All language subtitles for Classic.Albums.The.Jimi.Hendrix.Experience.Electric.Ladyland.1080p.WEB.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

You have another LP coming out?

Yeah, another LP right now.

It's finished, completely finished.
It'll be out in about 10 days.

So that, yeah.

It's called Electric Lady.

Have you ever been?

Have you ever been to Electric Lady?
It's all for LP, Jimi Hendrix, Electric

Lady Line.

The magic carpet.

Title of LP, Electric Lady Line.

Directed and produced by Jimi Hendrix.

Photography, Linda Eastman.

Engineers, Gary Kelgren and Eddie
Kramer.

Recorded at the Record Plant, 321 West
44th Street, New York City.

We would like to make an apology for
taking so very long to send this, but we

have been working very hard indeed
during shows and recording.

When that album came out, man, I mean,
it just

sensed it for him. He was absolutely

the man on the scene.

He made the leap.

In 68, you know, 20 years, you know,
that day, when you heard that record,

were thrown into the future.

There was no question about it, Jimmy
was tremendously gifted, and he was

to play guitar, but by hell, he worked
at it. I always felt with Jimmy that he

was, you know, a very major artist, you
know, as a musician and as a

composer. I knew that he was going to
sort of, like, take the whole form

somewhere else.

And I believe that he only just began to
do that with Electric Ladyland.

Well, all the albums with Jimmy ran into
one anyhow.

As we're doing, all your experience,
we're messing around with songs that

part of Axis Bowler's love. As we're
doing Axis Bowler's love, we're doing

that end up on Electric Ladyland. We
just kept rolling, and as soon as we had

enough songs for an album, we'd put that
one out. I was quite grateful to get

into the studio.

Really, I mean it was never like that's
planned This is the next album.

There was never time enough to To do
like a complete plan of campaign

lady then I'd say was even you play it
now is Well ahead of its time and it's

still valid Musically beautiful album. I
think it's a well balanced album and it

definitely broke some rules and it
pushed the

boundaries way, way out there. I mean,
that's probably the most experimental

album that Jimmy had ever done.

Yeah, the whole LP means so much. You
know, it wasn't just slopped together.

Every little thing that you hear on
there means something. You know, it's

game that we're playing.

It's a little.

Quite an accomplished keyboard player. I
think it's the first time he ever

played harpsichord on a record. The idea
for the harpsichord was right there

from literally as soon as the playback
came back. It was like, yeah, it needs

something there.

Harpsichord. That'll be nice.

This is a combination track with wah
-wah guitar.

And a very strange sounding instrument.
It sounds like a mandolin, but it's not

really a mandolin. It's Jimmy playing
electric guitar that's been recorded at

.5 IPS and then played back at 15,
otherwise recorded at half speed. So you

this... Very strange

mandolin effect.

I was the first time we worked with
Gary.

It was just one of them things. We were
in New York and the studio was free. Tom

Wilson had recommended the studio to me.

And so we just went down there and tried
it. It was good.

I met Gary Kellgren when he was still at
Mayfair. He, of course, was the

creative genius who was working with
Jimi Hendrix and Tom Wilson and Bob

and all those guys.

And on April 18th, 1968...

I'll never forget it. Eddie arrived in
New York with his black cape and we

picked him up at the airport.

We were fortunate enough to meet up with
Eddie Kramer, who really, he did know

his stuff.

I mean, he had quite a classical
background.

And he came swishing into the New York
record plant. And that was also the

we had the first real session with
Jimmy. And, of course, Electric Ladyland

our very first big hit.

Bass guitar played by Noel Redding, a
very funky...

Dirty sound growling away in the
background.

For the most part, a pretty distorted
sound, but when

it's mixed in with the drums,

pretty

hard driving force.

And here are the angelic voices of City
Houston and the

sweet inspirations.

This was Aretha's background vocal
group.

They all thought it was quite strange.

And Midnight Lamp sort of threw them a
little bit, but they liked it and did a

great job on it.

You know, for a man who really thought
that his voice stung and was so

embarrassed, I mean, this was an amazing
vocal performance.

He

was

always laughing and carrying on on the
sessions, and you can hear there was a

very jovial Hendrix.

that underlying the intensity of his
vocal, at the end he would just explode

into laughter and make a joke about
something.

One of the things that annoys me most
I've seen, you know, since Jimmy died

the people who ran his estate prior to
this, always made out Jimmy to be some

sort of tragic character, you know, and
sort of gloomy, mystical and all the

rest of it.

