page_title: Hear My Train A Comin'
section_title: Composition and early live releases
hierarchical_section_title: Hear My Train A Comin' / Composition and early live releases
caption_attribution_description: English: The Jimi Hendrix Experience performs for Dutch television show Hoepla in 1967. Nederlands: The Jimi Hendrix Experience treedt op in het Nederlandse televisieprogramma Hoepla in 1967.
context_page_description: "Hear My Train A Comin'" is a blues-based song written by Jimi Hendrix. Lyrically, it was inspired by earlier American spirituals and blues songs which use a train metaphor to represent salvation. Hendrix recorded the song in live, studio, and impromptu settings several times between 1967 and 1970, but never completed it to his satisfaction.
  The documentary film Experience features the only version released during Hendrix's lifetime. Hendrix played the song solo as an acoustic guitar country-style blues and it is considered one of his most memorable performances. In 1973, it was included in the film Jimi Hendrix and the accompanying soundtrack album. The song was also released as a single in the UK.
  Hendrix often played "Hear My Train A Comin'" in concert using a blues rock arrangement with accompaniment. He developed it into an extended improvisational guitar piece comparable to "Voodoo Child". There are several live performances in release; according to music critics, the 1970 recording from the Berkeley Community Theatre is considered the definitive version.
context_section_description: "Hear My Train A Comin'" was usually performed at a slow to andante tempo (65 to 80 beats per minute) centered on one chord with breaks.  The first known recordings were made by the BBC on December 15, 1967, with Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. Redding and/or Mitchell also provide backing vocals during Hendrix's vocal.  In contrast to the subdued vocal sections, the middle section features highly charged guitar soloing and accompaniment. Two takes were recorded, both lasting about five minutes.  The second take was broadcast on December 24, 1967, for the Top Gear radio program.  The first take recorded was released in 1988 on the Radio One album; both are included on BBC Sessions.
  Around the same time, Peter Neal was making a short film documentary about the Experience, titled Experience (also known as See My Music Talking).  On December 19, 1967, he captured Hendrix playing an impromptu solo version of "Hear My Train A Comin'".  The filming took place during a publicity photo session at the London studio of photographer Bruce Fleming, who had photographed the British album cover for Are You Experienced.  For the shoot, a twelve-string Zemaitis acoustic guitar restrung for a left-handed player was conveniently on hand.  Hendrix, seated on a stool against a white backdrop, sang while playing the guitar.  After a false start, he settles into the song, which biographer Keith Shadwick describes as "100 percent country blues ... s[ung] with great feeling, however artificial the circumstances of the session may have been".  Hendrix's acoustic guitar playing shows familiarity with the styles of Lead Belly, Robert Johnson, and Skip James.  Music writer Michael Fairchild compares some of his guitar techniques to those found in 1928 recordings by Tommy Johnson, such as "Big Fat Mama" and "Big Road Blues".  The guitar was tuned down two whole steps (C–F–B♭–E♭–G–C), perhaps influenced by Lead Belly's twelve-string style.  At the end of the 3:05 performance, Hendrix laughs it off with "Did you think I could do that?" In addition to the 1968 documentary, the "Hear My Train A Comin'" performance is included in the 1973 film Jimi Hendrix and accompanying soundtrack album (re-released on Blues).  In the UK, it was released by Reprise Records as a single in 1973 with the Experience's adaptation of B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby" recorded at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 as the B-side.
  In March 1968, Hendrix recorded another impromptu performance of the song with Paul Caruso on harmonica, a friend from Hendrix's Greenwich Village days.  It was recorded at Hendrix's suite at the Drake Hotel in New York City, where he lived for a while during the recording of Electric Ladyland at the Record Plant.  Caruso described it as "very simple, pure, like Lightnin' Hopkins' earlier work."  It is included on West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology released in 2010.  For subsequent versions, Hendrix gradually developed "Hear My Train A Comin'"
  from a shorter, blues-oriented number into a longer, improvisational piece with extended guitar soloing as he had done with "Voodoo Child".  The transformation is apparent in three live recordings which were released in 1971, which range from over nine to twelve minutes. Hendrix performed a nine-minute version with the Gypsy Sun and Rainbows band at the Woodstock Festival on August 19, 1969.  Shadwick describes Hendrix's guitar solos as "fluently spectacular, stringing long, arching phrases together".  It was released on the Woodstock soundtrack follow-up album Woodstock Two, with the title "Get My Heart Back Together" (reissued on Woodstock and Live at Woodstock).  On May 30, 1970, during the Cry of Love tour, Hendrix with Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox were filmed performing the song at the Berkeley Community Theatre.  Several writers consider this rendition to be definitive, including Shadwick:
  He solos with a distinctive flavour, for the most part entirely melodic rather than the usual fusion of chords, melody and outright sonic manipulation.  As with every great improviser he had h
caption: Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell, and Noel Redding performing on Dutch television, 1967
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