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Hendrix family, Sony to release 'new' album

AP Photo/EMP/Authentic Hendrix LLC, Graham PageIn this 1969 image released by Sony Records, Jimi Hendrix performs.

LONDON (Reuters) — Jimi Hendrix fans will be able to hear around an hour's worth of music from their guitar hero never commercially available before when his family and Sony Commercial Music Group release a "new" album on March 8.

"Valleys of Neptune" features studio recordings dating from 1969, the year before Hendrix died in London aged 27.

"My brother Jimi was at home in the studio," said Janie Hendrix, head of Experience Hendrix LLC, the family-owned company set up to protect a legacy valued at tens of millions of dollars.

"'Valleys of Neptune' offers deep insight into his mastery of the recording process and demonstrates the fact that he was as unparalleled a recording innovator as he was a guitarist.

"His brilliance shines through on every one of these precious tracks."

Valleys of Neptune will feature several songs familiar to diehard fans from bootleg recordings, but there will also be more than 60 minutes of previously unreleased Hendrix music.

The album will include covers of Elmore James' classic "Bleeding Heart" and The Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" – a song inspired by one of his first performances in London in late 1966.

The disk will also include performances of original Hendrix compositions like "Ships Passing Through The Night" and "Lullaby For The Summer".

The record is part of an early wave of re-releases of Hendrix music, with new editions of "Are You Experienced?", "Axis: Bold As Love", "Electric Ladyland" and "First Rays of the New Rising Sun" all out on the same day.

Janie Hendrix told the LA Times that the estate had enough material for "a decade's worth" of new releases, both music and video.