THIS BEFORE
Depending on the depth of your Jimi Hendrix collection, the remainder of the non-Atmos material on Bold as Love can be a voyage of discovery – or not.
A Jimi Hendrix Experience radio concert, recorded at Stockholm, Sweden’s Radiohuset Studio 4 on September 5, 1967, initially received commercial release in 1991 as the first disc of the four-CD Stages box set, while producer Alan Douglas was in control of the Hendrix catalog. The merits of these performances are documented in detail in “Chapter Four: The Love Crowd” in Modern Listener Guide: Jimi Hendrix.
The September 5, 1967, performance of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in Stockholm has been available as far back as 1991, with the show presented as the first concert in the Stages CD and cassette box sets.
Over three decades later Experience Hendrix decided to include this same show in Bold as Love, as representative of the Jimi Hendrix Experience live during the Axis: Bold as Love recording timeframe. The first six songs take up side one of the fifth LP, and the remaining two open the album’s second side.
What could possibly be controversial about this decision? I am sorry you asked.
Let us begin with a setlist of what the Jimi Hendrix Experience played for broadcast on that date nearly six decades ago. Stages presented the running order as “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Fire,” “The Wind Cries Mary,” “Foxy Lady,” “Hey Joe,” “I Don’t Live Today,” “Burning of the Midnight Lamp,” and “Purple Haze.”
Yet eight years later, when Tony Brown published his book Jimi Hendrix Concert Files, the setlist was considerably different, including the migration of “Hey Joe” and “I Don’t Live Today” to a position just after Jimi’s opening cover of The Beatles’ song.
A decade after Brown’s book, in the aforementioned Ultimate Hendrix, the 2009 publication by Billy Cox, Eddie Kramer, and (again, mostly) Experience Hendrix historian John McDermott, the setlist given for this show again differs from the Stages lineup, matching the first half of Brown’s revision but with a differing placement of “Fire,” “The Wind Cries Mary,” and “Foxy Lady” later in the performance.
Despite these developments and discrepancies that have emerged over the years, Bold as Love goes with the same apparently mismatched running order for this broadcast as we encountered way back on Stages. In fairness, it is certainly possible the Swedish broadcasters are responsible for re-ordering the Experience set.
Unfortunately, it is possible this running order is not all that is now shared with that earlier release. Sonically, it sounds as though Experience Hendrix is presenting the exact same content as Douglas did with Stages.
Why is that problematic?
Again, turning to Ultimate Hendrix, the text notes that when it came to preparing this Stockholm show for release in 1991, Stages associate producer Bruce Gary admitted this show “had not been sourced from original master tapes but instead from unauthorized bootleg copies he had obtained.”
It seems that while preparing this bootleg source for official release, it is likely engineer Joe Gastwirt applied some level of aural enhancements to the recording under the guidance of Gary and Douglas. The result sounds like soundstage processing to give the impression of a stereo effect. Which, once you have heard the power of the unaltered mono master, makes such subsequent studio hijinks irrelevant and unnecessary. Aspects like the explosiveness of Mitch’s drums are dramatically more apparent on the master.
But wait, there’s more. You may be wondering how we know what that unaltered master tape sounds like.
In further documentation of this Stockholm show, Ultimate Hendrix went on to reveal that, “shortly after Experience Hendrix took over the management of Hendrix’s archives in 1995, Eddie Kramer uncovered the original master tape from this performance.”
It appears that way back in 2000, when the “purple box set” titled The Jimi Hendrix Experience was being assembled, engineer Eddie Kramer turned to this master and utilized it to extract both “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” for presentation on that expansive overview of Jimi Hendrix’s career.
So, if Kramer partially used the unaltered master source tape two decades ago, why on earth was it not used in 2025 for the show’s complete inclusion on Bold as Love? Why was the 1991 version from Stages apparently used instead?
Unfortunately, I do not have an answer to that one.
