Are You Experienced? |
|
Peak: 12/13/66 to 4/10/67 Released in Europe: May 12, 1967 Released in U.S.: August 23, 1967 Peak: 5 US, 10 RB, 2 UK, 15 CN Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 6.0 US, 0.1 UK, 6.13 world (includes US + UK), 39.69 EAS Genre: classic guitar rock |
Tracks (UK Release):Click on a song title for more details.
Tracks (US Release):Click on a song title for more details.
Other Songs from This Era:
The Players:
|
Rating: 4.766 out of 5.00 (average of 31 ratings) Quotable:“One of the most stunning debuts in rock history, and one of the definitive albums of the psychedelic era.” – Richie Unterberger, AllMusic.comAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Album“Seattle-born former paratrooper James Marshall Hendrix worked the back-breaking chitlin’ circuit playing guitar with the likes of Little Richard and the Isley Brothers.” TL Chas Chandler, the former bassist with the Animals, had settled in New York in search of other projects. A friend steered him to Greenwich Village’s Café Wha? to see Jimi Hendrix. Chandler brought Hendrix to England and ;aired him with drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding. Hendrix signed with Track Records and charted with three top-10 hits in the UK before releasing his debut album.“Are You Experienced? “released just before Hendrix returned to the U.S. from London to play the Monterey Pop Festival, established him not only as a supersonic marvel, but as an innovative and sophisticated composer.” BN The album “unleashed Jimi Hendrix onto a world in the midst of such cultural and musical shakeups that it really didn’t seem as ‘far out’ as it actually was.” AZ The Who’s Pete Towshend said, “He changed the whole sound of the electric guitar and turned the rock world upside down.” CM The Experience“From the moment he dropped the match on his guitar at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival to the day his own flame went dark only three years later, he was the brightest star in rock.” CS “Hendrix was an artist who had everything…as far as talent: great singing, great songs, and of course a great band, a prototype that, like the Velvet Underground, is still being die-cut and applied to this very day.” JSHHowever, “not to be underestimated were the contributions of” RV Hendrix’s bandmates. “Power trios rarely get as powerful as the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The rhythm section of Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell were the perfect match for the guitar wizardry of Jimi Hendrix. They held down the low end with loose yet steady grooves that their fearless leader vamped over with the colorful splashes of an action painting.” PM They “blast away with a barely controlled fury” CD and give “the music a rhythmic pulse that fused parts of rock and improvised jazz.” RV “Redding is a melodic master, who plays in a kind of rhythmic counter-step to Hendrix, a throbbing mass that hits the chest and nervous system with a ferocious fury. And Mitchell is a rhythmic genius, a sacred combo of Keith Moon (for arms-flailing fills) and Elvin Jones (for syncopated up-and-down motion). Every member of the band totally attacks their instrument…with…precision and rough abandon.” JSH Cornerstone of Guitar Rock“If you’re an electric-guitar player, not knowing this album backward and forward is like a saxophonist not knowing Coltrane.” VB “It was his mind-boggling guitar work, of course, that got most of the ink.” AM By “building upon the experiments of British innovators like Jeff Beck and Pete Townshend” AM and “using radical new techniques in feedback and distortion,” RV Hendrix broke “through the barrier between innovation and enormous commercial success” CRS and, in the process, knocked “Clapton and Townshend right off their guitar-god pedestals.” BN“The trio’s debut was an unprecedented barrage of joyful noise,” TL “the most rock-oriented of Hendrix’s official studio releases.” CD The album’s “distorted metallic edge…made…[it] a particular favorite among rock and heavy-metal guitarists.” CDIt stands as “one of the most groundbreaking guitar albums of the rock era,” NRR but “one of the most stunning debuts in rock history.” AM Hendrix did “things with a guitar that no one ever dreamed about trying” DV and in the process “redefined and expanded the sonic possibilities of the electric guitar (strung upside-down for this left-handed virtuoso), while the propulsive rhythm section heightened the attack.” TL His “playing, while strongly rooted in the blues, also incorporated a variety of jazz influences and a uniquely personal vocabulary of emotive guitar feedback and extended solos.” NRR Cornerstone of Psychedelic Rock“However, “it wasn’t just Hendrix’s virtuosic skill as a pure player that