This album is of major importance to me because it was the 1st CD I bought for myself, at the record store in the Ocean City MD outlet mall the summer before I turned 11. I don't remember how I discovered his music initially, but I know Hendrix was the 1st musician I became a fan of independent of my parents or sisters. He was my gateway to psychedelic rock that wasn’t The Beatles; to heavier rock forms through his influence on metal guitar playing; to blues, both acoustic and electric; to funk thanks to his Band of Gypsys work. He was also my introduction to the limitations of greatest hits collections & the joy of deep discography dives. But on an extramusical level, Hendrix was my initiation into fandom in general. I did not owe my love of his music to a family member or mentor. He was my discovery, & my first taste of all the feelings that come with that: the pride; the defensiveness when someone slighted him; the sense of somehow being a stakeholder in his legacy; the communal thrill of meeting another fan in the wild; or more often, the solitude of private appreciation. It all started with this CD.
But on this listen, I was keyed into Mitch. I've been playing lots of drums lately, & I don't think I ever realized before just how deeply Mitch Mitchell influenced my own playing. He was a unique drummer, hard-rocking but just as influenced by jazz, powerful but nimble. From listening to this CD over & over & over & over again at a formative age, some of his fills--especially from songs like "Fire" & "Wait Until Tomorrow"--are burned into my brain, & it's hard not to plagiarize them when I'm improvising on the drums. That's why, as much as I like "The Wind Cries Mary," I think Chas Chandler messed up by drowning Mitch's drums in reverb & obscuring his tasty fills. You can hear him so well elsewhere, it comes as kind of a shock.
(As long as I'm critiquing 55-year old production, I'll add that I've never liked "Crosstown Traffic," despite how big a hit it was for Jimi. The whole thing is built on a lackluster lyrical metaphor & the mix is washed-out & noisy, too many studio tricks playing with stereo & flanging.)
As a compilation...well, it's okay. The track order doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, like how they cram almost all the ballads together near the beginning & we don't get another one until "Little Wing" 3 tracks from the end. It seems to be motivated neither by mood nor chronology. The inclusion of the rather slight B-side "Highway Chile" is a headscratcher too--whoever curated this collection must have had a soft spot for it. Thankfully, the compilation does give us some splendid examples of Jimi's (righthanded!) bass playing like "All Along the Watchtower" & "Gypsy Eyes." Basically any time you're listening to a Hendrix song & you notice that the bass sounds awesome, that's a pretty good indication that Noel Redding is not playing. (In case you haven't noticed, I love talking shit about Noel Redding.)
But of course none of that mattered to me back then. What mattered was Jimi, the way his vocals & his guitar seemed like 2 different entities--an axe with a mind of its own & a brainblasted poet reporting scuzzoid news from the 6th dimension. What mattered was the songs, man, & as much as I can gripe about greatest hits collections these days, this one introduced me to some excellent tunes. Since I have all the albums, I don't pull this out very often anymore, but dammit it was there for me when I needed it, so it earns a place of pride in my collection.
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