Recorded live at Ronnie Scott's, 47 Frith Street, London W1, UK
Wednesday 16 September 1970
2010 master cassette transfer
Several years ago the (nearly) complete recording came into circulation of Jimi with Eric Burdon and War at Ronnie Scott's in September of 1970. Unfortunately we didn't get a clean, lossless copy of the master; various technical issues prevented the taper from supplying that. So the circulating copy is a lossy copy of the master originally transferred to microsoft's wma-format, which in addition had some line hum in the audio.
In December 2010 the taper allowed his master cassette to be transferred directly to uncompressed digital wav, and we now have a clean digital master. This transfer sounds substantially better than the previous copy, a greater improvement than would be expected just from the compression. Perhaps this was due to better equipment being used this time around.
The details of how the recording appears on the master cassette has already been described in an article published in Jimpress issue 87 some time ago, and there's no need to repeat the details. Here is a summary
The recording captures most of both sets that night, with Set 1 on side 1 of the tape, and Set 2 on side 2. The 2nd tape side was running out just after Tobacco Road started, and the taper, not wanting to miss the unexpected contribution by Jimi, flipped the tape back to side 1 and recorded over the start of the 1st set. Thus over 10 minutes of the start of the opening set is missing due to the tape-over.
The taper didn't run the tape all the way to the end of side 2 when he turned it back to side 1; there was a little over a minute left on the side when he flipped it. This also means that a little over a minute at the start of side 1 was not taped over. For some reason, this part was not included on the previous transfer. It's an instrumental (at least the part that survives) which may be just an untitled opening jam; but it may also be a titled song that hasn't been identified. If anyone can identify the title, please comment on the torrent with the information.
The last minute of side 2 contains an unrelated recording (by the group Status Quo) which apparently was already on the cassette before the War recording. Because the previous transfer had only a second or two of this, it was thought that it was at the start of side 1 of the tape.
Like the previous circulating copy of the tape, this one presents the material in the order in which it was recorded. Thus the part of Tobacco Road on side 1 has been moved to the end of the recording.
The transfer is also at correct speed now, a little faster (about 2%) than the previous copy. At least the transfer has been done at the proper speed; we don't know if the original recording on a portable cassette recorder was done exactly at the correct speed. But any remaining speed error is probably small.
Disc 1 - First Set
1 Unknown Title 1:20
2 Gun 2:58
3 Black on Black in Black 15:08
- Paint it Black I
- Laurel & Hardy
- Pintelo Negro II
- P.C. 3 Out of Nowhere
- Blackbird
- Paint it Black III
4 Spill the Wine 8:07
5 Mystery Train 6:00
Disc 2 - Second Set
1 Gun 7:31
2 Black on Black in Black 15:08
- Paint it Black I
- Laurel & Hardy
- Pintelo Negro II
- P.C. 3 Out of Nowhere
- Blackbird
- Paint it Black III
3 Blues for Memphis Slim 20:09
- Birth
- Mother Earth
- Mr. Charlie
- Mother Earth
4 Tobacco Road 14:55
- Tobacco Road
- I Have a Dream
- Tobacco Road
The above tracklist is based on versions of these songs released on the Eric Burdon and War LPs Eric Burdon Declares 'War' and The Black-Man's Burdon. This is longer than all of the earlier tracklists given for this tape, not because there's new material (apart from Disc 1 Track 1) but because the correct titles as given on the LP releases have been used. A studio version of Mystery Train was never released officially but a bootleg version & other live versions do circulate, often under the title Train Thing Medley but as there's no official release the actual title this was recorded under is unknown.
P.C. 3 uses the same music as on the LP version but the original track's lyrics (including references to the Queen's knickers and the size of her burning bush) have been replaced with the lyrics from the song Out of Nowhere, the original lyrics were perhaps a bit too much for UK audiences (or goverment officials). Lee Oskar either didn't play his Danish Pastry harp solo that's part of Blues for Memphis Slim on the LP, or it was played but wasn't recorded, which could be the case as the tape has multiple cuts during the track. The story about a fish that Burdon goes into after Birth isn't on either of the Eric Burdon and War LPs, so either it was improvised to please the UK audience or was a part of the song that was only performed live and not recorded for the LP version.
Eric Burdon - vocals
Jimi Hendrix - guitar (on Blues for Memphis Slim & Tobacco road)
Howard Scott - guitar
Dee Allen - percussion
Harold Brown - drums
B.B.Dickerson - bass
Lonnie Jordan - organ & piano
Charles Miller - sax & flute
Lee Oskar - harmonica
Recorded on a Philips C-90 cassette by Bill Baker using a Sony TC-100A portable cassette recorder and a Sony handheld dynamic microphone. There are a couple of big drop-outs on the master that couldn't be repaired. These are later damage to the original cassette (which by now is 40 years old) as they are not audible on the Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window -bootleg LP. Unfortunately the sound quality of the bootleg LP and the old incomplete tape copies is so much worse than that of the master transfer that patching was not a possibility. The taper did make several copies of the original cassette on reel to reel during the 70s, hopefully one day one of these will surface.
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