Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Sorry guys, I wanted to write a glowing review of this new collection. I've been listening to it all evening. It's good, but nothing like I expected or what it could have been. I am a sucker for Hendrix material. I will buy anything - like this box set. It is an anthology of his career from the earliest beginnings to the very end. There are a few gems on here, and a lot of songs of lesser quality. I am still glad I bought it, but I'm a Jimi addict. I'll buy anything with his name on it. If you are a long time collector then you probably already have most of the material in this set and I know the boots are almost as good sound quality as these discs. 1) the DVD is Jimi in his own words - I've taped it twice on television. No extra material - 90 min of documentary. I wish they had filled up the DVD with concert footage. There is plenty of it. This documentary is excellent, but no reason to buy the box set. It's on cable a couple of times a month. However, the documentary itself, Jimi in His Own Words is excellent. Easily the best doc on Jimi in a long time. It's all his own words and you get a deeper insight into the man he was. Also has many rare photos of young Jimi when he was a kid. 2) Disc 1 - the biggest disappointment - Jimi's early years. It's only 45 min long. Discs of early Jimi have been circulating on the net for years - and the sound quality almost as good as these new discs. Why only 45 min? There is lots more material. Why not include Curtis Knight or Lonnie Youngblood? Those showed him playing much more than the cuts on this disc. You really don't hear much of Hendrix's guitar on these rhythm and blues tracks. They could have EASILY filled up the other 35 blank min of this disc just as other underground Early Jimi discs have. WHY???? I am really puzzled and pizzt. 3) Discs 2 & 3 - most of these are alternate recordings of his hits. It seems like many of the recent Hendrix releases have contained alternative mixes of these same songs. Yes, he often did 20 takes or more of a song. How many of them do we have to hear spread out among bunches of discs? The same songs over and over with slightly different versions. It's getting boring. There are a few good acoustic cuts, which begs the question of why no official release of just Jimi Alone on solo guitar? Plenty of material exists, I've made a full cd of his acoustic and solo electric playing. Why can't they? Why did we need 3 more songs from the Band of Gypsys New Year's concert? The first album was magical - but the two disc Live at the Filmore showed how new the band was and how unrehearsed many of the songs were. These three tunes did not make the cut on the first 3 cds of Filmore music so why did they make it here? There are many concerts that deserve to be released - like official cds of Royal Albert Hall and Maui's Rainbow Bridge concert. I don't understand how these tunes (and Red House from Berkeley) were chosen over other, and most collectors think better, songs from other concerts. 4) disc 4 - I like some of these late in his life gems but they can best be described as "bottom fishing". Several of these are just riffs and practice sessions from home. Some of these were selected because their version was the "last time" Hendrix personally touched the tapes. The songs were later completed by Mitch or Noel and Eddie Kramer, but these mixes were the very last time Hendrix worked on them. Overall, there are just enough gems to get most collectors to fork over the sixty bucks for this box set. I got it simply because as a Hendrix Addict I HAD TO HAVE IT. But, I won't recommend it to any but the most hard core Hendrix collector. It's not for the new listener, IMHO. As I write this I realize that I won't be happy until the Hendrix estate puts up a large website with songs we can download for 99 cents. I would download different takes of my favorite songs and full concerts that are hard to find. This dribbling out of "alternate takes" and mixes is getting old. I would probably buy much more in downloads. I would love to burn up my credit line downloading rare songs from an authorized Hendrix site. (Janie, are you listening??)