Album: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Live 1967/68, Paris/Ottawa (Experience Hendrix/Universal)

There are apparently more than 120 different concert recordings of Jimi Hendrix circulating among collectors, of which the "official bootleg" label Dagger Records has issued around a dozen over the last decade, including the 1968 show at Paris Olympia which, bolstered with three tracks from a Canadian show of that year, is the centrepiece of this set. It's reissued as part of a box set alongside a coloured-vinyl record containing seven tracks from the previous year's Paris show, the package bulked out with T-shirt, web-access goodies and sundry ephemera. Despite the tape hiss and equipment problems, the guitarist's genius shines through, his superb solo on the 1967 "Red House" demonstrating how he was already supernaturally at one with the developing technology. For Paris 1968, he offered his own revolutionary blues programme, opening with "Killing Floor" and a "Catfish Blues" featuring flourishes that he would later employ on "Voodoo Chile", before sowing the seed-corn of heavy metal with the brutal sonic sexuality of "Foxy Lady". It's a fraught gig – constant re-tuning, a bust snaredrum skin – but it all comes good for the outstanding climactic versions of "Little Wing" and "Purple Haze".

Download this Hey Joe; Red House; Catfish Blues; Purple Haze; Little Wing