Jimi Hendrix meets Material?

a Laswell remix I've never heard of, have you?

UPDATE July 11 2025: This story has been updated to include comments from Robert Musso.

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Discovering new things is almost always exhilarating. Even more so when they turn out to be old things.

Thumbing through a record store bin yesterday I saw this …

Curious, I flipped it over and saw this …

The Celluloid label up top caught my eye immediately. Some of you probably know this is the label where Bill Laswell did much of his early work. Could it be? I tried to read the details below, but Celluloid loved to use text colors that I find really hard to see, maybe because of my red/green color blindness. With a little squinting a could barely make out: 1984, Mixed by MATERIAL.

Laswell is famous for many things, including his remixes of well known artists like Miles Davis. I have that, and was aware of some of his others, but I never heard of him doing this with Hendrix. In 1983 Laswell and fellow Material producer Michael Beinhorn shot to fame in the music business for producing a hit record for Herbie Hancock. By 1984 Beinhorn had left Material to eventually produce gold and platinum records on his own. So this credit to Material is probably just Laswell. Not sure why he didn’t use his name, but likely some business/contractual obligation/arrangement.

Of course I couldn’t help myself from doing more digging about this record that I’d never heard of, so I thought I’d share a bit of that with you, and maybe you could do the same if you know something about it. Some people are calling this the first rap record because it was recorded in 1969. But as far as I can tell, it was never released until this 1984 remix version. Please correct me if I’m wrong about this.

Here’s what the man himself had to say about it in this snippet from an interview Laswell did in 2004.

http://www.theartofmusicproduction.com/Bill_Laswell_interview.html

Interview with Bill Laswell by Dr. Richard James Burgess conducted July 26, 2004.

… I’ve tried to move into the area of remix. I’ve tried to do reconstructions of entire albums, and tried to push for doing more of that. Not dance mixes or … remixes where you can’t tell the difference between that and the original, [but] actually trying to reinterpret music the way a composer would play another composer’s music. I’ve done that with Miles Davis, Bob Marley, Santana, Herbie Hancock.

… I’ve done that before with Jimi Hendrix. I got the two inch tapes, sixteen and eight track tapes from Alan Douglas, who was the last producer of Jimi Hendrix. I didn’t end up doing much with them because I didn’t feel like there was a whole lot we could do except just make the sound bigger and some of it was pretty raw. Looking back I think it would have been possible to make a raw blues record but it wouldn’t have established anything that he hadn’t already established.

Here’s even more info in this review of the CD release.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/doriella-du-fontaine-mw0000097759

Doriella Du Fontaine Review by Jeff Schwachter

The 1993 release of the specially priced CD single Doriella Du Fontaine brought attention to the remarkable early rap stylings of Last Poets member Lightnin' Rod. The release also offered an obscure Jimi Hendrix recording that stands as one of his most interesting, albeit short-lived, side projects. Although this 1969 recording date was an impromptu affair, with Hendrix, Lightnin' Rod, and Buddy Miles improvising in the studio, the song is unique and tirelessly funky. Hendrix' grooving guitar playing is the perfect backdrop for Lightnin' Rod's truly imaginative lyrics that tell the outlandish tale of a prostitute. Although he does not appear on the final track, Doriella Du Fontaine is well worth picking up for any Hendrix fan.

Shortly after publishing this story yesterday, I got an email exclaiming “Hi Rick, Yes I mixed this !” It was from Robert Musso, a long time collaborator with Laswell, and a member of Material at the time they worked on this Hendrix recording. Here’s what he had to say about it.

Robert Musso:

We got the tapes from Alan Douglas and remixed it at Greenpoint studio. Bill and I were the only ones involved. It was done in two days. I set it up the first day and Bill and I mixed it the next day.

He decided not to cut it up like some other remixes we were doing at the time. It was just a great document as it was, so we mixed it without any arrangement or music changing edits. I loved the groove between Jimi and Buddy, and Jalal was in prime Last Poets form at the time of the recording. Jimi’s guitar rhythms are great to listen to, and incredible to work on!

You can hear this recording yourself on Laswell’s Bandcamp site. I recommend becoming a monthly subscriber to his site as his archival releases are nearly endless and you get access to all of them. And Mr. Laswell could use your support as he has been very ill for a few years now, yet still manages to keep working at reduced levels of output.

Bill Laswell Bandcamp

Lightnin' Rod (Jalal from The Last Poets) with Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Miles.

This is the original jail toast recorded in 1970 by Alan Douglas, mix translation by Bill Laswell.

containing 2 tunes

1. Doriella du Fontaine

2. Instrumental

• Drums, Organ – Buddy Miles

• Guitar, Bass – Jimi Hendrix

• Mixed By – Material

• Vocals – Lightnin' Rod

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Bill Laswell Interview - when Bill first met Ornette, Miles, Eno … and Gomelsky

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