was so impressive; it was, even more, the range and scope of sheer sound that he coaxed, cajoled, and ripped out of his instrument.” AZ The album “allowed a few different things to happen in the context of rock.” DV “Its influences are incredibly diverse.” CD “Hendrix synthesized various elements of the cutting edge of 1967 rock into music that sounded both futuristic and rooted in the best traditions of rock, blues, pop, and soul.” AM“But what’s really miraculous about Are You Experienced? is the way it combines psychedelia with blues and soul.” JSH It featured “psychedelic frenzy…instrumental freak-out jams…[and] tender, poetic compositions” AM and “opened the door for Hendrix and his mixture of funk and rock” DV and “gave jazz a chance to be heard in a more mainstream format and allowed rock fans to appreciate it.” DV He himself “once described the album this way, ‘It has a little rock ‘n’ roll, and then it has blues and it has a few freak-out tunes.” NO It was “one of the quintessential statements of psychedelic rock.” NRR “The guitar prodigy's inventive and cosmic psychedelia continues to influence new waves of rockers.” UT “Everyone says that it was Sgt. Pepper that sent dozens of bands scrambling to make their own psychedelic masterpiece, but in our heart of hearts, I think we know that it was this masterpiece that truly turned people on in the best possible way.” PM “Released in the Summer of Love, this [album, along with Sgt. Pepper’s] is the penultimate sixties soundtrack.” JSH Race“Not everyone appreciated Hendrix’s wild stage act. Some blacks decried his eccentric performances and flashy dress as selling out to a white audience – Hendrix became the first black rock artist to entertain mostly white crowds – and feeding stereotypes of black sexuality and eroticism.” CS Hendrix, however, told a New York Times reporter, “Man, it’s the music, that’s what comes first.” CSThe Songs“For its bevy of Hendrix classics alone, this incendiary debut is a must-own.” EW’93 “What made Are You Experienced? more than a mere instrumental novelty was the strength of its songs…that sound as revolutionary and as far beyond category today as they did the day they were recorded.” TL “Guitar fireworks and Hendrix's under-recognized ear for pop animate barn-burners like ‘Foxy Lady,’' ‘Manic Depression,’ and ‘Fire.’” EW’12 He demonstrated an “uncanny ability to tackle psychedelic jams…smooth ballads…and blistering R&B with equal wizardry.” CSBy blending “his gut-wrenching guitar playing and introspective lyrics,” BN Are You Experienced? “established Hendrix as a singer-songwriter.” CD He “demonstrated the breadth of his songwriting talents” AM and “his Dylanesque vocals and spacey imagery make each tune a little gem.” CD “Even his most gullible psychedelic excesses…never sound forced…in fact it sounds naïve and wonderful, a spark of sex and endless hedonism that epitomizes the eye-opening vividness of the era.” JSH “The doors of perception are forcibly opened by ‘Purple Haze’ and the psychedelic luge ride that follows carries you along hopped up expressions of lust and longing (‘Fire,’ ‘Love or Confusion’), cushy balladry (‘May This Be Love’), sweaty blues (‘Hey Joe’) and the kind of pleasantly meandering playfulness that goes all too well with the peak of an LSD trip (‘Third Stone From the Sun,’ the title track).” PM ConclusionHendrix “would continue to develop at a rapid pace throughout…his brief career,” AM but later become “arty, long-winded and, in the long run, rather screwy. Here he just revels in his newly-found studio freedom.” GS “He would never surpass his first LP in terms of consistently high quality.” AM “These songs pound, smash, crack, whirl, cringe... they’re totally unbelievable.” GS “Hendrix casts a mystical spell” BN on Are You Experienced?, which “remains one of the greatest and most important debuts in rock history.” RVNotesThe European release, which preceded the U.S. release by three months, had a different track listing, as indicated above. When the album was reissued in 1997, the European and U.S. releases added bonus tracks. Both versions had the same songs, but in different running order.Deep Dive Into Each SongHere’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs. |
 |
