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Axis: Bold As Love is getting a little bolder this holiday season.
Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings will partner once again to issue a new deluxe edition of The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s seminal second album from 1968 on November 7. Retitled simply Bold As Love and available on four CDs or five LPs and a Blu-ray, the box set will include the original album in its original stereo and mono mixes (as well as newly created Atmos mixes by original engineer Eddie Kramer and Chandler Harrod), along with a wealth of rare outtakes and live tracks from the period (28 of which are previously unreleased). The package features new liner notes by David Fricke and the estate’s longtime historian John McDermott, as well as a new cover art sourced from a drawing of a dragon Hendrix made as a child, personally selected by his sister Janie.
With Axis: Bold As Love, Hendrix started to come into his own as a studio visionary. Working again with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell as The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the team of producer Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer behind the boards, the album featured more expansive original compositions, from guitar-driven epics like “Little Wing” and the title track to the upbeat “Wait Until Tomorrow,” the jazzy “Up from the Skies” and more. While Hendrix’s perfectionism would drive away Redding and Chandler from future endeavors, the album would be as well-received critically and commercially as debut Are You Experienced, issued just months earlier. (It would, retrospectively, be comparably overshadowed by the studio LPs on either side of it.)
The Bold As Love box traces the brief but pivotal evolution of the album in the studio and on stage. Highlights of the outtakes include two tracks, “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” and “The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam’s Dice,” released as a non-album single; a live-in-studio set in Stockholm, Sweden that was first released on the pre-Experience Hendrix box set Stages in 1991; plus more than two dozen studio outtakes and demos, including an early version of “Stone Free” and “Up from the Skies” that can be heard below.
The Bold As Love box can be pre-ordered below, with a street date of November 7. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Bold As Love (Experience Hendrix/Legacy, 2025)
4CD/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
5LP/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
CD/LP 1: Original stereo mix (released as Track Record 613 003 (U.K.), 1967/Reprise RS 6281 (U.S.), 1968)
EXP
Up from the Skies
Spanish Castle Magic
Wait Until Tomorrow
Ain’t No Telling
Little Wing
If 6 Was 9
You Got Me Floatin’
Castles Made of Sand
She’s So Fine
One Rainy Wish
Little Miss Lover
Bold As Love
CD/LP 2: Original mono mix (released as Track Record 612 003 (U.K.), 1967/Reprise R 6281 (U.S.), 1968 – Same track list as CD/LP 1)
CD 3-4/LP 3-5: Outtakes (previously unreleased except where noted)
Mr. Bad Luck (Take 6)
She’s So Fine (Take 4)
Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Take 30)
The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam’s Dice (Paramount Studios)
Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Instrumental)
The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam’s Dice (Instrumental)
Stone Free/Up from the Skies (Demo)
Up from the Skies (Take 2)
Ain’t No Telling (Demo)
Ain’t No Telling (Take 12)
Little Miss Lover (Demo)
One Rainy Wish (Take 1)
You Got Me Floatin’ (Take 1)
Untitled Guitar Experiment
Bold As Love (Take 19)
Castles Made of Sand (Take 16)
Wait Until Tomorrow (Take 2)
Spanish Castle Magic (Take 2)
Little Wing (Take 2)
Untitled Instrumental #1 (Take 3)
Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Original Mono Mix)
The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam’s Dice (Original Mono Mix)
Little Miss Lover (Alternate Version)
Spanish Castle Magic (Take 4)
Wait Until Tomorrow (Take 14)
Castles Made of Sand (Backwards Guitar)
One Rainy Wish (Alternate Version)
Untitled Instrumental #2 (Take 1)
Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Dee Time – 8/22/1967)
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Live at Studio 4 Radiohuset, Stockholm, Sweden – 9/5/1967)
Fire (Live at Studio 4 Radiohuset, Stockholm, Sweden – 9/5/1967)
The Wind Cries Mary (Live at Studio 4 Radiohuset, Stockholm, Sweden – 9/5/1967)
Foxey Lady (Live at Studio 4 Radiohuset, Stockholm, Sweden – 9/5/1967)
Hey Joe (Live at Studio 4 Radiohuset, Stockholm, Sweden – 9/5/1967)
I Don’t Live Today (Live at Studio 4 Radiohuset, Stockholm, Sweden – 9/5/1967)
Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Live at Studio 4 Radiohuset, Stockholm, Sweden – 9/5/1967)
Purple Haze (Live at Studio 4 Radiohuset, Stockholm, Sweden – 9/5/1967)
Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Top of the Pops – 8/24/1967)
Purple Haze (Hoepla – 11/10/1967)
Foxey Lady (Hoepla – 11/10/1967)
CD 3, Tracks 21-22 released as Track Record U.K. single 604 007, 1967
CD 4, Track 7 released on The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Experience Hendrix/Legacy 88697 62843-2, 2015
CD 4, Tracks 8-15 released on Stages – Reprise 26732, 1991
CD 4, Track 16 released on BBC Sessions – Experience Hendrix/Legacy 88697 74519-2, 2010
Blu-Ray Audio: Original album in Dolby Atmos by Eddie Kramer and Chandler Harrod plus original hi-res stereo/mono mixes
Mike Duquette
Mike Duquette (Founder) was fascinated with catalog music ever since he was a teenager. A 2009 graduate of Seton Hall University with a B.A. in journalism, Mike paired his profession with his passion through The Second Disc, one of the first sites to focus on all reissue labels great and small. His passion for reissues turned into a career, holding positions at Legacy Recordings and Rhino Records and contributing to Allmusic, Discogs, City Pages, Ultimate Classic Rock and Mondo Records, for whom he penned liner notes for his favorite piece of music: John Williams’ Oscar-winning score to ‘E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.’
Born and raised in New Jersey, Mike lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife, a cat named Ravioli, twin daughters and a large yet tasteful collection of music.