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Jimi Hendrix's Last Tape. The Record Labels Paid To Destroy It.

The Velvet Dossier

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Jimi Hendrix's Last Tape sits at the center of a battle over unfinished recordings, Electric Lady Studios, and the record-label machinery that shaped his legacy.

Jimi Hendrix built Electric Lady Studios to take control of his sound, his session reels, and the next phase of his career. But after his death in September 1970, the recordings he left behind became part of a far more complicated story: contracts, managers, label pressure, posthumous releases, overdubs, estate battles, and the question of who had the right to decide what counted as a finished Jimi Hendrix record.

This Velvet Dossier investigation follows the final Electric Lady sessions, the studio Hendrix built at 52 West 8th Street, the Warner Bros. advance behind the project, the role of Eddie Kramer and the session logs, the release of The Cry of Love, the controversy around later posthumous albums, and Al Hendrix's long fight to regain control of his son's musical legacy.

This is the story of the tape Jimi Hendrix never got to release, and the machine that kept working after he was gone.

Chapters

00:00 - The Tape He Never Released
02:23 - Electric Lady Was Supposed To Save Him
04:46 - Woodstock Changed The Contract
07:09 - The Man Who Held The Pen
09:32 - Inside The Final Sessions
11:56 - The Twelve Days Left
14:19 - What They Released In His Name
16:42 - The Father Who Refused To Stop
19:05 - The Tape That Outlived The Machine

Sources Cited And Investigated

Experience Hendrix official archive
Electric Lady Studios historical materials
Warner Bros. / Reprise Records release history
Library of Congress recorded sound references
Contemporary music press interviews and session documentation

Tags

Jimi Hendrix's Last Tape, Jimi Hendrix final recordings, Jimi Hendrix unreleased tapes, Electric Lady Studios, Hendrix final sessions, Jimi Hendrix posthumous albums, Hendrix record labels, Jimi Hendrix estate, Eddie Kramer Hendrix, Warner Bros Hendrix, The Cry of Love, First Rays of the New Rising Sun, Alan Douglas Hendrix, Al Hendrix estate, Hendrix 1970, rock history documentary, music history documentary, Electric Lady Hendrix, unreleased rock tapes, Jimi Hendrix documentary

Hashtags

#JimiHendrix #ElectricLadyStudios #RockHistory #MusicDocumentary #TheVelvetDossier

20 Comments

@philipbrougham6360 3 months ago

I bought all of those early 70's Hendrix albums ,Rainbow bridge and Cry of love were great albums in my opinion ..

@birchward 3 months ago

ITS SO SAD ! its the story of business , of making money , not the creative artist being able to do his music , and share it with the world ! as he wished !

@tonetone7572 3 months ago

Hendrix was turning the corner growing "getting better' and knew where he wanted to go musically. Jeffrey was terrified of Jimi growng beyond the Expierence playing the "hits"where the Expierence was a massive sucsess making $ that he was siphoning for himself from Jimi , Mitch and Noel . the week Jimi died he was supposed to go into the studio with Sly and the Family who were touring Europe the same time he was..then the unthinkable tragedy.

@alandoor9ine 3 months ago (edited)

Dolly Dagger was a finished project, he wanted Chas to come back to America with him and finish the rest,he asked him a couple of days before he died ,Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge had to be released along with War Heroes Loose ends and a few others ,Mitch helped on Rainbow Bridge and Cry of Love with Eddie .Cool👍

@rickdrais9737 3 months ago

By one minute, the AI narrator drove me away

@vincentbuccieri9305 3 months ago

Master Hendrix was One of the Greatest Musical Inspiration's of My Life!
I am Turning 70yrs. Old this Year ,
And I Only Became Aware of Master Hendrix on the Day He Died ,
When I Got Home and Turned on a Local Rock Radio Station ,
They Announced His Death!
And All the Rest of that Day and Into the Night Played Master Hendrix's Music!
I Became a Disciple of His Music and and Style of Playing Electric Guitar!
And Began a Serious Study of Guitar from that time On!

@Mi-cha-el-Edward-Lee 3 months ago

8:54 "not (playing) a game; everything on (the music) means something"

@tonym994 3 months ago

Rainbow Bridge was (all things considered)outstanding. 'Hey Baby(new rising sun)' 'look over yonder' 'Dolly Dagger' and so forth, especially 'Hey Baby',one of my fave Hendrix tunes, are a good look at what he was up to at the time.

@cmkilcullen8176 3 months ago

I bought those 70's records also.
I was told about the Alan Douglas releases and how studio musicians were used. I thought that was pretty weird. I was a teenager learning more about Hendrix and his work. Years later, I heard them in their more raw and "midbuilt" form. Its funny how Janie caught some flack about the very things that Douglas was actually more guilty of, it seems.
Its sad, at the end of the day, how many layers of control removed Jimi from his music, and how money and people were the cause.
IMO, I wonder how the advances on Electric Lady ended up making Jimi feel as if even that was not completely in his control. Supposedly one of the studio rooms was supposed to be exclusively for him, but when he'd be on tour, they rented that room for studio time for other artists to pay off the advancements. When Jimi would want to use "his" studio, he would find that the time was booked. Touring also became necessary to pay off that mortgage. Talk about wanting vs. actually having.
His story is a sad and very interesting one for all artists to come to know. Jimi's legacy of beauty and courage in creativity is sadly matched by the lesson he teaches about what mistakes not to make to prevent exploitation.
Cry of Love, War Heroes and Rainbow Bridge are all a part of my collection. I listened to Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning (rarely) so differently as I got older. I kept them for my own history's sake documenting my own journey.
Btw, I attended the naming of 8th street and 6th Ave Jimi Hendrix Way. Long overdue, but I was glad to witness that.
Long live Jimi Hendrix!

@jessepearson5579 3 months ago

I'm a life long electric pro guitarist and I love those albums from what I've heard and learned from them about how to play electric guitar...

@alexfeatherstone8854 3 months ago

The album he was working on when he died is Cry of Love, if I am not mistaken. Great record. Like a funky, earthy Axis: Bold As Love

@raakaroki 3 months ago

Rainbow Bridge is a great album.

@simonkormendy849 2 months ago

It is very well-known that the music industry, as we know it, is a very corrupt and exploitative industry, it always has been very corrupt and exploitative, the well-known producer, Steve Albini, wrote a really interesting article about it, demonstrating how the big record labels, A&R reps, and third-party middlemen, take the majority of the revenue earnt by the musicians, leaving the musicians with barely enough to cover expenses and live-off, Steve Albini also talks about the infamous 360 Deals that trap musicians into constantly touring and earning money to pay off debts to the big name record labels.

@Mcgyvernator 3 months ago

Spending that kind of money on a recording studio isn't typically what a suicidal person would do.
Who gave him such a " hot load" of barbiturates???!

@Mi-cha-el-Edward-Lee 3 months ago

11:45 " back to the future" " little (Veronica) by the record machine"

@rostenvaknar 2 weeks ago (edited)

I followed Hendrix from the beginning and he had been playing reg. to my memory on some Records with... was it Curtis Knight 1965-1966 and under 1967. We could hear he had his own sound and solos even then -it was before Hey Joe which was a huge recording, unlike anything else.

@spinmancorner7543 3 months ago (edited)

I listened and studied Jimi Hendrix as early as 14 years old. Are you experience - Axis bold as love and Electric lady land & Band of Gypsys if you will ~ are the greatest albums ever made. each one slightly different from the other, the talent on Electric Ladyland can never ever be touched. Great artist are still attempting to play voodoo child to it’s perfection but there’s only one Jimi Hendrix.