Rocks In The Attic #102: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - ‘Smash Hits’ (1968)

I remember buying my first Hendrix record - the mid-90s compilation entitled The Ultimate Experience - which I played to death on a winter holiday in Scotland. There have been many Hendrix compilations, but this one - 1968’s Smash Hits - was the first.

This is the kind of behaviour that exists nowadays - bands releasing greatest hits when they’ve only had a couple of albums out - and given the fact that this album collects Hendrix’s first four singles - including the b-sides - and a raft of album tracks, you do get the idea that the record company was scraping the barrel slightly while waiting for the band to finish Electric Ladyland.

Hit: Purple Haze

Hidden Gem: 51^st Anniversary