After reading Use Wood Glue to Clean and Restore Old LPs, I just had to try it out on some of my unplayable records I've accumulated over time.

I started out with my Dad's old copy of Cream's Disraeli Gears, which I've cleaned thoroughly multiple times (with my special record cleaner recipe), repaired all the scratches manually by hand, and it still sounded pretty messy. I knew that even if this experiment didn't work out, it wouldn't have been that big of a loss.

The result was astounding. The record was playable for the first time in years, removing almost all noise generated from years of accumulating dust and debris in the record's crevices.

I moved on to something a little more treasured, which was the US Mono release of Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow. While I've always loved the way "White Rabbit" sounds on this recording, at its peak on the record it is dissatisfying when shrouded in the static white noise cluttering the recording. After the wood glue treatment, it sounded perfect, beautiful, powerful, and all those other adjectives that express awesomeness.

I've started going through my Sinatra collection applying the glue in the evening and then peeling off the plasticized layer in the morning. It's the best record cleaning solution I've come across, for its thoroughness, time efficiency and cost efficiency. I highly recommend it to anyone out there looking to restore their LP collection. For more info on the process, watch the YouTube video with the Lifehacker post.

Is that title correct? Didn't Jimi die? Oh, it's probably one of those junk, exploit-the-dead, releases where all the tracks are poorly mastered and they get sloppy musicians to play on top of Hendrix.

And Yes, these were some of my first thoughts as well, but on the contrary this collection of material is AWESOME! in every one of its tracks. Here's Why:

Sound Quality:

Clear. Significantly so. The album is almost an antithesis of "Electric Ladyland", where Hendrix was experimenting with so many different sounds that in some tracks, you longed for the time when it was just Hendrix and his guitar playing. The recordings themselves mirror that of The Beatles "Let it Be... Naked" album, a stripped down representation of the band playing together and jamming.

Track Selection:

If you're a die-hard Hendrix fan, there's really nothing new here. By now you've found all these tracks on bootlegged vinyl records, collector's boxsets, etc. So you'll probably pick this up, for anyone else looking to see another side of Hendrix I stornly urge you to take a look at picking this up.

Cover Design / Packaging:

Egh. Not really a big deal, not iconic like the earlier covers and packaging. Even the Woodstock and Live at the Filmore East covers surpass in design, aesthetic, coloring. Even the font choice is poor and makes the product feel cheap, but don't let this detract you from the quality of these recordings. And in time, I'm sure there will plenty of fan covers you use to replace this one in your iPod.

Conclusion:

Don't listen to my opinion, I'm biased. I love Hendrix, and he is my vote for the best guitarist of all time. So if they released an album of Hendrix playing scales, practicing, I would probably pick it up. Instead I encourage you to listen to it for yourself and make your own decision about these recordings. At the very least you'll get a chance to hear Hendrix in new way, which is always a geat opportunity.