To The Highest Bidder


(a.k.a. Sotheby Plus)

Information provided by the book From The Benjamin Franklin Studios :

"Lot 61 in the auction at Sothebys on 22 December 1981 contained three 5 inch and five 7 inch reels of tape with labels in the hand of Jimi Hendrix. The tapes were the property of his former girlfriend Kathy Etchingham and contained an assortment of jams, rough mixes of tracks from Axis: Bold As Love and some of the BBC sessions which later turned up on the Radio One CD. These were listening tapes which Jimi brought home from the studios to develop ideas, hence the names on the labels reflect working titles and, according to Kathy, were taken with their other possessions when she moved them to the flat in Brook Street in July 1968. This would mean that they had to be recorded before Jimi went to America in February 1968. In 1980 she threw the tapes away as she didn't think them to be of any interest. However, a friend retrieved them from the rubbish bin and had them copied onto a master reel by Hiroshi Kato. Kathy traveled to America with Kato where the master was played to Alan Douglas who informed her that the recordings were of no interest to him but as Leo Branton owned the material he wanted the original reels. Kathy refused as she was the legal owner and decided to put them up for auction. The catalogue stated that copyright was not transferred with the tapes but remained with the estate, they were sold at a price of 1500 pounds" (about $2000-$2500 U.S.)

As usually happens in life, a friend gives a copy to a friend, who gives a copy to another friend, who gives to an acquaintance, who happens to release it. The tracks on this CD were compiled from some of the best sources available, and also from unreleased sources. If you're familiar with these tracks from some of the other releases, you'll be quite impressed by the difference in quality. If you're a new Hendrix fan, these probably won't be as of much interest, as some are just different mixes of released tracks, demos, etc. But we Hendrix fanatics live for this stuff :)

Quality is very good, definitely better than any of the other CDs featuring this material. There is some tape hiss present however, but turning down the treble slightly on the stereo clears it up. But all in all, a very good collection of the famous/infamous Sotheby tracks.

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