He was anything but. If I think of
Jimmy, I think of him with a smile on

face because he was full of fun all the
time.

A lot of humour for him was in what he
did in his music.

If you watch him on stage, you can see
when he's laughing to himself, when

he's playing something.

We'd go up to his room, he'd have all
the curtains closed, all the lights off,

and he'd put scars all over all the
lights so you couldn't see anything in

room.

And he'd have the telly on, and we
called him The Bat.

He was a great mimic.

I mean, he used to have us in stitches
with these imitations of Little Richard,

who we toured with.

He had one tale after the other of
Little Richard coming out, you know. You

to see him to believe it. He just became
Little Richard.

There was so much joking around and
jokes and goofing and just doing voices,

imitating people. I mean, just so much
fun stuff.

Jimmy James.

What's wrong with you today? I said, you
know what?

Go look in the mirror, look at your
head.

Your curls done come undone, brother?

He said, I've tried Braille cream, but
it doesn't seem to work these days.

Thank you very much, sir.

The Electric Ladyland session started
way back in England at Olympic Studios

Barnes, London, where we cut the basic
tracks for Cross Down Traffic and All

Along the Watchtower, a course written
by Bob Dillon.

Whenever I mention, or whenever somebody
mentions Bob Dylan's name,

just his name, I mean, the man's eyes
and body and mind was just like,

you know, you know, he's like, where is
he? You know, he's like,

he's my messiah.

He liked a lot of Dale Dylan. I liked
the early Dale Dylan. But between the

of us, there's someone in your mind
that, you know. He would...

Keep in his flight bag a Bob Dylan
songbook and refer to it on a daily

He loved Bob Dylan.

He did all along the watch there, didn't
he?

Jimmy, you obviously just heard.

Watchtower and just fancy doing it. I've
never heard it before It's actually

like a quick playthrough maybe of the
original but it was the usual thing the

strum the guitar and This is how it goes
This

is a great example of Jimmy's

ability to orchestrate direct

and really focus the attention on all
the intricacies of the song.

Here's the timing we're doing, you know,
sometimes we're... Again, okay.

Six, one, two, one, two, three.

Jimmy played a sixth string.

And... We just sat opposite each other.

And there was just, there was just, and
Mitch. So we just put it down with just

the acoustic guitar and Mitch Mitchell.
I think Noel was over the road.

The red lion or the green cow or
whatever it was.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. You have to
basically only get a fit like that, like

that part right there. Control one more
time.

One, two.

It's great how Jimmy is telling Mitch
exactly where to put the bass drum part,

because he knows instinctively what the
rhythm should be.

We obviously have a visitor, none other
than Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones.

Stumbled by the session, decided to help
out and play some piano. But I think he

valiantly tried for a couple of takes
and then, as we can hear, it was

abandoned. And they went back to cutting
the basic track without him.

Actually, I think Brian Jones was
involved in some of that kind of deal

percussion effects.

You know, it was like, anyone that was
around, here, hit this, let's try and

what works.

He would just take a cab to the studio,
and when we was doing the Electric Lady

album, the cab driver said to him, hey,
aren't you Jimi Hendrix? He says, yeah,

yeah. He said, where are you going, man?
I'm going to the studio.

The cab driver says, oh, yeah, I pay
coggers.

He says, well, go home and get them and
come down.

And the cab driver went up and got his
congas and came down and played in the

studio that night, you know.

He was a cab driver.

But that was pretty typical.

If somebody could play something, you
know, they could play.

Jimmy Hendrix playing bass.

Probably Noel's P bass, his Fender
Precision bass, played upside down.

That's when we were having a few
problems within the band already.

And I said I didn't like the tune.

I saw Jimmy frustrated, running around
trying to get a sound out of what he had

in his head and not being able to do it.
And grabbing different bottles, beer

bottles, soda bottles, knives and
everything, trying to get that middle

where there's a Hawaiian guitar sound.

You know, he just played that with a...

With a cigarette lighter.

I love Dylan.

I think this became the definitive
version of the song.

Oh, yeah.

I prefer Dylan's version.

On the 16th of April, we got back to
America.

There was no major plan. It's just, you
know.

Jimmy was an American, and naturally an
American wants to be big in America.

So we just went there.

We play in Toronto one night, and then
Texas the next night, and then New York,

and then Seattle, and then Florida.

It wasn't planned.

It was silly, really.

I'm glad I'm still here.