The remainder of the fifth album’s second side kicks off with a promotional performance by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on August 22, 1967, a good two weeks before the Stockholm broadcast but just two days after they returned from their eventful United States journey which had begun at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June.
Appearing on BBC television host Simon Dee’s Dee Time program, the Experience played along with a live vocal over a recorded track of “Burning of the Midnight Lamp,” the song which had just been released in England as the latest Experience single four days earlier. The existence of this performance created quite a stir when it first appeared in 2011 on the Radio Tymes compilation, before Experience Hendrix then added it to the slightly expanded running order of their reissue of The Jimi Hendrix Experience purple box set in 2013.
On November 10, 1967, the Experience were up early to fly to Amsterdam for an appearance on the Dutch television show Hoepla. Of the three songs they performed for the program, only “Catfish Blues” had been released previously, on the :Blues compilation of 1994. But the Experience played their hits to round out the performance, with “Purple Haze” and “Foxy Lady” now released on Bold as Love.
The final album’s last track ends the set with the sixth version of “Burning of the Midnight Lamp,” a song which you may not need to hear again any time soon after the heavy dosing of Bold as Love. This rendition from two days after the Dee Time appearance features another live vocal laid down over a recorded track – but not before the wrong track, “The House that Jack Built” by Alan Price Set, is briefly cued up to the embarrassment of all.
Always quick with aside, Jimi jokes, “Oh, man – I don’t know the words to this one!”
WELCOME TO ATMOS TERRITORY
We now move to the Atmos portion of our program. As you have no doubt recognized, Atmos is both the new buzz word in audio marketing as well as the new excuse for the music companies to re-release and re-sell everything post-Atmos conversion.
I must admit that the closest my Atmos listening comes to the 7.1 standard is through my 5.1 system which complements my separate stereo system. The “2” I am missing are the overhead ceiling speakers, which for me are an impossibility installation-wise due to an angled ceiling in my listening room. Nevertheless, 5.1 can be fully involving and Atmos is adept at folding down from 7.1 to 5.1 and even stereo.
I do wonder how many audio consumers actually have made the investment of moving to 7.1 capability. I suppose eventually some demographic figures reflecting this will start to turn up, though it may well serve the industry better to just leave things in vague “the latest thing” clothing.
Immediately prior to the arrival of Bold as Love, I had Atmos experience via my 5.1 configuration with two recent high-profile releases, The Who’s Who Are You and the landmark Genesis album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
Steven Wilson’s mix for The Who was a revelation, fully involving and subtly directing attention to Peter Townshend’s brilliant playing throughout. Reading the liner notes after, I saw Wilson’s comment that one of his goals was to tactfully renew listener focus on Pete’s guitar. Mission accomplished!
On the other hand, the Genesis experience was disorienting. The mix made full use of the soundstage, but it was populated with newly revealed but previously unused vocals and moments where instrumentation I had hoped to hear more clearly was submerged under other instruments. In fact, I eventually aborted this Atmos session in favor of a high-res stereo playback.
What would an Atmos treatment do to Axis: Bold as Love?
In the end, it is a mixed bag. To be honest, I do not think the source recording has sufficient discrete tracks to construct a surround mix of enveloping audio texture. You can very clearly perceive the distribution of the channels, but they are extremely isolated from each other. It sounds in a way like the album has been taken apart.
For example, in “Up from the Skies,” Jimi’s vocal is right front, the shuffling wah-wah guitar left rear. The positions get reversed in the song’s bridge. But my jaw never dropped in, “Wow, never heard that before…” astonishment.
Jimi’s voice in “Little Wing” sounds almost disconnected from the backing track. And “If 6 was 9” hosts the most audio stunts, psychedelic intentions requiring intense panning that comes as no surprise.
“Gimmicks, here we go again, gimmicks man,” Jimi once famously said. “I’m tired of people saying we reply gimmicks… Gimmick. Yes, we do.”