Hey JoeThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Billy Roberts (see lyrics here) Recorded: 10/18/66 and 10/23/66 at De Lane Lea in London Released: 12/16/66 (single), 12/13/67 (B side of “Foxey Lady”), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968), Smash Hits (US version, 1969), Ultimate Hendrix (compilation, 1992), Experience Hendrix (compilation, 1997) B Side: “Stone Free” Peak: 1 CL, 6 UK, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 64.38 video, 362.37 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Song:In 1962, Billy Roberts, “an obscure figure in the California music scene” TC copyrighted the song “Hey Joe,” However, it’s unclear who Roberts was and if that was a pseudonym. The story feels “tacked together from a batch of staple blues concepts – the badman, betrayed by his woman, shoots her and her boyfriend and cuts out for parts unknown.” DMIt has since been covered more than 800 times. TC “It was a big hit on the folk scene and amongst garage rock bands in the mid-‘60s,” TC recorded by the Byrds, Cher, King Curtis, Deep Purple, Love, Mothers of Invention, Wilson Pickett, Tim Rose, and the Shadows of Knight. It became “a repertoire requirement for every halfway hip high school band in the country.” DM The Leaves had the biggest hit with the song, taking it to #31 in 1966. Their version was credited to Chester Powers, which was supposedly a pen name for Dino Valentie, who was later a member of Quicksilver Messenger Service. Supposedly the Animals’ Chas Chandler was convinced to sign on as Jimi Hendrix’s manager after seeing him perform the song at New York’s Café Wha? Chandler brought Hendrix back to London where Jimi formed the Experience with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. They’d been together three weeks when they recorded “Hey Joe” in one take. TC Hendrix “didn’t just cover the song, he possessed it. He “dramatically transformed [this] West Coast hippie folk ballad” JA with a slowed down tempo “the undercurrent of violence in the song’s most tangible quality.” DM Hendrix himself called it “a blues arrangement of a cowboy song.” ES-16 The lyric “is full of suppressed rage and Hendrix’s guitar is similarly holding back, but you can feel the pressure. There’s a heavy, almost ponderous feel at work, a sense of doom.” TC “The melody is jagged, twisted, rough, dirty and exciting, and the group’s harmonies and Mitchell’s mad drumming make the song an unbelievable ‘experience.’” GS However, this wasn’t a showcase for the guitar wizardry that would come to be associated with Hendrix. He is “somewhat insecure and wary. He rarely lets go, except for the short, economic solo, and mostly sticks to displaying the thing that’s most essential to Hendrix music – his riffing techniques.” GS Still, it “lays the foundation of one of the most incendiary careers in rock” XFM as it was “Hendrix’s first single” JA as well as “his first recorded tune and first significant hit.” JA |
Stone FreeThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 11/2/66; re-recorded as “Stone Free Again”/rehearsal version: 4/7/69 to 4/14/69, 5/17/69 at Record Plant in New York City Released: 12/16/66 (B side of “Hey Joe”), Are You Experienced? (1997 reissue), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968), Smash Hits (US version, 1969); released as “Stone Free Again”: Crash Landing (1975), Experience Hendrix (compilation, 1997), Valleys of Neptune (2010) Peak: 6 CL, 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 22.54 streaming About the Song:Stone Free “is a joyous, rhythmically charged romp, once again supported by a fluent melodic sense, rolling drum work by the skillful Mitch Mitchell, Noel Redding’s amazing bass and Jimi’s amusing ravings about upper class citizens ‘pointing their plastic finger at me.’” RV It’s the “first example of the ‘manic’ Hendrix [and] more typical of his sound than ‘Hey Joe.’” GS “There’s a palpable urgency” ES-18 in the song. “The way the rhythms actually fluctuate in a manner that’s a lot closer to sexual or oceanic than the clomping plod of Cream, and then consider not only P-Funk but Living Colour.” JSH
“The chugging rhythm motors through and his vocal has a compelling impatience that combines to give the free stone a rollicking – rather than rolling – action.” |
 |
Purple HazeThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix (see lyrics here) Recorded: 1/11/67, 2/3/67, 2/8/67 at De Lane Lea and Olympic Studio in London Released: 3/17/67 (single), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968), Smash Hits (US version, 1969), Ultimate Hendrix (compilation, 1992), Experience Hendrix (compilation, 1997) B Side: “51st Anniversary” Peak: 65 BB, 64 CB, 66 HR, 1 CL, 3 UK, 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 20.0 video, 420.76 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Song:The man who some call the greatest guitarist of all time didn’t exactly explode out of the gate in his native U.S. His debut single, “Hey Joe,” was released in December 1966 and soared to #6 in the UK but didn’t make a dent on the Billboard Hot 100. In March 1967, Hendrix released his second single, “Purple Haze,” in the UK. It did even better, hitting #3 there and, when released in the U.S. three months later, managed to at least show up