People, Hell and Angels

The tracks featured on People, Hell and Angels are previously unreleased recordings of songs that Jimi Hendrix and fellow band members (mainly the Band of Gypsys lineup featuring Billy Cox and Buddy Miles) were working on as the follow-up to Electric Ladyland, tentatively titled First Rays of the New Rising Sun.[3] The majority of the recordings are drawn from sessions in 1968 and 1969 at the Record Plant Studios in New York, with a few inclusions from Hendrix's brief residencies at Sound Centre, the Hit Factory, and his own Electric Lady Studios.[4]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
American Songwriter	[6]
Consequence of Sound	C−[7]
The Guardian	[8]
The Independent	[9]
NME	8/10[10]
PopMatters	7/10[11]
Q	[12]
Rolling Stone	[13]
Slant Magazine	[14]

People, Hell and Angels received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, it received an average score of 74, based on 18 reviews.[15] In Rolling Stone, David Fricke said Hendrix "plays at an elevated level in every setting" on the album,[13] while The Wire called the recordings "among the best of Hendrix's late work".[16] Patrick Humphries from BBC Music wrote that it "offers a tantalising glimpse of how Hendrix's genius might have progressed".[17] AllMusic's Sean Westergaard was less enthusiastic and said the album "certainly isn't the place to start your Hendrix collection, but collectors will surely want to hear this".[5] Writing for MSN Music, Robert Christgau called it a quality collection of leftovers highlighted by the songs "Somewhere" and "Let Me Move You", in which Hendrix comps behind saxophonist Lonnie Youngblood.[18]

Recording details for People, Hell and Angels:[4][20]

• Track 1 recorded on December 19, 1969, at Record Plant Studios
• Track 2 recorded on March 13, 1968, at the Sound Centre
• Tracks 3, 4 and 12 recorded on May 21, 1969, at Record Plant Studios
• Tracks 5 and 10 recorded on March 18, 1969, at Record Plant Studios
• Tracks 6 and 7 recorded on August 28, 1969, at the Hit Factory
• Track 8 recorded on April 24, 1969, at Record Plant Studios
• Track 9 recorded on June 11, 1968, at Record Plant Studios
• Track 11 recorded in June 1969, at Fame Studios, Muscle Shoals, Alabama; overdubs in August 1970 at Electric Lady Studios
• Track 13 recorded on January 23, 1970, at Record Plant Studios