 My father was a Jimi Hendrix aficionado, which, in turn, pretty much makes me a Jimi Hendrix aficionado as well. I've heard all the bootlegs you can imagine, all the various different mixes and alternate takes that came out of Electric Lady studios, and I would sit enthralled at my fathers feet while listening to him tell someone how Hendrix's guitar work would speak to him whenever he saw him perform live. Of course I assume that he was probably on acid every time he saw Jimi Hendrix perform so of course his guitar would be talking to him! LOL Because of all this I keep up with all the reissues and new archival releases like this one from the Jimi Hendrix Experience called Live In Maui. It's everything that was never used in that POS Rainbow Bridge movie that came out in the 70's, which I watched religiously every time it was shown on ON TV and Select TV back in the days. If you've never seen the movie don't even bother. There's little to none of Jimi in the movie, and the films soundtrack had no Jimi Hendrix music on it, but it was supposed to be a movie starring Jimi Hendrix!! Fucking hippies I swear. 🤣 In the movie all you got were short snippets of Jimi playing live, no complete songs whatsoever, like a guitar playing prick tease, and now with this release, you get everything the band played that day, for better or for worse. And considering the circumstances that this album was recorded under, it's amazing that it sounds as good as it does. Did I mention that the Jimi Hendrix Experience is playing at the side of a volcano in Hawaii on a makeshift stage during a windstorm for this recording, while the audience is divided into seating arrangements based on their astrological signs? Yeah, all this is going on while Jimi, his longtime drummer Mitch Mitchell (who re-recorded his drum tracks later on in the studio... so much for 'live", huh?), and new bass player Billy Cox just stretch out and jam out on some well known hits like Foxey Lady, Dolly Dagger, and Spanish Castle Magic as well as some songs that were never released until years later, songs that were supposed to be on the album Hendrix was working on before he died, songs like Message To Love, Villanova Junction, Jam Back At The House, and Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) which, I think was supposed to be the title of the album he was working on before he died. There's just some fantastic sounding, really interesting stuff here, with the musical genius on display nothing short but staggering. The drumming is monstrous and unrelenting. The bass playing subdued yet razor sharp. And Hendrix's guitar work is not of this Earth, as always. The band toys with past arrangements and attacks older songs differently than the recorded versions, and the extended jams on most of the songs here have the band soaring and grooving all up and down the side of that volcano and riding the wind around just for shits and giggles. This was the 2nd to last concert Hendrix ever played, dying 6 weeks after this gig was recorded, and if this release gives you anything, it's a small, narrow glimpse at what Hendrix might of become or what direction he seemed to be heading in. While not a crucial or even essential release, and there are much better sounding live releases already out there, but Live In Maui shows the Jimi Hendrix Experience in fine form and is definitely worth a listen or two or three. I dig it. Available from Sony Legacy Recordings. Also available from every other place music is sold for profit all across the globe by family members who inherit control of an artists estate and then fight over the money to be made.
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