I think it's giant stupidity.

from the management point of view, from
agents point of view, you know, you've

got fans going from one side of America
to another and you know more or less

you're told to be grateful because hey
in my day used to be on a Greyhound bus.

And they put him on at one side of the
country for one day, and you're supposed

to be 3 ,000 miles away the next day to
do another gig. No one seemed to think

of a schedule where he could go from one
place to the other quite in a normal

manner.

And I think we did something like nine
weeks worth of gigs, and we didn't

have too many days off in that nine
weeks, maybe four or five days.

And in that nine weeks, I think I have
recorded in my diary 19 ,000 miles of

driving alone, and that doesn't include
flying.

When you're in a band and you're on a
roll, you don't get tired.

You don't get tired from playing, you
get tired from partying.

Going to bed at four, getting up at
eight, that sort of stuff, getting on

aeroplanes.

Doing another show, doing a press
reception in the afternoon. Thank you

much.

Got half an hour off, you can go and
have a beef burger.

And gig, club, bed, aeroplane. Thank you
very much for about three months.

Going on the road for, like, three or
four days, coming back into New York,

going to the studio for, like, two to
three days, trying to get something

which isn't very good, I don't think. If
you're going to try and get some work

done, you should sit and think about it,
at least, and without running around

playing all the time.

I have a certain amount of bitterness,
especially for my friend Jimmy.

It's giant stupidity.

You can't do that. You must take some
time off to write, to record.

You can't do two, you know, or three or
four things at the same time.

I think pressure is an overused word in
the industry.

You know, what's a musician really
doing? Doing what he wants to do more

anything else in the world, whether it
has the pressure or not.

It was Michael Jeffries who said, would
you like to come down to Miami and

record Jimmy at the Miami Pop Festival?

The first night Jimmy did the show and
that was all right. The second night it

got totally swamped out. I mean, rained
in buckets.

There was a drought in that whole part
of Florida, which had gone on for about

month.

And I guess sometime the night before
the show, they sent some planes out to

the clouds over the Everglades.

And it worked.

And the whole show was canceled.

And I remember I got in the limo with
Jimmy and Mitch.

And Jimmy was furiously scribbling in
the back of the limo. I glanced over. I

could see rainy day, dream away.

When you hear the beginning of Rainy
Day, you can hear some changes being

played, and that's basically just us
talking about different sections of the

tune.

And there's not a whole lot of changes
to it. A lot of it's just in D.

It's just comping in D.

Later on, like on a cue, I remember we
talked about doing this, that

kind of thing. There's a sex in there,
you know, I

think.

And he goes...

Freddie Lee Smith on sax. Freddie Lee
Smith on sax. He's not with us,

unfortunately. Right. And then I was
playing drums.

And this tune itself was one of the
highlights of my whole career. Most

definitely. Do you remember who was on
bass?

There was no bass.

Mike Spanigan was playing, as we know
it, shamming.

The first thing I did as far as a bass
line was that kind of feel.

So that was cool, you know.

I think a couple of times I did some
walking lines, you know, and he said,

no, don't be walking, just keep pumping,
you know.

Rainy day, dream away.

Let the sun take a holiday.

Flowers fade and I see the children
play.

You know, just check out the words,
rainy day, rain all day, ain't no use to

getting up tight, just let it groove its
own way.

Let it train, worry the worries of the
day, lay back and groove on a rainy day.

And that's just the thing that you do on
a rainy day.

If he had a lyric, I didn't know about
it. You know, if he had like a form, he

kept it to himself, because as I said,
it was like a very loose construction.

The first half was like mellow, and the
second half was insane.

I told you, since there's no bass player
at the end of the tune, we get into a

little climb thing.

And then doing those things. It was all
head cues and hand signals and eyebrows.

It was real easy for me because one of
my specialties was playing a shuffle,

which they call gut bucket, to where you
can really flirt with time, you know,

and you kind of get that.

Like, in other words, like, when you're
flirting with time, you're back like

this, you know.

Yeah, man, that's cool.

It wasn't like this, you know, wild
party thing that a lot of people might

associated, you know, with Jimi Hendrix,
you know, like all this mad, mad

moving, lots of women and people getting
high.

Nothing like that. It was like real kind
of quiet and thoughtful.

What's he say in the background?

The harmony, the harmony.

Something

like

that.

I think we were playing like the ugliest
thing we could find.

I didn't know that was going to be on
his album, for sure. Hell, I never got

paid for the fashion, man.

If you're out there listening, I want my
money.

