Jimi Hendrix & Band Of Gypsys Crush ‘Izabella’ At Fillmore East

On New Year’s Eve 1969, Jimi Hendrix and his Band Of Gypsys made their debut at The Fillmore East in New York City, performing an early and late show at Bill Graham’s famed venue. Legacy Recordings has announced the upcoming release of Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show 12/31/69 capturing the complete first set as a live album out on September 30.

Backed by bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles, Hendrix was recorded that night by his regular engineer Eddie Kramer who handled remixing the new live release from his original master tapes. The album was produced by Kramer, along with Janie Hendrix and John McDermott. Mastered by Bernie Grundman, Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show 12/31/69 will be issued simultaneously on CD, two-LP 180 gram vinyl, high resolution SACD and digitally.

One of our first tastes of the new release comes in the form of a quick romp through “Izabella” via Yahoo!:

Here’s how Billy Cox described their debut The Fillmore East appearance and subsequent January 1, 1970 show (which made up theBand Of Gypsys LP) at the now-defunct concert hall:

We decided that we couldn’t do any songs that had already been released. We wanted to give them something different. So we went at the project in a joyous, creative posture and ultimately developed the repertoire of the Band of Gypsys. We had two shows New Year’s Eve and two shows New Year’s Day. We didn’t know what to expect from the audience and the audience didn’t know what to expect from us, but from the time we hit that first note, they were in awe. You had Jimi Hendrix, a drummer who had been with the Electric Flag and Wilson Pickett, and I was the new kid on the block.

After the gigs were finished, Jimi was quite relieved. We felt the concerts went well. I might add that in previous gigs with the Experience he had used a fuzz face [tone control pedal] and a Wah-Wah pedal, then at Woodstock he used a fuzz face, Wah-Wah pedal and Uni-Vibe, but at the Fillmore East he used a fuzz face, Wah-Wah pedal, Uni-Vibe and Octavia and it was incredible. In fact you could hear all of it kicking in on “Machine Gun.” It was incredible. There were people in the audience with their mouths open.

Rolling Stone contributor David Fricke wrote the liner notes for the new live album which features the complete December 31, 1969 early performance in its original order.

Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show 12/31/69 Tracklist

1. Power Of Soul
2. Lover Man
3. Hear My Train A Comin’
4. Changes
5. Izabella
6. Machine Gun
7. Stop
8. Ezy Ryder
9. Bleeding Heart
10. Earth Blues
11. Burning Desire