Track Listing

1. Who Knows
2. Machine Gun
3. Changes
4. Power to Love
5. Message of Love
6. We Gotta Live Together

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1504 in Music
• Released on: 1998-01-13
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Live, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
Tired of the showboating image that his early live performances had saddled him with--and that his black audience viewed as demeaning and degrading to his musical talent--Hendrix dissolved his Experience in 1969 in search of a more terra-firma-grounded, blues-oriented persona. On New Year's Eve, Hendrix, his old Army buddy bassist Billy Cox, and ex-Electric Flag drummer Buddy Miles performed a loose, jam-filled set at New York's Fillmore East (completists will want the panoramic though uneven Live at the Fillmore East). Released a few months after his New Year's Eve 1970 concert, Band of Gypsys underscored Hendrix's desired return to basics--even if his basic was at a level most guitarists could never attain in a lifetime of playing. --Billy Altman

Customer Reviews

Machine Gun - Tay Ninh Province Vietnam 1969
Imagine hearing this album for the first time on the ear-plug "mono" headphones of a battery operated Panasonic mini reel-to-reel tape recorder. Now imagine that that annoying background noise spoiling the mood is from exploding Viet Cong 122mm rockets while you're hunkered down, cold, hungry, and wet from that incessant goddamn monsoon rain. But you're smiling at every riff 'cause you know Jimi knows what you're thinking. Maybe you're surrounded by living hell, but somehow...THIS MAKES YOU SANE! It's been 30 years since I first "experienced" Band of Gypsies. Nothing else will ever come close to having the same meaning to this old 'Nam vet.

With the power of soul, anything is possible
It was almost symbolic that Band of Gypsys was recorded on New Years Eve 1969/70. Jimi Hendrix had recently discarded his power trio, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and formed the Band of Gypsys with bass-player, Billy Cox and drummer, Buddy Miles. Whereas the Experience exemplified the grinding, baroque, psychedelic rock that largely defined the sixties, the Band of Gypsys exemplified the melodic, groove-heavy, socially and spiritually conscious funk that would largely define the seventies. This live album was the first Hendrix fans heard of the guitarist's new project. Most would not be disappointed. Hendrix's new style nicely sustains the absolutely wicked, inventive guitar-playing from which his reputation was born. His fluid, wavy, hypnotizing jamming scampers through the six tracks, becoming slightly overdone on the nine-minute "Who Knows" and the thirteen-minute "Machine Gun." Still, small sections of unstructured noodling can not stop "Who Knows" from excellently setting the album's funky tone or "Machine Gun" from being one of the most intense, dramatic and stunning songs inspired by Vietnam (Only Hendrix had the ingenuity and skill to make his instrument screech like a battlefield). The two other Hendrix-penned tracks, the groove-rocker, "Power to Love" and the fervent "Message to Love" are two of his most spirit-inspiring works and nicely showcase the Gyspsys' rapid-fire arrangements. Buddy Miles does more than keep the band steady with his fast-paced trouncing, he also contributes two excellent foot-stompers, "Changes" and "We Gotta Live Together." Miles himself would go on to become a star of the upcoming funk/soul movement. Hendrix, tragically, would not live to see it. The artist would die of asphyxiation shortly after Band of Gypsys was released. Sadly, for Hendrix, this funkrock showstopper was not a sign of things to come, but a passing of the torch.

Think Jimi is hype?? Then you need to buy this.
Every rock fan knows that Jimi Hendrix's three studio recordings are absolutely essential. But I would argue that Band of Gypsys is just as important to own. This is where you get to hear Jimi cut loose. If you have any doubt of Hendrix's guitar genius, this album will quickly dispell that for you.

First of all, the Experience do not appear in this album. Instead, Buddy Miles and Billy Cox fill in for drums and bass respectively. The two provide Jimi with a much looser, funkier rhythm section than the Experience. As for Jimi, there isn't much to say... All you need to know is that Band of Gypsys contains some of the best guitar work of his career...if not THE best of his career. "Who Knows", and "Power to Love" are two standout tracks. But the masterpiece of the album is the 12 minute anti-war jam "Machine Gun". It's a song that has to be heard to believed. I still remember the first time I heard it....I was floored. The entire album is filled with enough passion and intensity to rival that of John Coltrane's Live at the Village Vanguard or Live at Birdland.

It is true that there have been hundreds of fantastic guitarists since the death of Jimi Hendrix. Many of them have much more speed and dexterity than Jimi. Still others are university trained and extremely knowledgeable in music theory. But I have yet to hear a guitarist play something as passionate and emotional as "Machine Gun". Band of Gypsys is well worth your money for that song alone.