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Band of Gypsys is a live album by Jimi Hendrix and the first without his original group, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was recorded on January 1, 1970, at the Fillmore East in New York City with Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums, frequently referred to as the Band of Gypsys. The album mixes funk and rhythm and blues elements with hard rock and jamming, an approach which later became the basis of funk rock. It contains previously unreleased songs and was the last full length Hendrix album released before his death six months later. After his appearance at Woodstock with an interim group that included Cox, Hendrix began developing new songs and recording demos. When Miles became involved, he and Cox agreed to record a live album with Hendrix to be used to settle a contract dispute with a former manager. The new material, influenced by Cox's and Miles' musical approaches, signals a new direction for Hendrix. Songs such as "Power of Soul" and "Message to Love" (originally "Power to Love" and "Message of Love") still maintain the dominant role of Hendrix's guitar, but show funk and R&B influences. Lyrically, they also explore new, more humanistic themes for Hendrix. The two songs written and sung by Miles bear the stylings of soul music. The anti riot and anti war "Machine Gun" draws on Hendrix's earlier blues aspirations, but incorporates new approaches to guitar improvisation and tonal effects. As the album's producer, Hendrix had a difficult time completing the task. Presented with the sometimes problematic recordings and resigned to turning it over to a different record company, Hendrix expressed his dissatisfaction with the final product. Shortly after its release, Band of Gypsys reached the top ten of the album charts in the US and UK as well as appearing in charts in several other countries. Although it was as popular as his albums with the Experience, it received mixed reviews. Some faulted the performances as tentative and underprepared; additionally, Miles' contributions on drums and vocals have been characterized as plodding and obtrusive. "Machine Gun" is generally regarded as the album's highlight and one of Hendrix's greatest achievements. The influence of Band of Gypsys is heard in the funk rock developments of the 1970s and has been cited as an inspiration by various later rock musicians. Reissues of the album on compact disc included three extra songs recorded during the Fillmore East shows, and additional material has been released on later albums.

In 1969, Jimi Hendrix was under pressure from his manager and record company to record a follow up to his hugely successful 1968 album Electric Ladyland. He was also required to produce an album's worth of new material for Capitol Records in order to satisfy a contract dispute with former manager Ed Chalpin and PPX Enterprises. Capitol had released two misleading Chalpin produced Curtis Knight albums with Hendrix on guitar, which competed directly with his own Experience albums. Additionally, Hendrix was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with bassist Noel Redding and the Experience format. During the recording of Electric Ladyland, he and producer Chas Chandler parted ways and Hendrix began to explore recording with other musicians and different musical styles. By the middle of the year, he had not completed any promising material and Reprise Records resorted to issuing his April 1968 UK compilation album, Smash Hits, with some new tracks for the North American market. A concert film of a performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London in February 1969 was entangled in legal disputes and its release was uncertain. In May, while en route to a performance in Toronto, Hendrix was detained and charged with illegal possession of narcotics. If convicted of the felony, he faced as many as 20 years in prison. On June 28, 1969, Hendrix announced he planned to work with new musicians, including a new bass player. The next day, after a potentially life threatening riot following a concert in Denver, Colorado, Redding left the group to return to London and the Jimi Hendrix Experience came to an end. Hendrix then began experimenting with an expanded lineup for a limited number of American engagements. In addition to original Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, he worked with bassist Billy Cox and second guitarist Larry Lee, as well as percussionists Juma Sultan and Gerardo "Jerry" Velez. Cox and Lee were two musicians with whom he had played in R&B bands in Tennessee in 1962, shortly after his stint in the US Army. The aggregation, often referred to as "Gypsy Sun and Rainbows", performed as the final act at the Woodstock Festival on August 18, 1969 (while introducing the group at Woodstock, Hendrix added "It's nothing but a band of gypsies"). After a couple more appearances, including a September 8 episode of the late night American television The Dick Cavett Show without Lee and Velez, the ensemble disbanded. Lee returned to Tennessee, Sultan and Velez left to pursue other opportunities, and Mitchell joined Jack Bruce's touring group. In October 1969, Hendrix and Cox began jamming and recording demos with drummer Buddy Miles. Miles had played with various R&B and soul musicians, as a member of the Electric Flag and fronting the Buddy Miles Express, both blues rock R&B fusion groups. Miles was also a frequent jam partner of Hendrix and had played the drums the year before on the two part song "Rainy Day, Dream Away"/"Still Raining, Still Dreaming" for Electric Ladyland. Cox and Miles expressed an interest in performing and recording a new album with Hendrix. Hendrix's manager, Michael Jeffery, saw the opportunity to record a New Year's performance at the Fillmore East for a live album and the trio began preparing for the upcoming concerts and new album. Between then and the end of December, the trio rehearsed at Juggy Sound Studios and recorded several demos at the Record Plant Studios in New York City, where Hendrix recorded much of Electric Ladyland. After Hendrix's December 10, 1969, acquittal in his Canadian trial, the trio rehearsed their material at Baggy's Studios up until their first concert appearance on December 31. In an interview, Hendrix explained, "We spent 12 to 18 hours a day practicing this whole last week, straight ahead, and then we went into a funky little club and jammed down there to test it out". Early versions of some of the songs which eventually appeared on Band of Gypsys from two of the rehearsal sessions were released as The Baggy's Rehearsal Sessions by Dagger Records in 2002.