Multi-channel gimmicks aside, there is an aspect of Atmos that Axis: Bold as Love swims through beautifully, and that is mixed down to stereo. Whatever was done to disassemble the album recordings for distribution across multiple channels creates a beautiful sonic vista when all the 7.1 aspects are returned to humble stereo. Here is where you can really appreciate new flavors on passages we know so well, not through a massive reinvention but through a slightly alternate unified presentation. Getting to know this album’s stereo Atmos mix is highly recommended.
And speaking of stereo, earlier in this chapter I mentioned the ongoing brouhaha over the technical and sonic specifications of the Axis: Bold as Love content reproduced on the dedicated CDs and LPs of the two box sets. Well, hallelujah! Tucked away on the Blu Ray discs hosting Atmos is something that hopefully we can all agree on, that being the wonderful quality of the hi-res original stereo edition of Axis: Bold as Love. This 24-bit/96-KHx presentation, blessedly uncompressed, is being universally welcomed with open ears and arms, as far as I have seen. And fortunately, this is included on the Blu Rays of both variations of Bold as Love, along with a mono companion.
The exterior packaging of the 2025 Experience Hendrix Atmos mix releases.
Now that we have roamed through Bold as Love at length, let us turn to the Atmos companions Experience Hendrix released at the same time, revisitations of Electric Ladyland and Jimi Hendrix Experience – Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1969, hereafter shortened to Los Angeles Forum.
In the disappointing 50th anniversary package of Electric Ladyland in 2018, a surprising highlight was a complex and highly effective 5.1 surround mix tucked away on a Blu Ray disc bearing the Classic Albums documentary about the making of the album. Now this Atmos mix makes a surround effort available as a standalone product.
As you might expect, Electric Ladyland offers a far more fertile field of Atmos-friendly terrain than Axis: Bold as Love, and the tone poem of “…And the Gods Made Love” allows all the speakers to get involved right away.
“Crosstown Traffic” offers a good example of why Electric Ladyland thrives in the surround realm. Double-beat accent guitars in the verses ping-pong back and forth from side to side, but the stability of everything else anchors that movement.
If the Atmos treatment made Axis: Bold as Love at times sounds nearly disassembled, the treatment is far more successful on the higher track count of Electric Ladyland. The option of having some audio parts retain mix stability while others supply subtle movement works well. Certain aspects of Jimi’s studio artistry are revealed to shine in new emphasis and clarity, such as the nested-in-stereo guitar tracks of “1983… (A Merman I should Turn to Be)” which now each claim their own presence in the surround mix.
And even after listening to all the versions of “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” throughout the Bold as Love material, my ears immediately perked up over the sonically spacious, magnificent unfurling of the song in its Atmos guise.
As a welcome bonus, the Blu Ray disc bearing the Atmos mix also offers a high-res 24-bit/96-KHx stereo mix presented in uncompressed fashion.
Interior view and booklet for the Atmos release of Electric Ladyland.
Visually, the booklet that comes with this Electric Ladyland package reveals nothing new, essentially recycling large portions of the CD booklets going as far back as the Experience Hendrix and MCA alliance of 1997 and the Legacy edition a decade later. If you have seen them, you will find nothing new here.
The importance of source material providing Atmos the opportunity to demonstrate its capabilities is far more of an issue with Los Angeles Forum.
That should be no surprise, as a live recording consisting of five elements – vocals, guitar, bass, drums, audience – is necessarily a static presentation. Zooming the guitar across multiple channels would make no sense, as that would be entirely distracting from the sense of an in-concert performance. If the attraction of surround mixes is the creative presentation of each song’s construction, how can a live concert recording rise to those standards?
To be honest, it really cannot. The front speakers carry the weight; the rear speakers provide ambience. In fact, the rear speakers to me sounded mostly like they were duplicating the front content, but at a lower volume, with more reverb treatment, especially on the drums, plus audience noise as a sense of space.