I am proud of it. I'm proud of the fact
that I was able to be...

on a record with him, you know, and
because of the fact that he's so

and it has more to do with being in the
right place in the right time than it

does with my ability, you know.

You know, I'm glad I was able to be
there, and I'm glad I was good enough to

hold up my end, but, you know, it wasn't
something where, hey, you know, I'm

going to do this, get Finnegan.

Lord, I'm a voodoo child

This was

the time where I you know It was his
time of going back to New York after

a chitlin circuit and the times he would
go to New York were you know through It

wasn't really under his terms, you know
of going doing the cafe war and really

struggling in Greenwich Village.

I mean now You know, the guy is back
under his own terms, and I can't say,

know, Europe is his, but, you know, he
decided to make it a

base.

You've got to remember, Jimmy's first
success was in Europe.

Then he went to America.

And it had to be great satisfaction for
him to suddenly... He was a black kid.

Suddenly thousands and thousands of
white guys were coming out to see him

He was the first artist to have done
that in America, in real terms, in

Europe. It had to be tempting to want to
go out and do the lap

of honour at every opportunity.

Everywhere he went, he took his guitar.

He'd leave the show, and everybody after
a while knew the best place to see Jimi

Hendrix.

was in a club, you know, after the show.
So it doesn't matter where you went,

you would always go out that night and
play with somebody.

We had, like, the theme club just around
the corner, two blocks away, where some

of the best sort of jam sessions, if you
want, ever took place.

And it was breaking down a lot of
barriers at that point. I mean, you

People, be it Roman Kirk, Gabor Zabo,
playing with Albert King, who was in a

road with a 400 -foot lead playing
outside in the street.

And here's this tiny little club, you
know, in the basement.

I mean, it was a real crossover period.
People would play with, hey, with

anyone. When things got a bit silly in
the studio, we'd all go down the scene

club at three in the morning because it
was still open until like six in the

morning or something.

And it was like our second home,
actually.

It was like a Paris disco in that it was
a cave style.

It had three rooms that focused in like
a cross on a stage.

And as a subterranean basement, it had
this sort of Paris cave disco style

to it.

There were some great nights there.

I think it was a night with Dylan and
Hendrick, just jamming one night.

A lot of people would just walk in and
go, God, look at that band.

If you're rocking all heaven up there.

I'd like you to hear what you played
originally. It's kind of fun.

I love that slapping of the strings. It
gives it that front edge.

The session itself was after a rather
long evening.

I believe it was somewhere around
daybreak, maybe 7 o 'clock or something,

we started working on that song.

And B .B. Wynwood was there, and my
buddy Mitch Mitchell, a comrade in

and insanity, and with Jimmy. And it was
a

great experience, a lot of fun, and very
close.

Lots of fun. It was a musical highlight.

This one thing that he always kept and
kind of returned to as a concept was the

idea of getting together with Stevie
Winwood and starting a band and playing.

But every time he would go to the phone
or just about at the point that he would

make the move and be really determined
that that's what he was going to do, he

would back, he would chicken out of the
idea. He'd get a frighten of the idea of

calling. And he'd say, he's not going to
play with me. He'd never play with me.

Woody, who do you think?

he was always kind of exploring a bit
and i think he was always ready to do

of different things you know and maybe
one of the things was he might have and

i did do something with me we would have
killed at any time

night day month year to have been able
to

persuade under any circumstances

Steve Wynwood to be any part of any
situation.

What I liked about Jimmy is he conducted
it very naturally, very open. He had

his ideas and he conveyed them pretty
clearly without a lot of talk.

And what was nice about his approach, it
sort of reminded me of some of the...

Musicians I had grown up with in
Washington, D .C., was that you just

got in a room to do some picking and do
some playing and communicate that way.

So it really didn't take a lot of talk,
just paying attention to each other,

which is sort of the essence of playing
together.

There was a kind of sense of
camaraderie, you know,

or being in it together, really.

And often, you know, we would jam
together and bands would play when

we were maybe setting up or what you
would call sound checks today. We would

just set up and try and add an
instrument and someone would come on and

would kind of play.

It's interesting hearing this so many
years later and it's still fresh.

It still feels that it's...

It was done yesterday.

You know, you're revisiting something
you've done. And I put the faders up and

feel... It feels... That it falls under
my fingers. It feels a little creepy.

It's like we're entering into the vault
or something. Well, we are.

But it's amazing.

I can really remember the feeling on the
floor of the

studio. What it comes down to is the
music.

