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Crash Landing
is a
posthumous
compilation album
by American guitarist
It was released in
March and August 1975
in the US
and the UK
respectively.
It was the first
Hendrix album
to be produced by
Alan Douglas.
Background
Before Hendrix died in 1970,
he was in the final stages of
preparing what he intended to be
a double studio LP,
which was given various titles
such as
'First Rays of the New Rising Sun',
'People, Hell & Angels',
and
'Strate Ahead'
Most of the tracks
intended for this album
were spread out over three
posthumous single LP releases:
The Cry of Love (1971),
Rainbow Bridge (1971),
and War Heroes (1972).
In the case of the last two
of these LPs,
a demo track,
a live track,
and unreleased
studio tracks were used
to fill out the releases.
In late 1973,
his international label
prepared to issue an LP titled
Loose Ends
which contained
eight tracks,
six of which
were generally regarded
as incomplete or
substandard
the only two "finished" tracks
on this release were
"The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice",
a heavily re-mixed
stereo version
of the B-side
which had been released
in the original
mono mix
on the
1968 European
and
Japanese versions
of the
Smash Hits,
and a cover of
Bob Dylan's
"The Drifter's Escape",
both of which would
ultimately be re-released
on the
South Saturn Delta
CD in 1997
Loose Ends
was not released in
the USA
by Reprise
because they considered
the quality of the tracks
to be subpar.
Hendrix had amassed a great deal
of time in the studio in
1969 and 1970,
resulting in a
substantial number of songs,
some close to completion,
that were available
for potential release.
After the death of Hendrix,
his manager in 1973,
Alan Douglas
was hired to evaluate
hundreds of hours
of remaining material
that was not used
on earlier posthumous albums.
"Peace in Mississippi",
"Somewhere",
and
"Stone Free"
were recorded
with the original
Jimi Hendrix Experience line up,
while the rest of the material
used on
Crash Landing
consisted of recordings
Hendrix originally
made with
Billy Cox
on bass
and either
Mitch Mitchell
or
Buddy Miles
on drums
and on
one occasion
by
Rocky Isaacs.
Controversies
Crash Landing
was the first release
produced by Douglas,
and immediately
caused controversy.
The liner notes
of the album
indicated that
Douglas used
several session musicians,
none of whom
had ever even
met Hendrix
, to re-record or
overdub guitar,
bass, drums,
and
percussion on the album,
erasing the contributions
of the original musicians
and changing the feel
of the songs
Hendrix' vocals and guitar
contributions were retained
This was evidently done
to give a finish
to songs that we
re works in progress
or may have been
recorded as demos.
Douglas also added
female backing vocals
to the title track.
The album peaked at
numbers five
in the US
and 35
in the UK,
the highest
chart positions since
The Cry of Love.
The album reached
number 5
in Canada,
and was number 38
in the year-end chart.
It's worth noting that
Alan Douglas made a
serious and very embarrassing
mistake during the production
of the album,
as John McDermott reveals:
when Alan Douglas
and engineer
Les Kahn
came across a box labeled
"M.L.K."
containing a
two-track tape featuring
a mixdown of a
long instrumental,
they assumed it was a
Hendrix tribute to
Martin Luther King,
but they were wrong.
Jimi was due to play in
Newark on April 5, 1968,
but the show was canceled
due to the assassination,
so Jimi played a
live instrumental improvisation
to the memory of the minister,
before walking offstage quietly.
However,
he never recorded
a studio tribute
to the civil rights activist.
So, oblivious that the tape
had nothing to do with
Martin Luther King,
they gave it to
Tony Bongiovi
without verifying its origin,
presenting it as authentic
Hendrix material,
even though they couldn't
find the masters,
and for good reason:
there never were such masters.
In fact,
this tape was a collage
and moreover not at all
the work of
Jimi Hendrix,
but of a mysterious
and unknown
Alex Korda
actually an unassuming
John Jansen
who had produced
the three-part collage
in 1971
by assembling
unrelated musical takes
from Hendrix tapes,
trying to create
musical score
for scenes of the
upcoming Chuck Wein's
experimental film
Rainbow Bridge.
When Eddie Kramer
realized what
Jansen was doing,
he put an end
to the process,
considering it disrespectful,
but the tape was
never erased and,
during the overdubbing process
of 1974,
Bongiovi transferred
the two tracks
to a new tape,
added a drum track
by Alan Schwartzberg
and a
"slinky"
track by
Jimmy Maeulen
and the resulting mix
became the closing track of
"Crash Landing".
As for "M.L.K.",
Jansen is categorical:
those three letters
had nothing to do with
Martin Luther King,
although he can't say
what they meant,
as they were just marks
left on the tape box
by an unknown operator
at the Hit Factory studios.
Strangely enough,
Alan Douglas renamed
the segment
"Captain Coconut"
thinking "M.L.K."
was indeed a reference to
Martin Luther King,
probably knowing what the slur
Coconut meant in
American culture,
unless it's a mere coincidence.
So the public is left to guess
what it reveals on
Alan Douglas' opinions
about the slain
Martin Luther King.
That being noted,
Alan Douglas died in 2014,
so it's best not to speculate,
let alone conclude it
was a private racist joke.
The most embarrassing,
however, is on
the liner notes:
the instrumental is credited
"Hendrix/Douglas",
precising "
Basic track by Alex Korda",
so Alan Douglas
was paid royalties
for a loose collage
which was meant to be erased,
if not destroyed.
The original complete
19:59 long
"Ezy Ryder"
and jam from which a
segment was cut
to become part of
"Captain Coconut" l
ater surfaced in
2006 on
Burning Desire,
labeled
"Ezy Ryder/MLK",
like on the
original tape box
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