on the charts, although at a measly #65.Of course, Hendrix’s impact cannot be measured by chart performance. Rolling Stone credited the song with launching two musical revolutions – “late-Sixties psychedelia and the unprecedented genius of Jimi Hendrix.” RS500 The song “captured the liberating rush of day-glo culture just in time for the Summer of Love.” RS500 It was a “breakthrough acid rock anthem” JA and “many people’s first exposure to Hendrix’s psychedelic rock sound.” WK The song is said to be written on the day after Christmas in 1966. RS500 Producer Chas Chandler “overheard Hendrix experimenting with a riff in the dressing room of the Upper Cut [in London] and urged him to form it into a song.” ES-20 “Purple Haze” served as “a concise showcase for his brilliant, often contradictory gifts.” RS500 It is “a three-minute blaze of overdubbed guitar sorcery” RS500 which sports “one of the unforgettable opening riffs in rock: a ferocious two-note guitar march scarred with fuzz.” RS500 “Hendrix echoed his screaming Strat in the closing solo with another shrieking guitar put through a new harmonic-manipulation device called an Octavia and played back at double speed.” RS500 It “has the quintessence of Hendrix’s sound embedded into it: the menacing riff, the wild soloing, the psycho lyrics, the screams, the smoke, the everything…it’s…easily Jimi’s best songwriting effort.” GS Q magazine rated it the top guitar song of all time. WK Fans have often interpreted the song as being about a psychedelic drug-inspired experience, WK but Hendrix has said the lyrics were inspired by a dream NPR he had in which he could walk underwater. RS500 He’s also said it was inspired by Philip José Farmer’s 1966 science fiction novel, Night of Light. It was set on a distant planet where sunspots produced a purplish haze which disoriented the inhabitants. WK Hendrix also suggested the song is about the protagonist liking a girl so much that he’s in a sort of daze, an account which draws from an experience where Hendrix felt a girl was trying to use voodoo to trap him and he got sick. WK |
51st AnniversaryThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: ? Released: 3/17/67 (B side of “Purple Haze”), Are You Experienced? (1997 reissue), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 6.40 streaming About the Song:“This is the kind of solid, swaggering song that Hendrix would rewrite countless times…on the theme of being put ‘on a chain.’” ES-24 It “is a kind of rubbery blues that swings with rhythm the same way a good Mingus or Charlie Parker tune does.” JSH“In the song’s first half, he presents a celebratory view of marriage. But the second is spent changing the mind of his lover, who’s keen to wed, by describing a marriage with a wife who is a ‘louse,’ and a husband ‘down at the whiskey house.’” ES-24 Given that his mother died from alcoholism at 32, this “is more of a cautionary tale than simply about a braggadocio longing to shirk responsibility.” ES-24 |
 |
The Wind Cries MaryThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 1/11/67 at De Lane Lea in London Released: 5/5/67 (single), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968), Smash Hits (US version, 1969), Ultimate Hendrix (compilation, 1992), Experience Hendrix (compilation, 1997) B Side: “Highway Chile” Peak: 2 CL, 6 UK, 6 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 136.01 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Song:The third single, the “dreamy The Wind Cries Mary,” TL “represents Hendrix’s softer side, which echoes with a sense of longing and loss supported by wistful guitar work and heartfelt vocals.” RV The song “presents us Jimi the balladeer, Jimi the Dylan-imitator: this is certainly his best attempt at imitating Bob’s lyrics, and the gentle melody is also sparse, economic and haunting.” GS The song “certainly has a flavour of Dylan’s symbolist lyrics.” ES-26 Bob Dylan apparently told Hendrix that “The Wind Cries Mary” was his favorite song of Hendrix’s. ES-26Noel Redding said “the song was written about Jimi’s girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham. She and Jimi had had an argument. He’d thrown a plate at her or something, and she threw a saucepan or a frying pan at him; it was one of those domestic things. She walked out, went out with Angie Burdon on the razzle, and when she got back, Hendrix had cleaned up the mess and written ‘The Wind Cries Mary’ for her.” DT Kathy explained that Mary was her middle name and “the one he would use when he wanted to annoy me.” ES-25 She also said, “Having rows never worried either of us much; I guess we had both listened to enough of them throughout our childhoods not to take them too seriously.” ES-25 |
