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The cover of Valleys of Neptune. Fender is giving away 12 Valleys of Neptune CDs! ENTER TO WIN A FREE CD HERE.

Forty years after the untimely passing of seminal guitar hero Jimi Hendrix, the world is about to hear "new" music from him. The 2010 re-release of the monumental Hendrix catalog began on March 9 with an album containing more than an hour of music never before commercially available on a Hendrix album.

The eagerly awaited Valleys of Neptune consists of 12 studio tracks seldom if ever experienced by Hendrix fans. Recorded over several months in 1969, Valleys presents the final studio work by the original Jimi Hendrix Experience—Hendrix, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell—originally intended as the follow-up to Electric Ladyland. It also presents Hendrix's first session with longtime Army buddy Billy Cox on bass guitar.

Valleys of Neptune gives listeners a fascinating and largely unseen glimpse of where Hendrix was at musically during the period between the October 1968 release of Electric Ladyland and the 1970 opening of his Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, N.Y., shortly before his death at age 27 later that year on Sept. 18.

"Jimi was at home in the studio," said Janie Hendrix, who co-produced the album and who heads the family-owned company that preserves and protects her older stepbrother's historic legacy. "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 was newly mixed for its modern-day release by longtime Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer, who also co-produced with Janie Hendrix. Kramer first worked with the guitarist on his landmark 1967 debut album, Are You Experienced.

The title track to Valleys of Neptune has been one of the most long sought-after of any commercially unavailable Hendrix recording. The song was released as a single on Feb. 2, 2010, four decades after it was recorded at New York's Record Plant in May 1970.

Other songs on Valleys of Neptune include fiery studio covers of Elmore James' "Bleeding Heart" and Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love"; and versions of Hendrix classics "Stone Free," "Fire" and "Red House." New tracks recorded at the sessions included "Ships Passing Through the Night," "Lullaby For the Summer," "Hear My Train A Comin'," "Lover Man" and "Crying Blue Rain." The collection also includes "Mr. Bad Luck" from the 1967 Axis: Bold as Love sessions.

Also released on March 9 were new deluxe editions of Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, Electric Ladyland, and First Rays of the New Rising Sun (the album Hendrix was working on at the time of his death, posthumously released in 1997). Each of these has a bonus DVD featuring documentary footage and interviews with Redding, Mitchell, Cox, Kramer and Hendrix's manager, former Animals bassist Chas Chandler. The reissue series also includes 1968 Experience compilation Smash Hits, and Live at Woodstock will be available on standard and Blu-ray DVD.