Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings have announced an October 19, 2010 release date for a much anticipated second round of Jimi Hendrix archive recordings. The next shot of Hendrix reissues includes the Jimi Hendrix: Blues collection of the guitarist's finest blues-rock recordings; Jimi Hendrix Experience: BBC Sessions; the electrifying Live At Woodstock set; and the sought-after collectors' grail, Hendrix's long out-of-print Christmas EP.

All of this activity is building up to the release of West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology, a career-spanning four-disc box set.

Jimi Hendrix's Blues

Jimi Hendrix: Blues, which collects eleven of Hendrix's best blues performances, recorded between 1966 through 1970, will be released as a two-disc set that includes the re-mastered original 1994 album and a bonus DVD that features an expanded 30-minute version of "Jimi Hendrix and the Blues" from the Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues series from PBS. The album also includes a 36-page booklet, packaged in an attractive six-panel digipak.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: BBC Sessions set is a whopping three-disc reissue with the original two-CD 1998 album, which features various live performances circa 1967 to 1969 taken from numerous BBC radio and television appearances by the band. A bonus DVD will offer a previously-unreleased 30-minute documentary with band interviews and rare TV performance footage. The album features Hendrix and his crew (bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell) covering Cream ("Sunshine of Your Love"); Muddy Waters ("Hoochie Coochie Man," with British blues legend Alexis Korner on slide-guitar); and the Beatles ("Day Tripper"), among others, as well as a previously-unreleased track, "Burning Of The Midnight Lamp."

West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology

Hendrix's Live At Woodstock pretty much speaks for itself, the two-disc set capturing the bulk of the guitarist's incredible performance at the festival 40 years ago. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, a long sought-after EP that was released on CD during the early-1990s, features unique Hendrix renditions of "Little Drummer Boy," "Silent Night," "Auld Lang Syne," and "Three Little Bears." The EP will also be released on 7" vinyl with a picture sleeve, while all of the above-mentioned albums will also be released as collectors' quality 12" vinyl albums.

The culmination of all of these reissues is West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology, a four-CD and one-DVD box set that spans the guitarist's career from his days as an R&B sideman on the Southern chitlin' circuit, to his status as a rock 'n' roll superstar and six-string innovator. The musical portion of the box includes previously unreleased Experience recordings, demos, alternate takes and more, while the DVD features a new Hendrix documentary directed by the Grammy™ Award-winning Bob Smeaton (Beatles Anthology, Beatles: The Studio Recordings).

More Hendrix To Come

The first round of Hendrix reissue albums, released in early 2010, was met with unprecedented success and predominantly rave reviews. Valleys of Neptune, a collection of previously-unreleased Hendrix studio material, debuted on the Billboard magazine Top 200 album chart at a lofty #4 position, while the other four albums – Are You Experienced?; Axis: Bold As Love; Electric Ladyland; and First Rays of the New Rising Sun – all placed in the upper half of the chart, several of them more than 40 years after their original release.

"Jimi's music is as alive today as it was 40 years ago, and the success of our most recent releases with Sony Legacy provides thrilling confirmation. We have long maintained that the power of Jimi's music and the power of his message would stand the test of time and provide its own bridge to the future," said Janie Hendrix, CEO of Experience Hendrix LLC, in a press release for the reissue series. "Being partnered with Legacy enables us to reach a more global audience with that message. And the best is yet to come. What we have in store will propel Jimi into a new decade, with unseen footage and unheard versions of his songs that will absolutely amaze today's music lovers."