As a new group, the Band of Gypsys needed to develop a repertoire. Several songs that had begun as ideas, jams, and demos with the Experience and Gypsy Sun and Rainbows (but unreleased) were carried over to the Band of Gypsys. These included "Lover Man", "Hear My Train A Comin'", "Izabella", "Machine Gun", "Bleeding Heart", "Stepping Stone", and "Message to Love". Three new songs featuring vocals by Buddy Miles were added: "Changes", "We Gotta Live Together" (both Miles compositions) and "Stop", an R&B song written by Jerry Ragovoy and Mort Shuman, which had been recorded by Howard Tate in 1968. Hendrix contributed new material as well, including "Power of Soul", "Ezy Ryder", "Earth Blues", "Burning Desire", and the riff for the jam song "Who Knows". The trio began rehearsing a set of songs for the four upcoming Fillmore shows. Many of these songs represented a change in Hendrix's music from his Experience repertoire. Biographer and later Hendrix producer John McDermott elaborates:

Most of the arrangements were developed through extensive jamming, with Cox's and Miles' playing influencing Hendrix's ideas. According to biographer Keith Shadwick, Cox explained in later interviews, "the process was based on building up rhythm patterns and that each pattern dictated the shape and character of a portion of a song in which it appeared". Record producer Alan Douglas witnessed the approach during a jam at the Record Plant and saw it as inefficient. On the other hand, Shadwick feels that it was necessary: "it seemed the only way available, especially as neither Cox nor Miles, in particular, were exactly swift on the musical uptake". Music journalist Charles Shaar Murray noted, "Cox's funky, uncluttered bass style would give Hendrix's new music a more solid, less frenetic underpinning [than Noel Redding's style]. In every way, Cox's function would be to provide the steadiness Hendrix so urgently required". Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt described Miles' style as "pleasantly messy  He wasn't as tight as a Stax drummer [such as Al Jackson Jr. ]  his rolls would clatter about a bit". However, his often described "fatback grooves" laid down a solid rhythmic foundation and the combination of Cox and Miles added a "heavy, rolling fluidity which brings out a very different dimension in Hendrix's playing". The mix of improvisation with R&B and funk elements is evident in "Who Knows", which was the opening song for the second (after the brief "Auld Lang Syne") and third shows. It is a loose jam rather than a structured composition and during the performance for the second show Hendrix teases the audience with "I hope you don't mind us jamming a little bit, we're just messing around  seeing what we're gonna play next". Built on Hendrix's guitar figure, "Who Knows" is framed by Cox's economical funk blues bass line and Miles' steady drum beat, which Murray describes as "a thick, lazy twitch". Hendrix explores guitar phrases using different tones and effects between vocal sections. According to Cox, Hendrix was using a new combination of effects for the first time. These included a Uni Vibe phase shifter, an Octavia (developed for him by Roger Mayer during the recording of his first album), a Fuzz Face distortion box, and a wah wah pedal. One mixture of them produces a "whistling, shimmering, ring modulated tone so rich with upper harmonics" in the higher range, while in the lower range "it almost sounds like Froggy Went a Courtin'   all these [lower] oct[ave] intervals give it such a dramatic effect". His use of the wah wah employs "rapid foot movement and wide sweeps [which] tend to make the melody fade in and out". Also, by using a triplet rhythm with the pedal, a polyrhythm with the prevailing beat is created. The lyrics, some of which borrow from other R&B songs, are also improvised and show considerable differences between the two renditions. As it unfolds, there is an R&B style vocal call and response section between Hendrix and Miles, then separate vocal sections for each, which Miles follows with scat singing. During the middle section, most of the instrumentation drops out and returns with more Hendrix guitar tonal explorations before winding down at 8:23 (second show) and 9:32 (third show). While McDermott feels that the jam is underdeveloped and biographer Harry Shapiro criticizes Miles' vocals, Shadwick and writer David Henderson focus on the "easy groove" and "lilting flow". Besides adding a fresh rhythmic element to his music, it also gives Hendrix more room to experiment with different approaches and sounds on guitar. Similarly, the Buddy Miles song "We Gotta Live Together" is a jam piece. It forms the second part of a medley with "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" and had only been performed once before at the Baggy's rehearsal room. The song features Miles attempting to engage the audience in a call and response "testifying" soul music style vocal section, which was mostly edited out for the album release. Hendrix and Cox back Miles' vocal sections with parallel funk style lines, before a guitar solo using Hendrix's new combination of effects. Shapiro comments:

