**** The Jimi Hendrix Experience

BBC SESSIONS

(Experience Hendrix/MCA)

This 30-track, two-disc set, which for the first time collects all of Hendrix's live-in-the-studio recordings for the BBC (Rykodisc issued an abbreviated, 17-track compilation in '88), is nearly as essential as Jimi's three studio albums proper. It's a vibrant, vivid portrait, not just of Hendrix the artist and musician but of Hendrix the young man, conquering the pop world on his own limitless terms -- and having a blast doing it.

You can hear Jimi's laughter on his lovably inane Valentine to the BBC ("Radio One"); you can feel his insatiable desire to plug into all music with his playful covers of the Beatles' "Day Tripper," Elvis's "Hound Dog," and Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love." Stevie Wonder even drops by to lend a hand on drums on a pair of tracks ("Jammin' " and Wonder's own "I Was Made To Love Her"). Although none of the band's live readings of their own compositions usurp the studio versions, Hendrix's personality, which lives and breathes through these songs, makes this an indispensable document of a moment in time when he sounded at once invincible -- and never more human.

-- Jonathan Perry