Highway ChileThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 4/3/67 at Olympic Studios in London Released: 5/5/67 (B side of “The Wind Cries Mary”), Are You Experienced? (1997 reissue), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968), War Heroes (1972), Ultimate Hendrix (compilation, 1992) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 9.79 streaming About the Song:“Hendrix’s clarion riff triggers the track, like starting a race; a feeling often evoked by his on-the-road songs.” ES-26 There’s also a sense that Hendrix is “eschewing a sense of belonging” ES-27 and even referencing the “difficulties of family life under slavery, thereby elevating the desire to keep on moving, from simply being about irresponsibility, towards a whole group of people being denied roots; of their family being seen as a piece of machinery.” ES-27 |
 |
Foxey LadyThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 12/13/66 at CBS Studio in London Released: 12/13/67 (US single), Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968), Smash Hits (US version, 1969), Band of Gypsys (1970), Ultimate Hendrix (compilation, 1992), Experience Hendrix (compilation, 1997) B Side: “Hey Joe” Peak: 67 BB, 83 CB, 82 HR, 1 CL, 11 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 34.0 video, 117.84 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Song:Along with ‘Purple Haze’, “the worshipful” BN Foxey Lady, which kicks off the original UK album, “helped define the power-trio format, thanks to Hendrix’s full-bodied rhythm guitar and his soaring solos.” CD “Hendrix’s lead and rhythm-playing form a skillful hybrid.” ES-28“Aside from its famously lascivious riff, Hendrix’s throat-clearing and lip-smacking define the song and continue the kind of vocal veritie that is threaded throughout his work, and which particularly befits a song declaring unbridled desire.” ES-28 “There’s no denying the track’s voluptuous carnality, but this doesn’t have to mean it’s sexist…Whilst great love songs are celebrated, great lust songs can be perceived as divisive, but there’s an undeniable corporeal glory here.” ES-29 “Heather Taylor – model and now wife of Roger Daltrey – is often cited as the foxy lady of the song. But Lithofayne Pridgon – also known as Apollo Faye – an early girlfriend of Hendrix’s, is another likely muse. She claimed he told her the song was for her.” ES-29 |
Manic DepressionThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 3/29/67 at De Lane Lea in London Released: Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968), Smash Hits (US version, 1969), Ultimate Hendrix (compilation, 1992), Experience Hendrix (compilation, 1997) Peak: 5 CL, 14 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 31.20 streaming About the Song:“This track is a thrilling band performance.” ES-30 “The raving, bashing and crashing” GS of “the moody, waltzing” BN and “appropriately-titled Manic Depression” GS is a “total noisefest.” GS “The most relentless misery of the rhythmic punctuation is its most undeniable element.” ES-30Hendrix explained the trio, saying “One of us is in a rock bag (Redding), another is jazz (Mitchell), while I’m on the blues.” ES-30 “The drumming provides a perfect demonstration of the lyrics” ES-30 and “Hendrix’s playing is compelling.” ES-30 “The churning Afro-Cuban polyrhythms” BN “evoke John Coltrane and Elvin Jones.” CD The song “picks up on the driving refferama of the Yardbirds and takes that back to Chicago’s Hubert Sumlin and rocks it into orbit.” CM |
Red HouseThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 12/13/66 at CBS Studio in London; rehearsal version: 2/17/69 at Olympic Studios Released: Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Smash Hits (US version, 1969), Ultimate Hendrix (compilation, 1992), Experience Hendrix (compilation, 1997); rehearsal version: Valleys of Neptune (2010) Peak: 6 CL, 8 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 76.92 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Song:“Whilst much of the critical attention for Are You Experienced focused on ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Foxey Lady,’ Red House was in some ways the album’s instant classic.”It “is an affecting blues of remarkable maturity and displays some of Hendrix’s most disciplined playing.” ES-31 This is “an authentic Hendrix 12-bar original that competes with Willie Dixon or Albert King.” ES-31 “Unsurprisingly, the track was much admired by John Lee Hooker.” ES-31 “Instead of the ‘little red rooster’ roaming, it’s Hendrix who’s gone walkabout and is now locked out of the red house after a bust-up with his baby. However, Hendrix doesn’t despair for long, confessing that if his ‘baby don’t love’ him anymore, her sister will.” ES-31 In the song, Hendrix plays a “weary seen-it-before-nodding of the bass” ES-31 but, according to Noel Redding, Hendrix “didn’t actually play a bass guitar on the track, but a tuned-down hollow-body electric guitar…It lends an earthier sound.” ES-31 |