"Changes" is another song written and sung by Miles and it benefits from more development and structure. Although it includes a prominent guitar line by Hendrix, it is Miles' showcase piece. The song was performed during each show with little variation, except for Miles' vocal improvisations. With these sections edited out, "Changes" is a relatively concise, soul music radio friendly track. When Miles re recorded it as "Them Changes", it became a Billboard top 40 Best Selling Soul Singles as well as appearing in the magazine's Hot 100 pop chart. The two Hendrix compositions, "Power of Soul" and "Message to Love", are also more structured and rehearsed songs. They represent Hendrix's new blending of funk, R&B, and rock together with a new lyrical approach. According to Shapiro, the lyrics reflect "a Jimi Hendrix who felt an increasing need to impart his compassionate vision of human potentiality [and a] move away from cynicism and bitterness". Cox and Miles provide strong instrumental backing, where the rhythm is "locked in" or "deep in the pocket", a common feature of funk and R&B. (Nearly all of Hendrix's music, and contemporary rock in general, uses common or time; "Manic Depression" ( or ), "Dolly Dagger" , "Stepping Stone" , and the slow blues "Red House" and "Belly Button Window" (both ) are among the exceptions.) Jazz innovator Miles Davis felt that Cox and Miles were the best rhythm section for Hendrix and freed him from the constraints of the Experience. Guitarist Jean Paul Bourelly, who played with Davis, commented in an interview:

"Machine Gun" is another song that Hendrix had spent time developing. By the Fillmore East concerts, it had become an extended guitar improvisational piece, which "would completely change the perception of Hendrix's capabilities as an improviser and musician", according to Shadwick. Although based on a "minor drone blues" in the line of "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", Hendrix's performance has been compared to jazz saxophonist John Coltrane's approach to improvisation. Miles Davis, with whom Coltrane had recorded several albums in the 1950s, including the influential Kind of Blue, noted the connection: "Jimi liked what I had done with Kind of Blue and some other stuff and wanted to add more jazz elements to what he was doing. He liked the way Coltrane played with all those sheets of sound, and played his guitar in a similar way". As indicated by Hendrix's dedication of the song "to all the soldiers that are fighting in Chicago and Milwaukee and New York, oh yes, and all the soldiers fighting in Vietnam", "Machine Gun" is as much about the late 1960s American race riots as the war in Vietnam. Guitarist Vernon Reid describes it as "like a movie about war without the visuals. It had everything—the lyrics, the humanism of it, the drama of it, the violence of it, the eeriness of it, [and] the unpredictability of it". In many commentaries about Band of Gypsys, "Machine Gun" is singled out as the highlight of the album. Both McDermott and Shadwick call it one of Hendrix's greatest achievements, setting a standard that the rest of the album does not live up to.

