CoronaVinyl Day 133 (Dead By 30): Axis: Bold As Love by The Jimi Hendrix Experience

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "dead by 30," and sadly, over the years, we have lost far too many talented musicians before they entered their fourth decades.  Of course, there's the infamous 27 Club, featuring musicians who died when they were 27 -- including Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Rudy Lewis, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and Pete Ham.  And there are plenty of other artists who lost their lives before turning 30, like Otis Redding, 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., Duane Allman, Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Eddie Cochran, Selena, Ronnie Van Zandt, Aaliyah, Sid Vicious, Randy Rhoads, Cliff Burton, Marc Bolan, and Tammi Terrell.

I have albums by a bunch of these artists or the bands they were in, some of which I've already featured.  I decided on The Jimi Hendrix Experience's sophomore album, 1967's Axis: Bold As Love, since it's my favorite of the band's three studio albums.  While I realize that back in April, I already featured The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Otis Redding's combined live album from the Monterey Pop Festival, given that it was a split album with one side the Experience and one side Redding, I think it's fair to give the greatest guitarist ever his own post.  I'll probably do the same for Otis someday, too.

Axis: Bold As Love is just a fucking awesome record.  It's everything I love about both Hendrix and the Experience.  If listening to the album today is an indication, I'm pretty sure I know every word on the album, as I found myself singing to myself without even intending to do so.  Obviously, the guitar playing is out of this world, but the other two band members cannot be overlooked.  Mitch Mitchell's drumming is maniacal at times, sneaking in delicious fills to complement the feel of songs, and Noel Redding's bass isn't something you might notice at first, but once you do, you realize how great it was.

More than anything, though, on this album, Hendrix's songwriting skills began to really shine.  He wrote all but one of the 13 songs on the album, and with masterpieces like "Little Wing," "Castles Made of Sand," and "Bold As Love" (which also features some of Mitchell's most delicious fills), he showed that his songwriting abilities were up there with any of his peers.  There's also the trippy psychedelic blues sludge of "If 6 Was 9," the fun-loving pop rock feel of "Wait Until Tomorrow," the acid soul/rock of "Little Miss Lover," the more straightforward rock of "Spanish Castle Magic" and "You Got Me Floatin'," and a whole lot more that I'll let you listen to and discover for yourself.  It's rock, its psychedelia, it's blues, it's pop, and sometimes, it's all of those things rolled into one.  


The album would be the Experience's second straight Top 5 album in both the U.S. and UK, reaching #3 on the Billboard album chart and #5 on the UK album chart.  This is even more impressive, given that the only single released from the album was "Up From The Skies" with "One Rainy Wish" as a b-side, and it only reached #82 on the Billboard Hot 100.  The album was #83 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Little Wing"

This is arguably Hendrix's opus.  It's just such a perfect pop song, but it doesn't even feel like a pop song.  It feels like a dream, with a glockenspiel and lyrics about clouds, flying, animals, and moonbeams.  Then Hendrix reminds everyone that he's the best guitarist there's ever been with his understated, yet passionate, solo that ends the song.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "One Rainy Wish"
Recorded on my negative tenth birthday, "One Rainy Wish" features my favorite Hendrix moment, which occurs at the end of the first verse, when the guitar kind of hangs on to a note and that then the chorus starts. I get chills every time I hear it and often when I'm just thinking about it. Seriously.  I like that moment and this song so much that I railroaded my now-wife into including the chorus lyrics on our wedding program ("I have never laid eyes on you / Not like before this timeless day / But you walked in and once smiled my name / And you stole my heart away").