Jimi Hendrix Tops Elvis Presley

by Paul Grein in Chart Watch

Week Ending March 14, 2010:


The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Valleys Of Neptune enters The Billboard 200 at #4, putting the rock legend back in the top five nearly 40 years after he died at the tragically young age of 27. No other artist has cracked the top five this long after his death. Elvis Presley is in second place. His Elvis: 2nd To None debuted at #3 in October 2003, a little more than 26 years after his death..

Hendrix is the second music legend to make the top five posthumously in the past two weeks. Johnny Cash bowed at #3 two weeks ago with American VI: Ain't No Grave. But Cash died less than seven years ago. It's more remarkable for an artist who died four decades ago to make significant chart waves..

Valleys Of Neptune is, incredibly, Hendrix's 34th posthumous album to make The Billboard 200..

Hendrix was a star for just three years, from June 1967, when he played the Monterey International Pop Festival, to September 1970, when he died in London of a drug overdose. The guitar hero had four top five albums in his lifetime. This is his third top five album since his death. It follows The Cry Of Love, which hit #3 in 1971, and Crash Landing, which reached #5 in 1975..

Four of Hendrix's catalog albums re-enter The Billboard 200 this week. 1967's Are You Experienced? bows at #44, followed by 1968's Electric Ladyland at #60, the 1997 compilation First Rays Of The New Rising Sun at #63 and 1968's Axis: Bold As Love at #67..

Experienced? first cracked The Billboard 200 on Aug. 26, 1967. It was only the 10th highest new entry of the week (!), opening at an unimpressive #190. The album took 59 weeks to reach its #5 peak in October 1968. This week's debut of Valleys Of Neptune gives Hendrix a nearly 41-1/2 year span of top five albums.