BBC Sessions

Between February and December of 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience had exploded from a buzz band with a strong live rep and a heatseeking single into the catalyst for the most transformative guitarist in rock history, conquering the Monterey Pop Festival and notching two revolutionary albums on the way. That’s the timespan covered by this collection of Hendrix and the Experience at the BBC, and while it’s sequenced more for excitement than chronological accuracy, it’s still possible to hear his evolution from exceptional blues-rock guitarist to psychedelic worldbeater. The first-take spontaneity and figure-it-out-as-we-go inventiveness might not have the polished nuance of studio Hendrix albums, but it’s a blast to hear him and the band in the raw, whether Jimi’s vamping serrated riffage off Noel Redding’s churning low-end basslines and Mitch Mitchell’s thunderstorm drumming in early-career hits (“Stone Free”; “Fire”), or building stunning cathedrals of distortion out of blues standards (“Hoochie Koochie Man”; “Killing Floor”). Bonus points for the astounding genius-summit novelty of an instrumental cover of Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made to Love Her” — with Stevie himself playing the drums.