A ‘27 Club‘ album set featuring artists from the so-called 27 Club of those who died at age 27: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Jim Morrison of The Doors. On the menu: Hendrix’s incendiary performance at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, Nirvana’s 1991 grunge breakthrough Nevermind and The Doors’ Strange Days, the second of two albums, including the debut, the band released in 1967. My thoughts on the albums follow the track listings.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey (2007 Experience Hendrix family trust release)
1. Introduction by Brian Jones (also a member of the 27 Club) of The Rolling Stones
2. Killing Floor
3. Foxey Lady
4. Like A Rolling Stone
5. Rock Me Baby
6. Hey Joe
7. Can You See Me
8. The Wind Cries Mary
9. Purple Haze
10. Wild Thing
1. Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. In Bloom
3. Come As You Are
4. Breed
5. Lithium
6. Polly
7. Territorial Pissings
8. Drain You
9. Lounge Act
10. Stay Away
11. On A Plain
12. Something In The Way
1. Strange Days
2. You’re Lost Little Girl
3. Love Me Two Times
4. Unhappy Girl
5. Horse Latitudes
6. Moonlight Drive
7. People Are Strange
8. My Eyes Have Seen You
9. I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind
10. When The Music’s Over
My track tales/album analyses:
The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey (2007 Experience Hendrix family trust release)
I first heard songs from this album, which has come out in various forms in whole or in part, when my older brother, who introduced me to so much great music, brought home Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival.
Side one of that original vinyl, released in 1970, had four songs by Hendrix; side two was five by Otis Redding. I was immediately struck by Hendrix’s performance of Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone and Redding’s reworking of The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction plus his own Respect – including Redding’s playful intro about how Aretha Franklin had taken the song from him. Otis’s 1965 single reached No. 4 on the R & B charts and No. 35 on the overall Hot 100 while in 1967 Aretha’s version went to No. 1 on both lists.
“This is another one of mine, a song we’d like to do for everybody . . . a song that a girl took away from me, a good friend of mine, this girl she just took this song, but I’m still gonna do it anyway.”
Sadly, six months out from the Monterey festival, held June 16-18, 1967, Redding died in a plane crash between tour stops, two months after turning 26. But we still have his immortal music including the Monterey performance. It was issued as part of a terrific 4-CD box set package of the festival, released by Union Square Music’s classic album reissue label Salvo in 2013. Among the artists: The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother And The Holding Company (Janis Joplin) and The Byrds.
In addition to the four songs on ‘Historic Performances’, Hendrix’s Monterey set was released on its own in 1986 as Jimi Plays Monterey before the Hendrix family trust took over and re-issued it as The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey in 2007.
Nirvana’s Nevermind was the album – fueled by its biggest hit single Smells Like Teen Spirit – that broke the Seattle grunge sound big and opened the commercial success door to such bands as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and any other act from that city that record companies, for a brief time at least, figured they could milk profit from. Most who have heard the album know its singles like Teen Spirit, Come As You Are, Lithium, In Bloom . . . yet among my favorites, certainly my favorite deep cut from the album, is Polly. It’s a compellingly catchy acoustic song I liked from the first time I heard it, without at first knowing its background.
Upon learning what inspired it – an arguably perversely beautiful song about a horrible, life-damaging event, which I suppose was writer Kurt Cobain’s intent – I’ve since been somewhat conflicted about liking it. It’s harrowing listening once you know the subject matter. On the flip side, what is great art if not to inform and perhaps force us to think and feel? Polly is about the abduction, rape, and torture of a 14-year-old girl returning home from a punk rock concert in Tacoma, Washington in 1987. Thankfully, the girl escaped and the perpetrator, Gerald Friend, was captured and is currently serving two consecutive 75-year prison terms. And, hopefully, his victim is alive and as well as one could be, if that’s even possible, after the trauma of such an event. She’d be age 52 now.
I am missing one track in my play of the Nevermind album, that being the experimental ‘noise rock’ ‘song’ Endless, Nameless that was a hidden track after Something In The Way, the last listed song on the record. It took 10 minutes of silence to get there. Was it worth the wait? I don’t think so and I’m all for, uh, creativity. I listened to it once, when I first got the album and noticed the CD player time still ticking, interminably. Never listened to it again until I checked it out on YouTube, where it’s available as an isolated track, while prepping the show. It’s an OK track, I guess, but all these years later it’s confirmed that I haven’t missed much, if anything. And the fact it’s not included on vinyl re-releases of the album – although it was included as a separate song on expanded CD reissues – says something.
According to various sources, the hidden track was inspired by Her Majesty from The Beatles’ Abbey Road, arguably the most famous if not the first hidden track in rock music history. If so, geez, Nirvana, gimme a break. The Beatles didn’t make you wait through 10 minutes of dead air, in the Fab Four’s case it was a few seconds, as was the case 10 years later with The Clash on London Calling and Train in Vain (Stand by Me), a last minute addition to that album. I suppose one could fast forward Something In The Way, the last listed Nirvana track on Nevermind, to get to the hidden song which occupies the same track as Something In The Way. Not worth the effort. And then other bands started doing similar long waits until a hidden track, something of a short-lived fad. Sorry, I don’t have the patience for that BS. If your song is any good, put it within easily accessible reach on the album or as a separate single. But at least we have good citizens out there who extract such songs and put them on platforms like YouTube, so they’re there if anyone is interested.
We conclude with The Doors and the ‘just what you’d be expecting’ set closer, When The Music’s Over from Strange Days. No sophomore slump for these guys on their second album, their second of 1967, released in September after the self-titled debut came out eight months earlier. A great selection of songs, Strange Days, from its opening Moog synthesizer-driven title track through familiar fare like People Are Strange (No. 1 in Canada, No. 10 in the USA), You’re Lost Little Girl, Love Me Two Times and Moonlight Drive. Just another of those classic albums that’s a compelling front-to-back listen.