And that night or morning, you know...

The music works.

That's the voice, isn't it?

He had so much rhythm in his voice.

And all he could hear was his voice.

All he could hear was his rhythm.

And that's where the rows always came
in.

If we had a constant row in the studio,
when I say row, it was disagreement.

It was where his voice should be in the
mix.

I mean, he always wanted to have his
voice buried. And I always wanted to

it forward. And he was saying...

I've got a terrible voice, I've got a
terrible voice. He says, you may have a

terrible voice, but you've got great
rhythm in your voice. This is important

the song, the diction and the way you
deliver words.

It was always a controversy between us,
which I always won by pulling his voice

forward.

The vocals were done by me and Dave
Mason, four people.

You know what else is on here?

No. The did it, did it, did it.

That's Jimmy with a cone. The kazoo is
an instrument that's always been

associated with hee -haw and hillbilly
music.

And he was doing cross -town traffic.

couldn't seem to get the sound that he
was trying to express across.

And someone in the studio said, you've
got a comb on you, man?

Give me a comb. Somebody get me some
cellophane.

And if you take a comb and you put
cellophane across it and blow through

gives a kazoo sound.

So the guitar track on the solo and the
figure on Cross Sound Traffic, the

guitar is laced by the sound of a kazoo.
And that's Jimmy with this particular

comb, which I just thought was amazingly
brave for someone to do.

Jimmy would reach and grab anything he
possibly could get his hands on if he

thought it would produce the desired
sound for him.

Guitar and bass together.

What were we doing?

There must be some good reason.

Probably run out of track.

Excellent rhythm player. And I think
that a lot of that had to do with the

that he spent.

You know, backing other people and
playing with Little Richard and Isley

Brothers and people like that, you know,
like your basic, you know, like R &B

chops, you know, like learning how to
fit into a band in a subordinate role.

And there's a lot of guys that can play,
you know, a handful of solo kind of

things, you know, that don't have the
first clue of how to comp changes and

stuff, you know, and he certainly knew
how to do that.

He was playing rhythm in parts, but it
was...

really lead, but it was rhythm.

He just had these great big hands.

Yeah. To do it all.

I'm the only soul accused of hit and
run.

Tire tracks all across your back.

I didn't see you had your fun.

Darling, can't you see my fingers turned
from green to red?

And with you I can see a traffic jam
straight up ahead.

That piano track, the chords for that, I
remember I was messing around with

those jazz chords and Jimmy came in and
said, whoa, what's that chord, what's

that chord?

So I showed him the chord and he said,
well, you play it. I've never heard of

anything that's specifically a jazz
chord, do I?

It was a jazz chord.

It was a augmented mind score.

I mean, there.

The great thing with recording, Jimmy,
was the rule was there was no rules.

That's what made it interesting. That's
what made it exciting.

22nd April, 68, recording.

Went to the studio, did Little Myth
Drain.

He had a song called Little Myth Drain.
It's a beginning track on one of the

sides. It's a fourth side of the whole.

He had the beginning track on one of the
sides.

A couple of nights I went in, and
Hendrix didn't turn up at all.

So on one night, that's when I did
Little Miss Strange, you see.

I'd written the song, and there was no
one there, so I thought, why not?

Such an English -sounding track.

I mean, only as Noel could do it. He was
a great rhythm guitar player. Before he

was the bass player in The Experience,
he was a rhythm guitar player, and it

shows on this track. He's playing
acoustic guitar on the two electric 12

rhythm parts.

28th of April, 68th. Went to the session
at 2 o 'clock.

Finished mixing Little Miss Strange.

Did nothing else. Finished at 10 o
'clock.

Jimmy, on the other hand, is playing...
the wah -wah with that strange sound.

I put the bass on top of it, and I put
another rhythm guitar on top of it.

And then Hendrix, whenever he turned up
the next day or whatever, I played it to

him, and he liked it, and he put the
guitar on it.

I think Jimmy was really taken with the
quirkiness of this track, and he wanted

it on the album, I think, as a nice shot
to Noel, here I may have a song on my

album. Noel found this whole period very
difficult. He had a certain frustration

because Noel, before he joined Jimmy,
was a guitar player, and he only started

playing bass for them. He more or less
got the job because of the way he

And Jimmy started doing a bit of the
bass himself in the studio, etc., etc.

Noel... Didn't want to sit there all
night waiting to maybe not even work at

that night. I used to get to the studio
at 6 o 'clock to go to work and Hendrix

wouldn't turn up until 3 in the morning.

