Product Description

AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE was the follow-up to ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?, and represented a much more conscious use of the recording studio's possibilities. Where his live shows continued to showcase the raw rocking power of the Experience, the recording studio gave Hendrix the composer/arranger a broader palette.
There are still plenty of powerful blues/rock-inflected songs, such as the menacing "If 6 Was 9", the rolling "Spanish Castle Magic" and the spatial title tune. But "Up From The Skies" is a jazzy trio romp, featuring Hendrix's bluesy, vocalised wah-wah pedal. And on the ballads "Little Wing"and "Castles Made Of Sand", Hendrix shifts the focus from the band to the silvery chord/melody accompaniments he often employed to complement his vocals. They are an orchestral effect unto themselves.

Track Listing

1. EXP
2. Up From The Skies
3. Spanish Castle Magic
4. Wait Until Tomorrow
5. Ain't No Telling
6. Little Wing
7. If 6 Was 9
8. You Got Me Floatin'
9. Castles Made Of Sand
10. She's So Fine
11. One Rainy Wish
12. Little Miss Lover
13. Bold As Love

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2763 in Music
• Released on: 1999-07-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 39 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Axis: Bold As Love, Hendrix's second album, doesn't resonate through rock history the way its gatecrashing predecessor, Are You Experienced? did. In places, it almost seems as if Hendrix is cruising, albeit sublimely. Yet it's nonetheless a vital album, containing some of rock's most molten milestones. There's the fluid psychedelia of "Castles in The Sand", the viciously funky "Little Miss Lover" and the so-beautiful-it-hurts "Little Wing." Hendrix really hits altitude with "If 6 Was 9", where he waves his "freak flag high" over a tidal wave of guitar and a cacophonous army of Moroccan flutes--and "Bold As Love", based around Hendrix's typically far-fetched hankering for the axis of the planet to be tilted, thereby transforming life on earth. It works up into a head-melting frenzy of distorted guitar, a precursor to the staggeringly expansive leap forward he would take with 1968's Electric Ladyland. Hendrix dreamed the impossible and achieved it on his guitar. --David Stubbs

Customer Reviews

An under-rated classic
It could be that this was my first introduction to Hendrix, but I maintain to this day it is the best of the 'Jimi Hendrix Experience' studio albums. I say this for a great number of reasons.

First of all, lets assume you've never heard an 'Experience' album before, and want to dip your toe in the water. This album is a great place to start, as it eases you in with a nice gentle, yet sublimely funky number, before it crushes your head with Spanish Castle Magic. The album is like a gentle roller coaster ride of funky rocky highs, and gentle mellow dips, with an ease of access missing from the other two studio albums.

So that gets you into it, and opens your mind to the possibility of exploring Hendrix further. At this point you may be drawn to purchasing 'Are You Experienced' and 'Electric Ladyland'. However, you're going to be torn between two extremes; the former is hard, fast and in your face, and the latter segues into many experimental meanderings.

I found myself reeling away from those two, a bit stunned, back to this album, and finding solace in the 'inbetweenness', in which you have both hard paced tracks of the first, and the beginnings of experimentation of the third. That is by no means a bad thing though - in fact, to the contrary you come to the conclusion that while Hendrix can maintain the hard innovative edge, he can also provide enough structure and control to make a tight album that still sounds fresh and original.

Over the years I have also found it is a very layered album. Different stereo systems and even different headphones have revealed nuances I have not been able to detect previously. As a result of this, I have come back to this album again and again. I have owned it on tape, vinyl, CD and now MP3. I wish the same could be said of the other two.

So, in summary, this is both the best album for newcomers, and also, in my opinion, his best album.

Jimi's Thee Greatest!
What can anyone really say about Jimi Hendrix that hasnt already been said?
So i'm not gonna bore you with a cornucopia of superlatives or eulogies that would be ssssssso so deja vu, but i will say two things anyway.

1) I have the original gatefold vinyl copy of this wonderful second album i bought from a local 2# hand record store in Reading that no longer exists and i paid £3 for it!!! And i aint selling!

2) There are guitar players and then there is Jimi Hendrix. Whether it be The Experience, Band Of Gypsies or any other ensemble to grace his name he was and continues to be the most creative, colourful and bewildering guitarist/singer/composer and force ever. And 40 yrs on theres still no one that can touch him.

We miss you so much.

JIMI'S THEE GREATEST!

not the first but the best
one day i woke and discovered that axis was the best hendrix album.I got fed up with the riff based songs on 'are you experienced'. Most of that album seems really commercial to me,it does not work as whole album but a collection of songs where as axis is cohesive as whole. It opens with a jarring insrumental ipersonationg a flying saucer and seques into 'up from the skies'. It is great song that predicts global warming decades before anyone else. It has superb jazz feel.Next is 'spanish castle magic' with great lyrics and a rocker of amazing frenzy. One song follows another till we reach the masterpiece 'little wing'.The opening by even hendrix standard is superb as well as a great love song . If six was nine is three songs in one and ends with an inredible freak out ending with not guitar but flutes. The energy is maintained on the hard and poppy 'you got me floating'. the song is an amazing feel good song which makes the next song feel so unusal on this album.'castles made of sand' makes you come down to earth with three stories of ironies of life. Noel redding song is another piece which grounds the album. the remaining songs lift it up again particularly 'bold as love' which is one of the great hendrix tracks.What makes this album so special among hendrix albums is that no singles were released. I think it is the greatest hendrix album. buy it.