The Lifelines box set of 1990 was the first commercial release to document the April 26, 1969, concert by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in Los Angeles. The cover photo does not depict Jimi at the Los Angeles Forum, or even in 1969 for that matter…
I suppose the added presence is a sonic bonus, but it is not like my listens to the original stereo mix – either when this show first emerged in the 1990 Lifelines box or in its more recent Experience Hendrix guise – ever amounted to an unfulfilling experience. And that stereo mix from 2022 is provided here in high-res 24-bit/96-KHx uncompressed format as a bonus on this Atmos Blu Ray.
Interior view and booklet for the Atmos release of Los Angeles Forum.
As for the packaging of this new variation of Los Angeles Forum, all the artwork from the 2022 CD is recycled nearly page by page in its entirety, with only a couple of minor layout changes. Despite the hype sticker proclaiming “rare photos and comprehensive liner notes,” you will simply find again Billy Gibbons’ factually dubious introduction, and the lengthy essay by Randy Lewis which dedicates nearly as many words to the concert introduction as to Jimi’s actual performance.
Of course, both Electric Ladyland and Los Angeles Forum have been extensively covered in the realm of Modern Listener Guide: Jimi Hendrix. The creation of the former is documented in “Chapter Eight: Electric Landscape” of the printed book and in the first free, online chapter, one dedicated to the 50th anniversary edition, “Chapter Twenty-One: Electric Ladyland, Slight Return.” Los Angeles Forum was also covered in a free, online chapter in 2022, “Chapter Twenty-Six: Yet Another Slight Return.”
AS FOR THE FUTURE?
I do wonder what the attraction was for Experience Hendrix to revisit the Los Angeles show from 1969 yet again. It is not the best performance of the Experience from that year, though it does have its moments and, of course, is well worth hearing. Yet surely their attention might have been better directed at something we have not heard rather than offering this as a third appearance in the release cycle: as Lifelines component in 1990, as CD/LP 2022, and now Blu Ray 2025.
Then again, it is possible this was a test market release, just to see how well a relatively unheralded show released in Atmos would sell compared to the companion release of the better-known Electric Ladyland.
I am afraid that it is inevitable that more and more of the back catalog will receive the Atmos mix treatment – at the expense of unheard material – as this format seems to have caught on commercially with far more enthusiasm than 5.1 surround mixes. It has a catchy marketing ring to it that the scattered terminology of DVD-A, SACD, and the like never were able to muster. Although as I questioned earlier, how great is the audience segment that has both the dedicated space and the equipment to host an accurate Atmos 7.1 playback system?
However, if the music industry can recycle their releases repeatedly, I will take that as permission to do a bit of recycling of my own.
Here once again are the final paragraphs from the free, online chapter I just mentioned, “Chapter 26: Yet Another Slight Return,” covering the initial Experience Hendrix release of Jimi Hendrix Experience: Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1969, a chapter published just over three years ago. I can think of no other closing thoughts that are any more appropriate or relevant today than these from the past.
So, here we go again:
Have we truly reached the point where the only option with live material is repackaging previously released performances?
I certainly doubt that to be true. But there is no arguing that Los Angeles Forum is a fine release. So, if we are to continue down this familiar road, then there are two obvious, essential concerts worthy of full curation – one which could fit in a modest package like Los Angeles Forum, the other demanding a box set effort. The first is the May 24, 1969, show in San Diego, one that to date has seen its songs scattered hither and yon across multiple releases. And speaking of scattered, the other performance worthy of complete documentation is Berkeley, recorded on May 30, 1970. Why this one has not been done properly is a confounding mystery, but it is time to correct that glaring oversight with a box set presenting the afternoon soundcheck/rehearsals and both concerts performed that evening.
Is it too much to ask to make this happen?
Postscript: To those who might logically point to the existence of 2003’s Live at Berkely release of the May 30, 1970, second show as an impediment to the creation of a complete Berkeley box set, I would remind you that 2016’s Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show was included in its entirety three years later in 2019’s Songs for Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts box set. Just saying…
