by Simon Glickman

I first heard the music of Jimi Hendrix when I was five; Jeff Jampol (then 13) dropped the stylus on Are You Experienced? and everything changed. Even without benefit of hallucinogens, the sounds Jimi conjured rearranged my brain forever. Before long I was obsessed, and his songs, his voice and his solos meant everything to me. He died when I was six and I took it hard—I even wore a black armband to school to mourn his passing, much to the puzzlement of my peers.

The first posthumous Hendrix album I asked for was 1971’s The Cry of Love, which has now been reissued—on 180g vinyl as part of a superbly remastered package—by Experience Hendrix/Sony Legacy. I’m glad to be able to replace the well-worn copy I got as a kid, which still bears marks on the inner gatefold where I traced my hero’s visage with felt-tipped pen.

Cry stands apart from most of what’s been put out since Jimi’s death. Although he intended the tracks therein as part of a larger project, First Rays of the New Rising Sun (later approximated on a ’90s Experience Hendrix set), the disc feels like a coherent album. Supervised by producer/engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell, it showcases a new direction in the guitar giant’s music; in place of the existential acid-rock and psychedelia of his prior work, for the most part, we find purposeful, soul-infused jams and lyrics clearly inspired by the civil rights struggle.

He’s backed here (on all but a couple of tracks) by what I consider his essential rhythm section: Mitchell, ever the Elvin Jones to Jimi’s Trane, and Band of Gypsys bassist Billy Cox, whose telepathic communication with the guitarist made his low-end riffage a true harmony voice.

The set kicks off with the driving anthem “Freedom,” which layers tough, distorted riffs and clean, R&B-ish runs in a way that paved the road for both hard rock and soul in the ensuing decade. “Ezy Rider,” another blazing rock tune, again finds him making his Strat scream, albeit more concisely than ever.

Lyrically, these songs (as well as “Straight Ahead,” another rocker) bespeak a positive, inclusive vision emphasizing not only freedom but love, community and, where necessary, resistance. We’re a long way, here, from the foggy alienation of early songs like “I Don’t Live Today,” “Manic Depression” and “Purple Haze.”

But the most striking compositions on Cry are the softer ones—the ethereal “Drifting” and the elegiac “Angel,” both of which rank among his most gorgeous achievements—and the funky “Night Bird Flying.” The latter, even four decades later, makes me wonder: What kind of music is this? Its complex, evocative guitar figure encompasses rock, soul, jazz and country, with layer upon layer of expressive lead parts taking wing.

The set ends with a curiosity: the intimate blues “Belly Button Window,” in which an unborn child regards the world and wonders if he’ll be delivered to its chaos or return to the cosmos whence he came. The song, sung softly and adorned with languorous wah-wah licks, envisions a universe of reincarnation, where a soul lost to us might reappear any day.

Would that it were so. But the gloriously renewed tracks of The Cry of Love have given my Jimi back to me, at least for a little while.