ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Siggy's copy of the Polydor
Axis/Experienced-double

Album #70 is Axis: Bold As Love by The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Heck, 1967 sure was one of the best years for rock'n'roll.
We are about to celebrate another 40 years anniversary album release again. This time it's Axis: Bold As Love, the 2nd album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Many fans consider it as a good follow up to the favoured debut Are You Experienced. But I've always rated Axis as Jimi's best. Are you Experienced is more well known and has all the hits on it, but Axis has a wider variety of different styles.

I'va always thought of the cover art (the Indian god picture) as Jimi's far best. It was quite recently that I found out that it was not what Jimi had had in mind.

Well, this is how the story goes: Jimi had ordered an album cover that would showcase his "Indian heritage". He considered he had some sort of relationship with the native americans.
When the cover art was finished and delivered, Jimi was disappointed. The artist had got the idea totally wrong and thought that Jimi had talked about the country India of Asia.
Nonetheless I think that the Axis cover is great...very much 1967, don't you think?

The album is said to have been recorded very quickly, following the success of Are You Experienced which was released earlier the same year.

Another good story is the one about Jimi by mistake leaving the master tape of side A in a taxi cab. They had to mix the songs over again in a hurry to be able to get the album pressed on time. They even had to use an old almost destroyed tape of If Six Was Nine. They had to iron it before they could run it in the tape machine.

S.H.. - December 2007.