Westford, MA (Top40 Charts/ Image Fortress) A collection of over one hundred of the original negatives and slides of never-before-seen photos of
Jimi Hendrix taken by noted photojournalist Jim Cummins during one of Hendrix's last studio recording sessions and at two of Hendrix's last concerts have been rescued are are to be restored and digitally preserved as part of a photo restoration project ( https://kck.st/18cs85s ) headed up by a team of photo preservationists at Image Fortress working with Cummins.
Jim Cummins is the former New York Times and Newsday photojournalist whose work became best known from the iconic photographs he took of legendary rock, rhythm and blues, soul, jazz, gospel and country-western performers during the 1960s and '70s. Over 900 music albums from that era, many of which went Gold, Platinum, or Diamond, used Jim's photos as their album covers. His photos of such celebrated performers as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington and Crosby/Stills/Nash & Young, among hundreds of other music greats, became album covers and were published as magazine covers, concert posters and as part of feature picture stories about these artists in magazines such as Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and Life. Then the original film negatives got packed away in a basement box, not to be seen again for 43 years.
Cummins' photos of Hendrix ( https://kck.st/18cs85s ) were taken at the famoue Record Plant studio in New York City during Hendrix's recording session of the hit "Izabella", in performance at Fillmore East on New Year's Eve 1969, and in concert at Madison
Square Garden on January 28, 1970.
Commenting on his recording session shoot of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Cummins observed that, "Hendrix was a true innovator and pioneer in the world of music recording as much as he was the greatest guitar player of all time. He hand picked using The Record Plant studio to record 'Izabella' because of the technical capabilities he wanted for that recording session. He personally supervised the recording of the multiple tracks of his playing the guitar and the layering of those tracks that make his studio recording of 'Izabella', in my opinion, the best and most musically innovative of his recorded songs. That recording session was the first successful use of multiple tracks in rock music recording, well before the industry had the kind of multi-track recording systems that make multi track recording of rock so easy to do today compared to the technical difficulties when Hendrix recorded 'Izabella', " according to Cummins.
"These photos visually capture, like no other photos of Hendrix, those moments of the musical, creative and performing genius that was Jimi Hendrix," said Bob Pokress, Photo Editor at Image Fortress. "They are absolutely stunning and riveting," said Pokress.
Details about the
Jimi Hendrix Photo Restoration Project can be found at https://kck.st/18cs85s , and project Patrons will be receiving signed and numbered Limited Edition Fine Art prints printed from the restored Hendrix photos.
