by Mike Garnett.
At around lunchtime on 5th January 1998 a slightly nerdy, skinny, and very cliched nineteen year old rocker walked into a small independent record shop in the centre of Birmingham. Like many students of his kind before and since, he had recently discovered the joys of vinyl and was keen to spend more of his newly-received student loan on expanding his fledgling collection. After all, who cares about bills and food and boring things like that, right?
That day, the shop was having a New Year half-price sale on most of their stock. And there was A LOT of stock. This whipper snapper had already spent many hours (and several more pounds) in there browsing the various rock, metal, jazz and blues records in this treasure trove of music. The three men who ran the shop (one floor each) all knew him by name. Indeed, that following summer, they actually gave him a job there! Although in truth, this only amounted to little more than unpacking stock and making tea - he certainly wasn’t going to be allowed to actually SELL any of these treasures! But that was six months in the future. Six months after what was to become one of the most significant purchases that this student would ever make.
Kneeling down to flick through one such box on the floor, labelled “Classic Rock
G-K”, he pulled out two records by Jimi Hendrix: The Cry of Love and War Heroes. Eagerly taking them to the counter, he exchanged pleasantries with the owner and cheerily explained that he wanted to collect each of Jimi Hendrix’s albums on vinyl.
“Hold on, son”, said the owner, “Put those back”. He turned and reached into the window display and pulled out what this vinyl virgin could only describe as the holy grail.
The box-set
What now stood before him was a box-set of Hendrix vinyl: twelve records, including the double album, Electric Ladyland. All in mint condition. Each sleeve stamped with “Limited Edition Box Set”. The gatefolds all still creaked when opened. The box itself was a little tatty, which, if anything, only added to its charm.
“Hold that for me please, I’m going to the cash machine!!”
A few minutes later he returned, handed over £75 and left with the vinyl bargain of the century. Even at the full pre-sale price of £150, he would have considered this a steal, but £75 - at least Dick Turpin wore a mask! But, just like Dick Turpin, this (now very smug) student felt no remorse. All other plans for that day were scrapped. All that mattered now was getting home to play it.
The box itself was released by Polydor in September 1980 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Jimi’s death, and contains each of the four albums that he recorded during his lifetime (Are You Experienced; Axis: Bold as Love; Electric Ladyland; and the live album, Band of Gypsys), along with eight posthumous compilations containing works that he had recorded but not released prior to his death.
Two of these posthumous albums, Cry of Love and War Heroes, contain some of the tracks intended for inclusion on what would have been Hendrix’s fourth studio album, due to be entitled First Rays of the New Rising Sun. The other records contain various studio tracks, live recordings, and loose jams. There was an element of controversy surrounding some of the records included in the set (most notably, the use of overdubs on Crash Landing), but that has all been well documented elsewhere.
Back to the story. A couple of days later, this student was back in Leicester in his university house. It was grim. The Young Ones lived in palatial luxury in comparison to this house. But what they didn’t have, which this nerdy rocker did, was a massive bedroom with a record deck in it. This, with his new acquisition, provided an escape from the filth of the communal areas for him and one of his housemates.
People bond over all kinds of things. This one was built on the solid bedrock of the Jimi Hendrix box-set. We both worked part-time on the bar of a local nightclub and would think nothing of coming home after a shift at around 3am, listening to at least one, but usually more, records from this box. The version of In From the Storm on Live at the Isle of Wight with Mitch Mitchell’s stunning drum solo introduction quickly became a firm favourite, as did the too-funky-for-their-own-good Blue Suede Shoes, and Jam 292, both from Loose Ends.
The legacy
At the time, our lives (and university courses) were not exactly going according to plan. Broke, single, failing academically, and living in squalor, that box of delights took on a significance to me at the time that it has never lost. Indeed, whenever I listen to it now, 23 years later, I still think of those days with great fondness. Music is known for its power to invoke emotions, and the vinyl format is the most tangible and immersive of all. For me, this box is more than just a collection of records of one of my favourite artists (after all, there isn’t anything contained within it that can’t be found on any of the popular streaming services). That is merely what it is, what it means is far more important. Aside from a few old t-shirts and CDs that haven’t been played in many, many years, I have owned this box for longer than anything else. It has become a constant in my life, a kind of musical totem, if you will. I sometimes think back to one particular shift that I worked in that bar in Leicester. It was early on, and very quiet. Foxy Lady was playing on the speakers and an American chap came to the bar. As I was serving his drinks we got chatting. I told him about this Hendrix box-set I had bought just a few months before. He offered me £1,200 for it there and then. At the time I was in a dire financial mess, and that money would have solved all my problems. However, I knew that someday, sooner or later, I would get out of that mess, but I could never live with myself for selling it. It was a rare example of me making a good decision and I’ve never had any regrets!