The Last Record Album...

In 1971 Reprise Records released The Cry Of Love which was the first posthumous Jimi Hendrix album. There were many others: Rainbow Bridge, War Heroes, Hendrix In The West, Crash Landing, Midnight Lightning, etc. Some were respectable, some weren’t. Some were good, some weren’t. But over the years I’ve managed to accumulate the main releases (that’s not so easy to define, but so what).

But at some point I became aware than Hendrix had recorded a cover of Dylan’s “Drifter’s Escape." And I got my hands on Lifelines, a CD release of a radio documentary of Hendrix’s life, and it has an “alternate take” of “Drifter’s Escape.” Alternate take? Where’s the non-alternate take? There's a gazillion Hendrix discographies but I had a devil of a time finding out where this track was.

Oh well, I did track it down. Turns out the song found its way on to an album that was released around 1972, and which was called Loose Ends, and which was never released in North America. And so that explains why I never heard of it.

But I’ve heard of it now. And for the last 4 years or so I’ve been trying to find a not-too-expensive copy on eBay, and I’ve finally done it. I bought it. Should be arriving any week now.

I think that’s the last album on my list. I’m serious. I had this whole list of albums I was on the lookout for, and one by one they’ve dropped off, because I got them.

When I was a kid, like 12, 13 years old, I had a list then too. It was huge, ridiculous. I had on it everything by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Hendrix (the more things change…) Cream, The Who, etc etc. I bought two or three albums a year. It was going to take me a while…

But hey. I don’t have the list anymore, but I’d bet I’ve got everything on it. And my eBay list, it wasn’t that big, and it’s done (well not totally, but I don’t think I’ll find a copy of Flash Harry that I can afford any time soon, nor of The Hollies’ Russian Roulette, nor of…)

And so what now? Make a new list? Nah.

What do you do when there’s nothing left to search for?

Well, I could write about it….

Drifter's Escape