You got my pride hangin' out of my bed

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts.

09/05/71 : The Cry Of Love - Jimi Hendrix

I'm not a huge fan of letting posthumous albums through, but if I'm going to let it happen then it's likely it's going to be a first posthumous album which features tracks which haven't been previously released and were pretty much complete at the time of the artist's death. And this seems to be very much in that category, so I'm happy to be checking it out.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with this - it gives us a good general Jimi feel, as much as I know what that's supposed to sound like anyway. I certainly can't claim to be an expert but it doesn't feel like this was disrespectful to his memory or an obvious cash-in - and I think that's about all I really have to say on the matter. It's quite a cool album cover though - particularly for a posthumous offering.

We're at #9 in the charts this week on his seventh week of a thirteen week run, with it having peaked at #2 in its first two weeks. The top five this week were The Rolling Stones, Motown Chartbusters Vol 5, Andy Williams, Leonard Cohen and Simon & Garfunkel with the highest new entry being Shirley Bassey (#8).

Wikipedia spends a whole load of time debating whether it's a proper studio album which Jimi had meticulously planned in detail or whether it was something that recording engineer Eddie Kramer, drummer Mitch Mitchell and manager Michael Jeffery threw together from what they could find. Funnily enough, everyone and his dog has an opinion on the matter, including someone who controversially states "well, who can tell, eh?". Some interesting names pop up in minor roles on the album with Steve Winwood providing backing vocals on "Ezy Rider" and Stephen Stills playing piano on "My Friend" - and yes, that's young Elvis on the cover "anticipating by several decades the rap fashion of musicians using their baby pictures for album covers" (hmmm). Critically, it was pretty well received and it also did well commercially, getting to #3 in Canada and the US.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for a fiver, going up to fifty quid for a mint version - but if you want a promotional Japanese version it's going to set you back £685.99, which seems somewhat pricey. I think I'd go as far as saying this could have been a helluva lot worse - it certainly doesn't feel lazy and you don't get the impression Jimi would have listened to it and gone "who's this?", which is sometimes all you can ask for from a posthumous album.

16/05/71 - Not anything anyone actually needs