By mid-1968 Jimi Hendrix was in the midst of a transformation as an artist. After being shunned early in his career, his meteoric rise on the strength of his two previous albums with his band The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love (both Track Records) was brilliant, but by all accounts had left him drained. Jimi was a creative genius and always looking for the next mountain to climb as an artist. While preparing what would become his ambitious double album Electric Ladyland (Reprise/Track), Hendrix began gravitating towards a style and sound that would influence the remaining years of his life. While still pulling heavily from the Blues, he was beginning to incorporate more Folk, Funk, and experimental styles of music that indicated where he was going in the future.
It’s easy to see that after two smash albums, there were a lot of forces pulling on Jimi to get him to be what they wanted. He had already revolutionized guitar playing, sound effects, recording techniques, and live performances forever, and that was when he was barely in control of his career at the time. With Electric Ladyland, he asserted himself by producing the album himself after former manager Chas Chandler split from the project, with Eddie Kramer engineering. By choosing star musicians equal to himself to collaborate with as the mood struck him, and re-recording parts as needed. B.B. King, Elvin Bishop, Steve Winwood, Jack Cassidy, Dave Mason, Chris Wood, Al Kooper, Buddy Miles, The Sweet Inspirations, and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, he threw down a gauntlet to other artists to step up their game or be eclipsed. Refusing to be tied down by time frames and wanting to record and create when the mood was right, Hendrix began construction of the namesake studio in New York’s West Village. It’s still there at 52 West 8th Street, but it wouldn’t open until right before his death a few years later. New York City had a profound effect on Jimi and this album, especially the folk-rock movement of the Village. Electric Ladyland features Jimi’s most profound work as a lyricist and he seemed to compose a lot more with the song in mind, as opposed to vehicles for his sonic ideas and ripping leads. Less urgent, the songwriting on the album is very mature, eager to tell a story and started to point to more grandiose ideas explored later in his Band Of Gypsys.
Musically the album definitely had a sprawling, spread out feeling that at the time wasn’t as easy to digest as the more corporate packaged, “hits on side A” feeling of his earlier work. Critics didn’t love it at first, since it wasn’t catered to them, but this was purely Jimi’s vision. However, fans got it immediately. After the intro of ‘…And The Gods Made Love’, the album kicks off in earnest with ‘Have You Ever Been To Electric Ladyland)’, and ‘Crosstown Traffic’, two different, but huge tracks in their own right. The epic slow blues of ‘Voodoo Chile’, and bluesy folk of ‘Long Hot Summer Night’, the funky Earl King cover of ‘Come On (Let The Good Times Roll)’ are all great. ‘Gypsy Eyes’ and more psychedelic tracks such as ‘Burning Of The Midnight Lamp’, and 1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)’ are highlights. The crown jewel of the album and arguably his entire career is his cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’. The track is simply one of the most influential guitar tracks of all time, with its performance, three distinctive and legendary guitar solos, and its lasting cultural impact, pacing it far beyond the original. Other late album tracks like ‘Still Raining, Still Dreaming’, and ‘House Burning Down’ are badass deep cuts that hinted at much more in the future. In addition to the back half of the album being loaded with huge songs, ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)’ closes out the original album, as another humongous guitar track and one of the most memorable songs of his career. Likely because it was kind of a throwback to his earlier style, the track is easily one of his top ten songs for most fans.
Like The Beatles, The Who or later Led Zeppelin albums, many of the ideas on Electric Ladyland seemed to be born fully formed out the box, right out of Jimi’s brain. This is just as he indented us to hear it with no other filters. In the months to follow its release The Experience would break up, Jimi played Woodstock, other milestones in his all too brief journey were yet to come. Today this album still holds up as an all-time great.
KEITH CHACHKES