Can You See MeThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 12/15/66 Released: Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968), Smash Hits (US version, 1969) Peak: 37 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 7.43 streaming About the Song:The “straightforward R&B…psycho-flavoured Can You See Me” GS is influenced by Cream’s “Swlabr.” ES-33 It is “confident, assured, somewhat arrogant. Hendrix is enquiring if his lover can ever see him being pinned down.” ES-33The track “makes evident Mitchell’s almost evaporated drum sound, with the beats dry, the fills crisp – only the cymbals splashing now and then. The control is an effective counterpoint to Hendrix’s protesting lyrics, with the rhythm determined and implacable like an interrogation.” ES-33 |
Love or ConfusionThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 2/8/67 Released: Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67) Peak: 22 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 10.14 streaming About the Song:“There’s an Eastern flavour to this track, with a spidery, chiming guitar intro resembling a sitar, and then Hendrix holding down a droning not in the first verse contrasting with his ‘reeling’ mind. The change in rhythm after the second chorus is jolting and creates an unease, enhanced by minor rhythm strokes.” ES-33 “Having the vocals deep in the mix lends a shiver to the confessional, and the indecisive riff that twitches behind the chorus is suspenseful.” ES-33The lyric is “an exploration of romantic uncertainty; an ambivalence mirrored by the false endings and an implied lack of resolution. The reverb on the vocal implies a distance between Hendrix, his ideas and his audience too, giving a sense of aural estrangement.” ES-33 |
I Don’t Live TodayThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 2/20/67 at Olympic Studio in London Released: Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67) Peak: 20 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 8.67 streaming About the Song:“I Don’t Live Today employs ritualistic Native American drumbeats” CD and Hendrix usually dedicated the song to “American Indians and ‘all minority depressions groups.’” ES-34 “Hendrix’s paternal grandmother was of Cherokee heritage; his mother also had Cherokee ancestry.” ES-34This song “sounds like genuine frustration and despair.” ES-34 However, “this track is balanced by the bursting fireworks and fizz” ES-34 and “the fade-out is a rich example of Hendrix’s trademark.” ES-34 It would be a technique later reprised by the Beatles on “Helter Skelter.” GS Speaking of the Beatles, their Revolver album makes for “a useful frame of reference for understanding the Experience’s debut album and early singles, as the Beatles’ masterpiece rotates between different styles.” ES-34 |
May This Be LoveThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 4/3/67 at Olympic Studio in London Released: Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67) Peak: 8 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 28.37 streaming About the Song:With May This Be Love, Hendrix “paints shimmering six-string waterfalls.” BN “It’s a strange but effective cocktail of the Hawaiian mele joined to an almost military drum rhythm with Mitchell playing tom-toms, making it simultaneously stimulating and soothing. Hendrix gets his guitar to croon and to serenade his ‘waterfall.’” ES-35“The title may be another question or the granting of a desire, and this uncertainty is raised by the sudden escalation of rhythm in the middle eight before there’s a trembling and then a return to the languid verses. Liquid notes in the gentle solo are more like summer rain than a waterfall, but they shimmer, lending the piece an iridescent quality.” ES-35 ‘90s Britpop band Blur “reference the dreamy opening of ‘May This Be Love’ on Parklife’s ‘Far Out.’” ES-35 |
 |
FireThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 1/11/67 and 2/8/67 at De Lane Lea and Olympic Studio in London; rehearsal version: 2/17/69 at Olympic Studios Released: 11/14/69 (single as “Let Me Light Your Fire”), Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67), Smash Hits (UK version, 1968), Ultimate Hendrix (compilation, 1992), Experience Hendrix (compilation, 1997); rehearsal version: Valleys of Neptune (2010) Peak: 1 CL, 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 64.40 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Song:“The blues-powered Fire” BN “burns brightly but briefly and is a lot of fun.” ES-35 It is “built on solid, memorable riffs…[which are] incredibly simple [but] nobody tried doing it before Jimi…That opening riff…why wasn’t it done earlier by, say, the Rolling Stones?” GS“The lead and bass display a superior chemistry and Hendrix’s joyous and Little Richard-esque ‘ooing’ to mimic his guitar’s yelp is a little treat in the fade-out.” ES-35 |
