About the Album:
This is “Hendrix’s original musical vision at its absolute apex,” AM “his ultimate statement for many.” AM It has been called his “best work” NO and “the best double album ever released.” NO “For pure experimental genius, melodic flair, conceptual vision, and instrumental brilliance, The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland is a prime contender for the status of rock’s greatest album.” CC
This was “a rock record where there seemed to be no boundaries.” B The album “mixes blues, rock, psychedelia, soul, jazz, and proto-funk.” TB It “demonstrated Hendrix’s desire to expand his music beyond the restrictive verse-chorus limits of the single” TB It also features “inspired jamming throughout, and aural landscapes that seemingly come from another world” NO – “a magical place where guitars cry and mysticism reigns supreme.” RV He “cound never again capture the effortless magic of Electric Ladyland.” CC
The End of the Experience:
This was the third and final album for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the trio consisting of its namesake as well as bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. Relationships were rocky at best; Redding was absent for most of the recording, appearing on only five of the album’s songs. CC Sometimes Hendrix covered Redding’s parts himself; sometimes he augmented the three-man studio line-up to incorporate keyboards, brass or woodwinds.” CC
Hendrix’s relationship with Chas Chandler soured as well. Hendrix’s “restless ambition led to protracted sessions and many re-recordings” TB which Chandler perceived as “self-indulgence and lack of focus.” TB He resigned as producer early in the sessions and as manager the next year. CC
Recording the Album
“To create this psychedelic landmark…Hendrix camped out at New York’s Record Plant for months, filtering the blues through effects-drenched arrangements and turning studio science into science fiction.” BL “What Hendrix sonically achieved on this record expanded the concept of what could be gotten out of a modern recording studio in much the same manner as Phil Spector had done a decade before with his Wall of Sound.” AM
“Kudos to engineer Eddie Kramer…for taking Hendrix’s visions of a soundscape behind his music and giving it all context, experimenting with odd mic techniques, echo, backward tape, flanging, and chorusing, all new techniques at the time, at least the way they’re used here.” AM
The Songs
Here are thoughts on the individual songs from the album.
“…And the Gods Made Love”
“Conceived under the more prosaic title ‘At Last the Beginning,’ this solo guitar concoction presaged the multi-dubbed delights to come, as Hendrix conjured magnificent pictures from musical genius and technical brilliance.” CC
“Have You Ever Been to Electric Ladyland”
“This soft-soul classic added studio trickery to the obvious influence of Curtis Mayfield’s guitar. With Noel Redding absent from proceedings, Hendrix handled the bass as well, and topped off a delightfully airy confection with some precise falsetto vocals.” CC
“Crosstown Traffic”
“Having just exhibited his command of the most subtle forms of soul music, Hendrix unveiled an aggressive, swaggering funk track” CC that showcased “blistering full-on rock.” TB The basic track “was “cut live in the studio by the Experience line-up back in December 1967 and then overdubbed in April and May 1968.” CC The song exhibited a sense of humor by bringin in Dave Mason, the guitarist for Traffic, just to sing his band’s name in every chorus.” CC
“Voodoo Chile”
The Experience regularly performed “Catfish Blues,” a Muddy Waters’ song, live in 1967. It “mutated into an original Hendrix song, built around an identical riff, and with lyrics that paid their dues to some of the most unsettling images from the Delta blues tradition.” CC A May 1, 1968, session included Jefferson Airplane bassist Kacy Casady and Traffic’s Steve Winwood. The result was “Hendrix’s surprisingly orthodox blues playing acting as counterpoint to Winwood’s sustained organ chords.” CC
This song and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” “are the twin pillars of Electric Ladyland,” CC “offering vastly different takes on the blues.” CC This one is “a slow blues jam, the other an uptempo rock arrangement.” TB
“Little Miss Strange”
This was written and sung by Noel Redding. It “did little more than repeat the ingredients of ‘She’s So Fine’” CC from Axis: Bold As Love. “Electric Ladyland would be a stronger album without it.” CC
“Long Hot Summer”
“Hendrix doubled up on bass and guitar, while Al Kooper’s keyboards took a minor role on this piece of urban soul.” CC “Mitch Mitchell’s drums were marooned on the far left of the studio picture, while the other instruments never quite cohered into any kind of whole.” CC
“Come On (Part 1)”
“The Experience ploughed through the standard chord changes and lyrical imagery” CC on this blues song originally done by Earl King, a guitarist from New Orleans. It was the final song recorded for the album. “Its last-minute addition to the album was strange,” CC given that it was a “pleasant but undemanding” CC song that “nodded to the traditional excitement of blues rock.” TB
