Studio Haze


A few moral issues arise with the Studio Haze release. A number of these tracks come from the so-called "Chas Chandler Tapes". Chas was Jimi's producer, who brought him over from America to England to record. There were a number of alternate versions and unissued tracks from the first two albums Jimi recorded, and that's where a number of these songs came from. In the late 80's, Chas brought in Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding to overdub the backing tracks (damaged or unusable on the originals) on these songs for a possible release. Chas couldn't come to terms with the previous Hendrix administration (under Alan Douglas), so they remained (officially) unreleased.

Now, some people out there might say, what's the difference between what Chas did on these tracks, and what Alan Douglas did on the albums he released (Crash Landing, Midnight Lightning, Voodoo Soup). Well, I personally find a huge difference in the two. Chas worked with Jimi, produced these tracks with Jimi, was a friend of Jimi, understood and helped Jimi develop his music. Mitch and Noel were in the Experience with Jimi, toured with Jimi and were friends of his. Alan Douglas credentials? He was a producer for Jimi for about two weeks total, resulting in not a single complete and finished song. He erased backing tracks by the people Jimi played with, and replaced them with people who never even met Jimi! He even erased some guitar parts of Jimi's, replacing them with a session player! Unforgivable!! And on later releases like Voodoo Soup, replaced Mitch and Buddy Miles' drum parts with the former drummer of the Knack!

(deep calming breath)

Okay, sorry about that. I haven't gotten into an Alan Douglas rant in a while :) Some very interesting tracks on this release... Cat Talkin' To Me, features Mitch Mitchell on vocals, a very rare occurance! Cryin' Blue Rain is a great slow blues number, which unfortunately begins to fade out just as Jimi gets into a nice soloing. The most bizarre, and cool at the same time track is the opener, Takin' Care Of No Business. A very old time jazz styled track, featuring lead tuba! From what I understand, the tuba was overdubbed, but there was a tuba player on the original recording. It's a very interesting, and humorous song (I love the line "I'm so broke I can't even pay attention"). Chas was in negotiations with Experience Hendrix at the time of his death for a possible release of the tracks. Hopefully EH and the Chandler estate can come to an agreement and we can get the rest of this material into our hands soon! Now, I'm not sure what the story is with the other half of this CD, if these tracks also come from the Chas tapes or not. But you get some alternate versions of some of Jimi's later works-in-progress.

Quality is very good throughout, these definitely came from low generation sources. A few minor tech issues: the track cueing between the two Untitled Instrumental tracks is off somewhat, resulting in part of the second song being on the end of the first (the song isn't interupted at least, thankfully). And there's no track break between the last two tracks. But these are minor problems at worse, the important thing is the music is here, and intact. A very good CD, even for the newer Hendrix fan.

Catalog #: INA6