Released - October 1968
Genre - Psychedelic Rock
Producer - Jimi Hendrix
Selected Personnel - Jimi Hendrix (Vocals/Guitar/Piano/Bass); Noel Redding (Bass); Mitch Mitchell (Drums/Percussion); Jack Casady (Bass); Al Kooper (Organ)
Standout Track - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
I've gone with the cover of the reissue rather than original release's bevy of naked women for fear of causing scandal. When you're a dyed-in-the-wool 70s fan as I am, the enormous cult that surrounds Hendrix can seem vaguely impenetrable. When I had spent years gorging myself on the likes of David Gilmour and so on, I couldn't quite gather from listening to Hendrix what was so incredible about him (other than the usual euphoria that surrounds talented artists who die young given the whole tragedy of wasted potential and the like). It was only when I began to get into music from the 60s more that I suddenly understood everything that made Hendrix phenomenal - put simply, nobody was doing anything like him with the guitar at the time. As the 70s wore on, people like Gilmour would continue to innovate with the instrument and find ways to make it do strange and wonderful things, but before Hendrix it was being used either as a tame accompaniment to a vocal melody or to play fairly by-the-numbers blues solos. Every now and again, somebody like the Velvet Underground would pop up and make it sound artful by playing it badly. But never before had somebody exhibited such virtuoso control over the instrument that they elevated it the playing of it to a whole new art form.
By the time Electric Ladyland, Hendrix's third and final studio album, was released, his trio ("The Experience") had released Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold As Love which, while they showcased Hendrix's talents, failed to really engage in terms of their songwriting or production, being fairly "psychedelic-rock-by-numbers" affairs. Electric Ladyland is close to being a Hendrix solo album, with tension in the band running high and bassist Noel Redding having most of his parts replaced by Hendrix himself in the studio, but out of these tensions and communication breakdowns comes the man's magnum opus, showcasing more virtuoso guitar than any album up to that point and also using experimental studio production techniques to create a grandeur that Are You Experienced? lacked. Curiously enough as well, for an album borne out of creative tensions between Hendrix and his band, it also features one of only two Experience songs where another band member sings lead vocals, in the form of Redding's "Little Miss Strange."
First things first - this album is much too long. The concept of the double album is frequently a risky one, as there are so many examples throughout history of double albums that could easily have done with some fat being trimmed, and this is one of those. Between some of the more forgettable short songs (the almost-title track "Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)" is fairly uninspiring, as are "Little Miss Strange" and "Long Hot Summer Night") and the more tedious lengthy jams (both "1893... (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)" and the full-length version of "Voodoo Chile" start out great and begin to try the patience after ten minutes or so of very little musical progression), there's plenty here that could either have been removed entirely or certainly cut down to size. That's not to say that lengthy jams are inherently a bad thing - no prog fan like myself could write something off purely on account of its length - but on a number of those longer songs there's just not enough going on to truly sustain interest.
But this album also contains all of Hendrix's finest moments. The frenetic "Gypsy Eyes" is a raucous piece of proto-funk, while the closing salvo of the cover of Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower" followed by the condensed "Voodoo Chile" reprise, "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" must be one of the greatest album closers ever. "All Along The Watchtower" has become a stone-cold classic, with Dylan himself acknowledging that the angry attack of Hendrix's electric version is superior to his own original, while "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" showcases one of the most infectiously aggressive and swaggering guitar riffs of all time. Hendrix was notoriously shy about his vocal performances, but in general his vocals are assured and effortlessly cool, particularly on those two closing songs, although in moments such as "Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)" he struggles ever so slightly to really connect with the song.
Hendrix's perfectionism and total dominance in the studio also create some awesome soundscapes, from the weird distorted intro of "...And The Gods Made Love" to some of the aquatic treatments and watery landscapes of "A Merman I Should Turn To Be," which is genuinely a great song for the first five minutes or so. After the completion of Electric Ladyland, Hendrix disbanded the Experience shortly after, with the pressures and tensions proving too much to be creatively viable. After a couple of years with a new band, Hendrix died in 1970, but this album remains the pinnacle of everything he achieved and the greatest testament to his talents.
Track Listing:
All songs written by Jimi Hendrix, except where noted.
1. ...And The Gods Made Love
2. Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)
3. Crosstown Traffic
4. Voodoo Chile
5. Little Miss Strange (Noel Redding)
6. Long Hot Summer Night
7. Come On (Part I) (Earl King)
8. Gypsy Eyes
10. Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
11. Rainy Day, Dream Away
12. 1893... (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)
13. Moon, Turn The Tides...Gently, Gently Away
14. Still Raining, Still Dreaming
15. House Burning Down
16. All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
17. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
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