The material for Band of Gypsys was recorded over two consecutive nights at the Fillmore East. The group was scheduled for two shows on December 31, 1969, and another two on January 1, 1970 (because the shows went beyond midnight, the actual dates were December 31 – January 1 and January 1–2; for ease of reference, these are referred as the first show, second show, third show, and fourth show). The recording was supervised by Wally Heider, an experienced sound engineer who ran a recording studio and had made several live recordings. He had already recorded Hendrix live several times, including at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969. Portable recording equipment was set up at the venue and the trio performed for a soundcheck in the afternoon. Concert promoter Bill Graham billed the performances as "Jimi Hendrix: A Band of Gypsys", but Hendrix's new direction since the breakup of the Experience six months earlier had not been publicized. With a new lineup and material, Cox observed, "We didn't know what to expect from the audience and the audience didn't know what to expect from us". 24 different songs were performed over the four shows, for a total of 47 recorded versions. The group did not prepare set lists or otherwise plan for their performances. McDermott notes, "Hendrix called out tunes to Miles and Cox and would often make time and tempo changes on the fly, alerting his partners with a simple head nod or raising of his guitar neck". Miles also saw improvisation as a key element of their approach. According to Shadwick, the first show was essentially a warm up set and they performed eleven new songs (it was the only show not to include any familiar Experience songs). There were some microphone problems during the first two songs, which re appeared for the first two songs of the second show as well. Hendrix also experienced tuning problems with his guitar. His heavy use of the Stratocaster's whammy bar (vibrato arm) stretched the strings and led to pitch problems which he was often forced to correct mid song. For the second show, in addition to new songs, Hendrix added "Stone Free", "Foxey Lady", "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", and "Purple Haze". On the second night, the group performed a mix of new and older material for the third and fourth shows. The contrast between the first and second nights has been noted by Hendrix biographers. Based on interviews with Cox and Miles, concert reviews, and film footage, McDermott and Shadwick conclude that Hendrix was less animated during the third and fourth shows, when he stood mostly in place until the final encores, seemingly concentrating on recording. In frequent interviews and in his autobiography, Bill Graham claimed that his own criticism of Hendrix's delivery to the audience (although he seems to confuse which shows) had spurred him on. However, according to McDermott, Hendrix was determined to deliver the standard of recording performances that would provide an album that would settle the bitter legal dispute with Ed Chalpin. All of the six songs that were chosen for the Band of Gypsys album were recorded on the second night during the third and fourth shows. After the main set, Hendrix played for his last encores "Wild Thing", "Hey Joe", and "Purple Haze".

On January 12, 1970, Hendrix and recording engineer Eddie Kramer began the task of deciding which songs to include on the new album (Cox and Miles did not participate in the process). The review and subsequent audio mixing was undertaken at Juggy Sound Studios in New York, where the trio had started rehearsing in October. Excluding Experience and cover songs, there were multiple versions of thirteen new, previously unreleased songs from which to choose. Among those that received Kramer's and Hendrix's attention were "Machine Gun", "Earth Blues", "Burning Desire", "Ezy Ryder", "Who Knows", and "Hear My Train A Comin'". Early on, Hendrix chose to include the Buddy Miles songs "Changes" and "We Gotta Live Together". He also decided on "Power of Soul" and "Message to Love", studio versions of which had been considered for release as a single (these studio recordings were later included on South Saturn Delta and West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology). Songs with recording problems and those Hendrix wished to complete as studio recordings were withheld (studio versions of "Izabella" and "Stepping Stone" were released as a single in March; "Ezy Ryder" and "Earth Blues" were included on his first posthumous albums). By January 21, Hendrix and Kramer narrowed the list to "Message to Love" (fourth show), "Hear My Train A Comin'" (first show), "Power of Soul" (third and fourth shows), and all four recordings of "Machine Gun". Hendrix and Kramer began preparing mixes of the multitrack recordings. During the process, Kramer recalled:

One of Miles' songs, "We Gotta Live Together", was pared down from fifteen to a little over five minutes and "Changes" was also trimmed, because, as Murray puts it, "a little of [Miles' vamping] goes an extremely long way". This editing also provided some lighter moments. One of Jeffery's assistants recalled, "Hendrix played me a tape and prefaced it by saying it represented the new direction in his music. He had made up this long loop of tape of the portions edited out of 'We Gotta Live Together'. I flipped out and he started cracking up". After several more editing and mixing sessions at Juggy Sound, the material for the album was readied on February 17. The following day, Hendrix and Kramer met with Bob Ludwig, who supervised the final mastering. Hendrix chose to work with his own mastering engineer because he had been dissatisfied with his record company's results on Electric Ladyland. The task was completed on February 19, 1970, and the final track listing included two songs from the third show and four from the fourth and last show. According to Shadwick, "The process of choosing and mixing the live album was not a pleasant one: Hendrix only fulfilled his legal obligation to PPX/Capitol under duress and with the greatest reluctance". McDermott questions why some arguably superior tracks that Hendrix recorded were not used instead. Kramer sees it as a compromise:

Early on, Billy Cox believed that the primary goal was to resolve the matter with Chalpin. Later, he commented, "Overall, the feeling was, 'What the heck, the album doesn't belong to us anyway. Let's just move on and forget it'". Already past the 1969 deadline, Hendrix summed it up:

On February 25, 1970, Michael Jeffery delivered the master tapes for Band of Gypsys to Capitol Records executives in Los Angeles. Capitol rush released the album one month later on March 25, and it entered Billboard Top LPs chart at number eighteen. It reached number five during a stay of 61 weeks on the chart and, at the time of his death, was Hendrix's best selling album in the US since Are You Experienced. Due to legal wrangling by Ed Chalpin and PPX, the album was not released in the UK for nearly two more months. When Track Records issued it on June 12, 1970, it quickly entered the British charts, where it remained for 30 weeks and reached number six. For the album cover, Capitol Records used a grainy photograph of Hendrix taken during the Fillmore East shows illuminated by the multi colored liquid light show projected by the Joshua Light Show. However, Track used album cover art which proved controversial, as they had done with Electric Ladyland. It depicted puppets or dolls that resembled Hendrix, Brian Jones, Bob Dylan, and John Peel huddled next to a drab, corrugated backdrop. The significance of posing the three with Hendrix was not evident as they had no known association with the Band of Gypsys nor the group's material. Hendrix was an admirer of Dylan and recorded some of his songs; Jones, who had died the year before, had participated in a recording session for Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" (a Dylan composition); and Peel had hosted BBC's Top Gear radio show when Hendrix performed there in 1967. Jeffrey remarked, "If ever there is an award for the worst taste album cover it must go to this". Responding to pressure, Track later replaced it with a photograph of Hendrix performing at the August 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. By the time of the album's release, the trio had already broken up. Their first show after the Fillmore East engagement was at the Madison Square Garden on January 28, 1970. There they struggled through "Who Knows" and "Earth Blues" before leaving the stage. Jeffery, who reportedly was never happy with the lineup, fired Buddy Miles on the spot. Gerry Stickells, Hendrix's tour manager, points to "Jimi's own lack of commitment to the Band of Gypsys concept as its fatal flaw". Two songs, "Stepping Stone" and "Izabella", that the trio had recorded, were issued as a single by Reprise Records two weeks after Capitol released Band of Gypsys. Hendrix was dissatisfied with the mix and the single was quickly withdrawn without ever appearing in the charts. Three other songs that were recorded with Cox and Miles were later used for early posthumous Hendrix albums, including The Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge. Additional studio recordings by the trio in various stages of development were released on South Saturn Delta, The Jimi Hendrix Experience box set, Burning Desire, West Coast Seattle Boy, and People, Hell and Angels.

All tracks were written by Jimi Hendrix, except "Changes" and "We Gotta Live Together" by Buddy Miles, and "Stop" by Jerry Ragovoy and Mort Shuman. Sides one and two were combined as tracks 1–6 on CD reissues.