“Gypsy Eyes”
“From its train-in-tunnel drum phasing to its staccato guitar licks, Gypsy Eyes was a masterpiece of creating substance out of little more than a riff and a message of love. Hendrix’s guitar patterns…and the interplay he built up with his own bass runs, can be heard resounding down the history of subsequent rock/funk crossovers, notably Prince’s early-to-mid Eighties work.” CC
“The Burning of the Midnight Lamp”
This was released as a single long before the album came out. However, it works on the album “with its dense production (reminiscent of Phil Spector), unusual voicings (Hendrix on harpsichord and mellotron) and evocative imagery. ‘They said that was the worst record we’d done,’ Jimi said in 1968, ‘but to me that was the best one we ever made.’” CC
“Rainy Day, Dream Away”
A session on June 10, 1968, found Hendrix “jamming through a set of jazzy changes with a cool, late-night feel, and an equally laid-back lyric.” CC The other players included Buddy Miles, Michael Finnigan on organ, Freddie Smith on sax, and Lary Faucette on percussion. Hendrix “dueled with…Smith as though modal jazz was back in fashion.” TB Their lengthy jam was divided between this and “Still Raining, Still Dreaming.” CC
This song also served as as the introduction to Hendrix’s “exotic suite, a seamless composition of fragments and improvisation that couldn’t quite be categorized as jazz or as rock.” CC
“1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)”
“Delicate guitar passages established a mood that mixed psychedelic rock and jazz, before Hendrix began to paint in words the portrait of a world torn by war and despair, from which the only escape is the sea.” CC Hendrix “created an orchestral tapestry of sound, which flowed elegantly into a gentle chaos of tape effects, backward guitars and chiming percussion.” CC He played all the instruments except flute, which was played by Traffic’s Chris Wood.
“Moon, Turn the Tides…Gently, Gently Away”
“Multi-dubbed guitar motifs restored the psychedelic jazz feel, vamping melodically for several minutes until the mood became almost frenzied and shifted into an electronically treated drum solo.” CC “The familiar themes of ‘1983’ re-emerged, to guide the suite to its conclusion, and complete 20 minutes of stunningly complex and beautiful instrumental tonalities.” CC This and “1983” made for “impressionistic science fiction epics that demanded headphones so you could get lost in their watery world.” TB
“Still Raining, Still Dreaming”
“Still Raining, Still Dreaming picks up where ‘Rainy Day, Dream Away’ left off. ‘Rainy Day’ gets things warmed up, and then ‘Still Raining’ comes along and just blows you away.” NO The jam works its way through another verse of “Rainy Day” before moving into “a coda that gradually wound down the mellow jazz groove of the original track.” CC
“House Burning Down”
“House Burning Down twisted through several key changes in its tight, swirling intro, and then shifted again as the strident chorus moved into the reportorial verses.” CC The song “makes extraordinary use of foxtrot rhythm and has an outro with one of Hendrix’s most far-out pieces of guitar.” TB
Like so many of Hendrix’s songs from this period, there was an atmosphere of impending doom in the air, inspired by the outburst of black-on-black violence that had shaken some of America’s ghettos earlier in 1968.” CC Jimi advised to find salvation “via a friendly visitor from another galaxy.” CC
“All Along the Watchtower”
Hendrix’s “most recognizable work is his cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower, a song so indicative of the Hendrix sound, most people don’t realize it’s a cover.” RV Hendrix’s arrangement became so definitive that Dylan himself “has been using it ever since.” CC
“In its original acoustic form, Dylan threw the emphasis of the song on its apocalyptic imagery. Hendrix used the sound of the studio to evoke the storms and the sense of dread, creating an echoed aural landscape.” CC Dave Mason shows up here again, this time on bass and acoustic guitar. CC
“Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”
“Nothing compares to” RV Voodoo Child (Slight Return), “a landmark in Hendrix’s playing.” AM In the book 25 Albums That Rocked the World! Peter Doggett calls it “the single most impressive piece of guitar-playing this writer has ever heard.” CC
It is “an eight-minute jam that pays tribute to jazz legends Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. Steve Winwood’s manic keyboard playing and Mitch Mitchell’s whirlwind drumming help push Hendrix’s scalding guitar work.” RV It “compresses every ounce of Hendrix’s ambition, musical technique, production skill, and uncanny sense of impending disaster” CC into “an extravaganza of noise and naked emotion.” CC “It’s nothing short of an awe-inspiring performance from rock’s greatest guitarist.” RV
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