55 Years Later: Jimi Hendrix Experience Goes Densely Ambitious With ‘Electric Ladyland’

As with The Beatles’ White Album and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, it’s hard not to contemplate Jimi Hendrix’ Electric Ladyland (released 10/16/68) in the configuration of a single album. Excising the longest cuts on it as released fifty-five years ago would posit something of a retrenchment for the late rock icon after the expansive one-two punch of 1967 that is Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold As Love. In the end, though, it’s impossible to question the innovative logic and grand ambition behind this set. 

At the same time Jimi was beginning to conceive of what would become the resplendent studio bearing the name of this  Experience album, he was learning the art of recording and production. In the course of doing so, his innate restless adventurous streak had him playing with a number of musicians outside the core trio he comprised with bassist/songwriter Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell.

That freewheeling dynamic alienated the former of the pair, who had no qualms about expressing his displeasure (to the extent he formed his own group Far Mattress). Nevertheless, the bandleader’s open-ended attitude did result in a combination of Jefferson Airplane’s Jack Casady and Traffic’s Steve Winwood, who played bass and organ respectively, on the 15-minute slow-blues jam “Voodoo Chile.” A companion piece in the form of a  titanic riff-song, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)“, became a staple of the Experience’s repertoire for the group’s duration, while “Crosstown Traffic” was proof that Jimi Hendrix, as both a composer and recording artist, had not only mastered but also reconfigured the definition of hard rock.

Further indicative of the span of style, as well as the adept production of Electric Ladyland, the latter number follows a brief flurry of vocal and instrumental sound effects at the very outset of the sixteen cuts. “And The Gods Made Love” leads directly into a display of the influence on Hendrix of modern soul masters like Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions: “Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)” also foreshadows the rootsy material Jimi would utilize for the Band of Gypsys in 1969.

Hendrix also infuses “Gypsy Eyes” and “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” with R&B overtones, vestiges of his days with the Isley Brothers. In doing so, however, he also personalizes them as original songs, but no more deeply than apocalyptic overtones of his monumental interpretation of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower:” the dramatic introduction grounded in acoustic guitar by Traffic’s Dave Mason is only precursor to a genuinely cinematic arrangement echoing the socially-relevant theme of the cut that immediately precedes it “House Burning Down.”

Before all that was committed to tape, however, the late guitar icon spent months working on the material as well as the recording of it. During this time, conflicts arose between the increasingly independent artist and his manager/mentor Chas Chandler, formerly a member of the British group the Animals, who had brought Hendrix to England in 1966 with much fanfare and effectively aided in turning him into a star. 

The upshot of the friction resulted in Hendrix himself assuming the role of producer, aided and abetted by the sympathetic and experimentally-inclined engineer Eddie Kramer (who continues to work on vault releases of Jimi’s to this day).  Chandler was ultimately miffed he did not receive his due credit for work on this watershed, but the overall results speak for themselves.

The psychedelic “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” is juxtaposed with  the New Orleans-style R&B of Earl King’s “Come On,” both of which reside comfortably next to the Sixties-era Britpop of Redding’s “Little Miss Strange.”  But at the heart of this kaleidoscopic array is the epic studio production of “1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be);” a sci-fi laced dream sequence that, with more focus and slightly more expansion beyond its roughly eighteen minutes, these three parts–plus those bookends of “Rainy Day, Dream Away” and “Still Raining, Still Dreaming”– might well have turned into an album unto itself, albeit not one with so much commercial potential as Electric Ladyland.

As its only number-one album, the third and final studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was the band’s most successful record (and the only Experience album mixed entirely in stereo). Yet its release over a half-century ago was not without its controversy: Hendrix had selected a photograph by Linda Eastman, the future Mrs. Paul McCartney, to grace the cover, but his preference was met with deaf ears by his American label Reprise. In the meantime, the British home of the album, Track Records, used its own art department to concoct a cover image depicting nineteen nude women, the upshot of which was the assembly of alternate packages to placate retailers and distribution organizations.

Jimi Hendrix’ growing proclivity to experiment thus unleashed during the creation of Electric Ladyland, he was less and less inclined to maintain the outlandish persona he had formulated early in his solo career. And while for the purposes of finance, the Experience continued to tour almost non-stop–albeit often only on weekends to allow studio work during the week–material such as “Foxy Lady” and “Fire” received rushed and/or spontaneously extended live interpretations like those appearing in the performance eventually released on both video and audio as Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival 1970.

Redding’s frustration subsequently led him to leave the group, albeit not in the shambles it might have been. Jimi had recruited his Army friend Billy Cox to join the trio even as Hendrix also planned to use larger ensembles like the one he led at Woodstock. That six-man lineup, dubbed Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, gave way to the now-famous Band of Gypsys three-piece including Buddy Miles on drums and vocals. 

Yet its existence was almost as short-lived as its predecessor. The Hendrix/Cox/Mitchell alignment persevered through mixed messages from both its namesake and his management about the reformation of the first Experience, but that confusion on the public front belied the West Coast Seattle Boy’s continuing productivity through the construction of the aforementioned recording facility in New York City right up until his death in September of 1970. 

Initiated by the release of The Cry Of Love in March of 1971 (completed through efforts of Kramer and Mitchell), a string of posthumous titles, authorized and otherwise, rolled out in the wake of that still-mysterious tragedy. With the retrospect of over five decades, it’s become increasingly clear how each in its own way bears the intricate artistic imprint Jimi Hendrix emblazoned upon Electric Ladyland.