Considering the Beatles moved 626,000 units in the first week after the release of their remasters, it’s no surprise that every band, artist, manager, and estate trustee associated with the canon of rock music will be dusting off their original masters and unreleased reels in the coming years. In an interview with Gibson guitars about their new Hendrix-inspired axe, Jimi’s sister Janie revealed some interesting bits about what Authentic Hendrix, the official family-owned trust, has sitting in their vaults.
“With technology as good as it is, we can bring Jimi’s music — we have hundreds of original masters — to people in a pure form using those masters,” Hendrix said, implying a definite forthcoming “Hendrix Remastered” release. So what else do they have in store? Here’s what she said:
We probably have another decade of music, including video. Every 12 to 18 months we’ll continue to have new releases and Dagger [Experience Hendrix’s label for board and audience recordings] official bootlegs. Jimi was a workaholic. After Electric Lady studios was built he was able to record constantly for as many hours as he wanted to. It’s almost as if he knew he had only four years to accomplish everything that he did.
Okay, that covers the next ten years, but what will we listen to after 2019? Here’s my suggestion: the struggling auto industry should start building reel-to-reel tape machines and then we’ll just duplicate the master recordings for distribution.