Third Stone from the SunThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: Jan. ’67, 4/3/67, 4/10/67 in London Released: Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67) Peak: 12 CL, 39 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 15.74 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Song:“Third Stone from the Sun is a precursor to the “Axis: Bold As Love concept of alien interaction and a higher power at work, by narrating an extraterrestrial visit to the third stone (Earth), and their disrespect for all but the ‘majestic and superior cackling hen.’ The ETs obliterate Earth, and crow, ‘You’ll never hear surf music again!’ On one hand it’s barmy, laughable nonsense…but on the other, it’s glorious.” ES-36Producer Chas Chandler “believed the track was influenced by George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides. The novel follows Ish as he tries to survive after a disease obliterates most of humanity.” ES-36 Chandler and Hendrix were “dedicated sci-fi fans, and much of the imagery Hendrix employed with the Experience certainly reflects this.” ES-36 “The half-instrumental recalls the supple octaves of jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery.” CD It “starts out as a conventional space jazz track. Over the rolling modal foundation Hendrix drifts off into a storm of elegant, majestic feedback.” CM “The main melody is among the best ever written by Jimi, and is nicely complemented by special effects-laiden, encoded vocals pronouncing all kinds of space incantations.” GS |
RememberThe Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 2/8/67 Released: Oct. 1971 (UK single), Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Smash Hits (US version, 1969) Peak: 35 UK Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 6.99 streaming About the Song:“The tables have turned, and Hendrix’s lover has gone roaming. However, what Hendrix…misses most is the birdsong that has silenced since, and it’s more a love song to song itself.” ES-37 The song “shows that Hendrix could keep it understated and still have something to say.” ES-37 “Hendrix’s sound is at once portentous, celebratory and lamenting.” ES-38 He “displays a softer, more controlled vocal of the type that would flower on the Electric Land title track.” ES-37 |
Are You Experienced?The Jimi Hendrix Experience |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 4/3/67 at Olympic Studio in London Released: Are You Experienced? (UK version, 5/12/67), Are You Experienced? (US version, 8/23/67) Peak: 8 CL, 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 18.80 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Song:“By the time Jimi escorts us out of our ‘measly little world’ with Are You Experienced?…we’re convinced this guy is from outer space.” BN “The title tune borrows the Eastern airs of sitarist Ravi Shankar” CD and is “all drenched in feedback and backwards guitar, relentless piano and Hendrix’s seductive vocal.” CM “In one sense it’s a typically soul revue play, but in the context of 1966 and the youth revolution and also the revolutionary sound coming out of Hendrix’s Fender, this is a whole new demarcation line in the culture war.” CMThe song is a bit “notorious for its lyrics which could serve as a kind of introduction to the whole hippie movement (‘have you ever been experienced? not necessarily stoned, but... beautiful’).” GS “While not exactly coherent lyrically, the music pulls its weight.” ES-39 Engineer Eddie “Kramer described the song as one of his favourites.” ES-39 he “admired the lead and rhythm-playing that Hendrix moves seamlessly between…It’s the first time he tuned his guitar lower to make manipulation of the stringers easier, but also to give a looser sound.” ES-39 |
Mr. Bad LuckJimi Hendrix |
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 5/5/67 at Olympic Studios Released: Valleys of Neptune (2010) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.90 streaming About the Song:“This is a version of ‘Look Over Yonder,’ first performed with the Blue Flames” in 1966. ES-118 “They lyrics and some of the verse melody would be used in ‘House Burning Down.’” ES-119Mr. Bad Luck was first featured on Rainbow Bridge and “a different version of this song was part of Lifelines…Jimi would later develop this song as ‘Look Over Yonder,’ issued as part of South Saturn Delta.” AZ2 |
Resources/References:
Related DMDB Pages:
First posted 3/21/2008; last updated 7/30/2026. |
No comments:
Post a Comment