Jimi Hendrix and some Christmas gift suggestions

HO HO HO!!! HERE'S MY GROOVY NEW LP, JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS.

Yes, it's December 1967 and Jimi's playing Santa Claus, bringing you seasonal joy with his new waxing Axis: Bold As Love.

The second of his three classic studio albums, 'Axis' combines some of Jimi's most psychedelic guitar experiments with his most sensitive songwriting. Tracks like Little Wing (truly one of his greatest songs) and Castles Made of Sand showed Jimi was so much more than the wild man of Borneo he was portrayed as by the media back then.

The recording was done mostly in London at Olympic Studios. Despite the ground-breaking guitar effects and stereo panning featured on tracks such as If 6 Was 9 and Bold As Love, the album could potentially have sounded even better if Jimi had not left a master tape of side one in a London taxi. The lost tape had to be remastered in one overnight session and Jimi always felt the rushed nature of it compromised the record. But to these ears it still sounds amazing, especially considering the limitations of using 4 track recorders.

Fast forward to December 1969 and Phillips/Fontana were trying to convince us to buy these goodies right away, because if we waited until Christmas eve they'd be sold out. Now let's be honest, Santa would not have been delivering many copies of any of these records. Scott 4 is beloved of wise-after-the-event hipsters, but it was his worst selling of the four 'Scott' albums.

The 'David Bowie' album, renamed Space Oddity in 1972 after his second coming with Ziggy Stardust, was another flop in 1969.

And Flaming Youth are only remembered now because their drummer was Phil Collins - that's him at the bottom of the diamond on the cover.

Of the four featured albums, Greek diva Nana Mouskouri was probably the best seller at the time; popular with the mums and dads, don't you know.

And of the others, well Blue Mink were having hits and Melting Pot is one of their best, so that would have probably been the best seller of the lot.

Elsewhere in this pre-Christmas 1969 edition of UK music paper Melody Maker, CBS would have had a bit more luck promoting the new album from Janis Joplin, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!

With a new more soulful sound, a shift away from the psychedelic rock of Big Brother & The Holding Company, Janis was ready to rip up the joint as she did at Woodstock that summer. The new album should have done better sales-wise but a lot of fans were put off by the change of direction. Judged on its own merits, the record has some strong songs, including Try (Just A Little Bit Harder) and To Love Somebody. Check out those links, seriously. It's probably my favourite of her albums.

Island Records were also advertising in this edition of Melody Maker in December 1969. One or two of these albums, notably Fairport's Liege & Leif, Jethro Tull's Stand Up and In The Court of the Crimson King, had already been on the charts. Others, such as Quintessence, Mott and poor old Nick Drake would see little Yuletide activity.