*THE ANSWER TO YOUR PROBLEMS? Marky Ramone and the Intruders Zoe RecordsDrummer Marky Ramone, a favorite son of the East Village, wasn’t ready to retire when his brothers in punk decided to call it quits back in ’96.

Instead, the man behind the beat for the Ramones wanted to experiment by stitching together the edgy, old-school, three-chord, two-minute musical assaults he plied with the Ramones with elements of the So-Cal neo-punk movement.

And what was the result? On “The Answer to Your Problems?,” his 14-song record that comes in at just over 30 minutes, you get up-tempo rude-boy attacks that are slightly more melodic than typical Ramones music. Although there isn’t a “Rockaway Beach” or “I Wanna Be Sedated” here, there are a few songs that may become favorites.

The best of those is “Don’t Blame Me,” in which Marky duets with raspy-voiced Joan Jett on a very Phil Spector-influenced piece.

There are also loads of alienation anthems here, including the songs “Life Sucks,” “One Way Ride,” “Nobody Likes You” and a speedy double-time cover of the Beatles classic “Nowhere Man.” Although this isn’t as good as the great Ramones records, it is OK and should last through a summer of spins.

*LIVE AT WOODSTOCKJimi Hendrix MCA/Experience Hendrix RecordsWith Woodstock just a few days off, what better time to re-experience the incredible performance that Jimi Hendrix brought to the original festival 30 years ago? Hendrix’s second release in 1999 is a double disc, featuring 15 songs and 35 minutes of previously unreleased material from that historic two-hour set.

Those minutes pulled from the purple haze of the dead man’s archives feature the songs “Message of Love,” “Spanish Castle Magic,” “Foxy Lady,” “Lover Man” and the set encore, “Hey Joe.” This version of “Hey Joe” is worth the price of the album alone.

Often hailed as a pivotal moment in rock, the fiery performance by Hendrix and his Band of Gypsies was actually seen by only about 25,000 stragglers, far fewer than the hundreds of thousands who attended the original Woodstock. The reason was Hendrix got the unfortunate stage slot of Monday morning at 9, after many of the concert-goers had already left the festival.

*ELVIS PRESLEY: Artist of the CenturyElvis Presley RCA RecordsFor those whose CD collections are Elvis-challenged, RCA has managed to squeeze yet another boxed set out of the King.

This time out, the company has released a manageable three-disc, 75-song greatest-hits collection. Of the many top-10 hits here, “That’s All Right,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Such a Night” and “Suspicious Minds” rank among the best.

One of the more unusual elements of this set is its collection of quotes from movers and shakers in the music business, rather than the usual liner notes attempting to tell how important Presley was to the development of rock ‘n’ roll.

All the academic music historians hitched together couldn’t have said it as clearly as the Godfather of Soul James Brown did in his quote: “He taught white America to get down.”

*STARS TO SHARESamite Windham HillSamite (pronounced SAH-mee-tay) was born and raised in Uganda, fled to Kenya in 1982 to escape the political oppression of dictator Idi Amin and ultimately emigrated to the United States.

Samite’s album, “Stars to Share,” is a world-beat disc featuring the man on an exotic African instrument called the kalimba. In Uganda, the kalimba is an instrument that is thought not only to soothe but also to heal.

On his dozen-song disc, it is easy to hear and feel how the instrument eases the soul and even to feel some of its healing qualities.

The disc opens strongly with the song “Tindiba,” which finely interweaves classical guitar, voice and the haunting plucked-metal tones of the kalimba. It is a magnificent piece of music with an ancient quality to it.

Without hesitation, that could be said of most of this impressive collection. The up-tempo “Siwa,” a percussion-heavy love song, is another lovely tune that is exotic and sexy. As Joseph Shabalala, the leader of South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo, poetically said, “When you hear the music of Samite, the soul of Africa is revealed to you.”

This disc is one worth taking a chance on.