"Forever Young...and Forever Hendrix" 
Recordings from Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix

February 28, 2000
From: www.vh1.com

In what might seem like it came straight from the script of Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!, recordings from Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix have been unearthed and are currently being prepared for official release.

Young's cut, "I Wonder," will likely be released in December on the multi-disc, multimedia retrospective extravaganza, Archives, which he has been promising in one form or another for years according to Jam! Music. The first time a mass audience heard any part of the song was in 1975, when Young interpolated the melody and some of its lyrics into "Don't Cry No Tears," on Zuma.

But recently, Canadian DJ Bob Bradburn claims that a tape that he had discovered in the process of moving was a unique recording of Young with his first band, the Squires. Bradburn's tape may be the first recording of a Young vocal. In the early '60s, Bradburn, now a morning man at Edmonton radio station CHQT, hosted sock hops in the Winnipeg area of Manitoba, which the Squires often performed at. He recorded two songs by the Squires for promotional purposes, and thought nothing of it until he recently discovered the tape, which includes the instrumental song "Mustang."

"It was just on the reel, it wasn't even in a box, and oddly enough, the quality didn't deteriorate at all," Bradburn, 62, told SonicNet. "There was a little hand-scribbled thing, 'The Squires,' and I just didn't put Neil's name on it. It didn't trigger right away at all....When I [realized what it was], I couldn't believe it." Two other songs recorded then, "Aurora" and "The Sultan," were released shortly thereafter for Winnipeg's V Records and are in the vein of celebrated instrumental band the Shadows. The single typically fetches $500 in collectors circles.

Young's management says that "I Wonder" may not be as rare as Bradburn assumes. "It turns out we may already have the tape," Young's manger Elliott Roberts told the music Web site JAM! "There are other versions of 'I Wonder.' We have actually two different versions of "I Wonder" from the Squires....But this could be a tape of versions we haven't heard yet." Roberts plans to determine whether the tape is indeed the first recorded performance vocal.

Bradburn has not spoken to the singer in decades, but Young is on record saying that the DJ was one of the men instrumental in boosting his early career. Bradburn might like to have an engineering credit should his tape be used on the box set, but he doesn't wish to be much of a "noodge." "He doesn't know I'm here," says Bradburn, "and I don't want to bug people. If he knew I was here and said give me a call, then I would love to see him." Alas, Young is touring the U.S. now with his old comrades Crosby, Stills & Nash, and probably won't be dropping in on Bradburn any time soon.

As for the Hendrix cuts, Janie Hendrix, the epochal guitarist's adopted sister and CEO of Experience Hendrix, which supervises his legacy, according to Q Magazine, has announced that several undiscovered recordings have been excavated at Abbey Road studios in London.

"We've found some sixty masters that you've never heard before," Janie Hendrix says, "some brand new material and versions of songs you've never heard, and we're putting out a box set in September. Four CDs and all of the music on it, is totally different. There's even some brand new songs we're just now publishing that Jimi wrote back then so it's really exciting."

VH1.com hopes against all hopes that the discovered tracks are indeed exciting, since we assumed that the barrels of Hendrix's recorded legacy had been well and truly scraped. In any case, this news comes after Experience Hendrix's issue of the documentary Bands of Gypsies - Live at Fillmore East snagged a Grammy for Best Music Video - Long Form. Unbelievably, it is the first Grammy ever awarded to a Hendrix product.

Here's a little more information via John Einarson, author of the definitive books on Neil's Canadian years and Buffalo Springfield,

"The tapes are of two songs from sessions dating April 2, 1964 (as detailed in my NY book) and are the first attempt at I Wonder (recorded later by another Squires lineup in early 65) and the instrumental Mustang. The master tapes sound incredible, very clear and crisp, much better than the poor quality copy Neil played for me back in 91. He had a terrible copy but now he will have the masters."