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.

Ludacris lands his fourth #1 album with Battle Of The Sexes. It follows Chicken*N*Beer, The Red Light District and Release Therapy. This is the first rap album to top the chart since Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 nearly six months ago. It’s Ludacris’ seventh top five album in a row, discounting a 2005 collabo with DTP, Ludacris Presents…Disturbing Tha Peace

Two songs from Ludacris’ album are listed in the top 20 on Hot Digital Songs. Ludacris is also featured on two big hits by other artists. He’s helping out on Taio Cruz’s “Break Your Heart,” which holds at #1 on Hot Digital Songs, and Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” which hold at #7. “Break Your Heart” sold 202,000 copies this week, bringing its three-week total to 506,000.

Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach debuts at #2 in both the U.S. and the U.K. The album sold 112,000 copies in the U.S. More than half of those copies (62,000) were sold digitally, making this the week’s #1 Digital Album. In the U.K., the album debuts behind Boyzone’s Brother.

Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now dips from #1 to #3 on The Billboard 200, but holds at #1 for the seventh straight week on Top Country Albums. This is the longest run at #1 for an album by a group since Eagles’ Long Road Out Of Eden had seven weeks on top in 2007. Setting aside Eagles, which was a pop-rock powerhouse before it became a country favorite, this is the longest run at #1 for an album by a core country group since Dixie Chicks’ Taking The Long Way had nine weeks on top in 2006-2007.

Next week, in addition to holding at #1 on Top Country Albums, Need You Now may well return to #1 on The Billboard 200. It would be the first album to have three separate runs in the top spot since Taylor Swift’s Fearless. Country sells and sells and sells.

Broken Bells’ Broken Bells enters The Billboard 200 at #7. This is a project by James Mercer of The Shins and Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton, best known as one-half of Gnarls Barkley. Both of those acts had top five albums. The Shins’ Wincing The Night Away debuted at #2 in January 2007. Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere peaked at #4 in July 2006.

Lady Gaga’s The Fame dips from #7 to #8. This is its 38th week in the top 10, the longest run in the top 10 for the debut album by a female artist since Britney Spears’ 1999 album …Baby One More Time held tight for 50 weeks.

Song Scorecard: “Blame It” by Jamie Foxx featuring T-Pain tops the 2 million mark in paid downloads this week. It’s Foxx’s first 2 million seller as a lead artist, though he was featured on Kanye West’s 2005 smash “Gold Digger,” which has sold 2,793,000 copies.

“Bedrock” by Young Money featuring Lloyd also tops the 2 million mark in paid downloads. The song is listed in the top 20 on Hot Digital Songs for the 15th consecutive week. It climbed as high as #4.

Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” tops the 5 million mark in paid downloads this week. Of the five songs that have sold 5 million digital copies, this low-key, folkie ballad is only one that isn’t squarely in the pop/dance/hip-hop center of contemporary pop music. Mraz’s song took 107 weeks to reach 5 million, longer than any of the other songs to have reached this mark. That’s fitting in a way: The genial ballad, which Mraz has called his “happy hippie song,” is in no rush. “I’m Yours” was a Grammy finalist for Song of the Year a year ago.

Shameless Plug: This week marks the 65th anniversary of Billboard’s first pop album chart. To mark the occasion, I have prepared a Chart Watch Extra revealing the top three albums in just about every category you can think of. The blog stars such all-time legends as The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley as well as such less obvious, but still category-leading, names as Usher, M.C. Hammer and James Horner.

This post was submitted by Paul Grein Chart Watch.