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THE PURPLE FOX - TRIBUTE TO JIMI HENDRIX - CD

1. Fire
2. Purple Haze
3. Acid Test
4. Are You Experienced
5. Patch Of Grass
6. Foxy Lady
7. Hey Joe
8. Git Some
9. The Wind Cries Mary
10. Crosstown Traffic
11. Gittin’ Busted
12. Requiem For Jimi

This mysterious collection of heavy acid rock appeared shortly after Jimi Hendrix’s death, boasting on its rear sleeve that the non-existent band responsible ‘could possibly fill the void left by Jimi’. Though that proved an impossible dream, the album does stand as a highly enjoyable blast of kitsch exploito-psych, containing a mixture of Hendrix covers and originals that have been plundered for samples in recent years - most notably by Fatboy Slim, on his multi-million selling You've Come a Long Way, Baby LP.

This mysterious album appeared with indecent haste shortly after Jimi Hendrix’s death, on the budget Stereo Gold Dagger label. The label was not traditionally the home of psychedelic rock - other titles boasted on the back of this one’s sleeve include Million Seller Hits of the 40s, The Cocktail Piano of Rene Armand, I Can’t Forget Those Jim Reeves Hits, Favourite Hymns and Hits For A Truck Driving Man. Clearly this was not a roster aimed at underground audiences. In fact, the label (and numerous others) were the brainchild of a somewhat enigmatic German-born individual named Leo Muller, who is thought to have fled to the US at the start of the Second World War. Having served in the US Army, he used his pension to get a toe-hold in the music industry, working as an engineer until he had the wherewithal to set up the Somerset label in the mid-1950s.

He promptly set about cashing in on the easy listening boom by churning out cheap Mantovani sound-alike LPs credited to ‘The 101 Strings’, which sold in huge numbers – but not in regular shops. Instead, he flogged them through supermarkets and gas stations, and by the mid-60s had earned enough to sell the business to budget music supremos Alshire International, Thereafter he set up again, this time under the Stereo Gold Award banner. His output was colosaal - as he once put it, "we are not in the recording business; we are in the plastics business." Indeed, he is rumoured to have bought up cheap ashtrays in order to melt them to make records. Being canny, he was quick to spot the possibilities in the underground, and collaborated with Alshire on titles such as The Animated Egg (a superb piece of exploitation psych) and Astro-Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000 (a bizarre collection of sound collages).

As a result of Muller’s ruthless pragmatism, the personnel on this album is never likely to be known. He took the writing credits for the non-Hendrix tunes (one of which, Acid Test, is familiar to millions as a sample on Fatboy Slim’s Build It Up, Tear It Down), and the information in the original sleevenotes is decidedly unconvincing. They claim that the band consists of Alex Boggs (‘a young man with hair down to his knees), Bob Gray on bass and Raff Witkin on drums, and that the band is from New Orleans and St. Louis. But given that the album didn’t appear in America and was released in Germany as by Jeff Cooper and the Stoned Wings, it seems fair to assume that this information is 100% bogus. Some mysteries are best left unsolved, perhaps.

The Purple Fox - Tribute To Jimi Hendrix

1. Fire (Hendrix)
2. Purple Haze (Hendrix)
3. Acid Test (Muller)
4. Are You Experienced (Hendrix)
5. Patch Of Grass (Muller)
6. Foxy Lady (Hendrix)
7. Hey Joe (Roberts)
8. Git Some (Muller)
9. The Wind Cries Mary (Hendrix)
10. Crosstown Traffic (Hendrix)
11. Gittin’ Busted (Muller)
12. Requiem For Jimi (Muller)

‘Alex Boggs’ – lead guitar
‘Bob Gray’ – bass
‘Raff Witkin’ – drums

Recorded under the direction of D.L. Muller

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