VIDEORGY: Jimi Hendrix is (still) dead. Yet...

VIDEORGY: Jimi Hendrix is (still) dead. Yet there’s another “new” Hendrix album in the stores (along with a live Parliament-Funkadelic album). But what’s unusual is that the budget-priced records are being billed as “Original Video Soundtracks.” With Capitol Records now licensing its video product to Sony Inc., which in turn ships its videos to record stores through Capitol’s distribution wing, the two companies have pooled their resources and are marketing video and album product simultaneously. So if you like the new albums, you can also buy a Hendrix or P-Funk home video, featuring concert footage and video clips of many of the same songs on the albums.

“It’s an interesting experiment and if it works, we’ll probably do more,” explained producer Alan Douglas, who’s best known for keeping the Hendrix flame alive through a series of archival albums. “Since Sony and Capitol now have close ties, we thought we’d put out some great unreleased materials from these two acts in both formats as a way of creating some joint energy between music and video. Who knows--it could be a whole new genre.”

The Hendrix video features a host of never-before-seen live performances culled from Hendrix dates as well as a video version of “Voodoo Child” adorned with a dance performance by the Landrum Dance Co. and a Hendrix medley illustrated by performance artist Denny Dent. The P-Funk video also features live performance footage from a 1979 concert in Houston, plus recent video clips of “Atomic Dog,” “Double Oh-Oh” and “Bullet Proof.”