So we were expected to sit around and
wait for him, you see, which I wasn't

prepared to do.

By the time we got in the middle of
Electric Ladyland, we were working on

that they'd never worked on in terms of
rhythms or anything. They were just

outline ideas, so the songs started
getting...

almost written in the studio which takes
a an awful long payment it's very

boring for a producer

Boy, imagine doing 40 takes of this.

A lot of them.

In real terms, I think he was losing his
nerve a bit, you know? Didn't quite

believe what he was doing. And it was
like, he wanted to do it over and over

again. By the time we'd started doing
Electric Ladyland, he always had hangers

-on in the studio.

And he couldn't say no.

He found it very hard to say no.

And, of course, when he went round to
the scene to jam,

and then come back dragging an entourage
of 20 people into the control room, it

became out of hand. And I think in the
beginning, Chas said, look, this is not

going to happen, Jim. We can't have all
these people partying and cluttering up

the hallways and the control rooms. We
can't get any work done.

New York's a capital of hangers -on.

By the time we were getting in there,
there was 10, 20, 30 people sitting

the studio, and he started playing for
them, not for the recording machine.

So you'd play a thing and...

20 hangers -on would laugh at something
he did, so he'd do it again and again

and again and again.

I used to go in there and sort of go in
the booth and sort of say, excuse me,

can I sit down? They'd say, hey, man,
who are you?

I'd say, well, I'm just the bass player
in the group, thank you.

If you were a car mechanic, you wouldn't
take your friend along to watch you

repair a car, would you?

Chas didn't like the hangers -on, but
they were Jimmy's hangers -on, and so it

was Jimmy's decision to have them
around, and I don't think Chas... liked

that.

Many, many, many, many takes of this. I
think by the end of about the 45th take,

Chaz, who was producing this track,
said, See ya!

Just how I'm going.

I've had enough, you know.

You're not listening to it like you used
to. When you decide to start listening

to me again, I'll be there. Goodbye for
now.

Sam's had quite a valid point.

I mean, you know, time is money, and,
you know, The House Arising Farm was

by Mickey Mouse for £10 or $10, and it's
first take.

I remember the first time I saw you A
lot of the sessions were just...

Yeah, an expensive ride.

Have some fun.

I

was

exhausted. I needed to get away from
telephones and everything.

My first wife was pregnant.

She told me just at the time, I thought,
let's get the hell out of here, you

know.

I asked Jimmy one day at a restaurant we
used to go to call the 10 Angel in the

afternoon to meet, what that song was
about.

He explained to me that the song was
about a lot of things, but specifically

was about the Watts riots.

I think it was a sense of despair,
really. It was like killing all the good

guys.

Martin Luther King had died in April,
something like that, and

that certainly left a huge mark upon
that.

Everyone. First of all, it was about the
insanity of people burning their own

neighborhoods up.

And, you know, why you burn your own
brother's house down.

There's no reason to burn your own self,
baby.

Yeah, it's about time to get together,
brothers.

Well, I asked my friend, where is that
fax book coming from?

He said, it might snow some.

It was about the outrage and the anger.

that the inner city folks felt at that
time about having a leader like Martin

Luther King killed.

Then a couple of months later, Robert
Kennedy was assassinated.

I say the truth is straight ahead, so
don't burn yourself instead. Try to

instead of burn, hear what I say.

In one way, everybody was a lot more
serious about what they were doing by

end of that year.

And then guys were getting gunned down,
and we were going, well, you know,

knowledge change.

There started to be a lot of changes for
him, and I imagine a lot of soul

-searching on his part, like for
everybody.

The band itself is political.

The very fact that in 1966 that someone
would even have a band that was

integrated was a political statement.

At the end of the song, there is a...

Something that Eddie does with panning
the guitar sound that sounds like a cat

going... The

sound of a panther at the end of

it could mean a lot of things.

There were some political groups around
at that time that were extremely,

extremely powerful and potent in the
consciousness of this country.

Once Chaz left, Jimmy took over and
began to experiment with sounds like in

1983, A Moment I Should Turn to Be,
which was an 18 -minute sci -fi epic,

was the complete opposite of the Chaz
-influenced four -minute pop -structured

song. And any sound that Jimmy could
dream up, we included.

Listen to this. This is Jimmy making air
sounds with his mouth.

Pretty neat sci -fi effect.

He was always writing lyrics or what
looked like poems, in fact, I think, on

scraps of paper, even writing pads.

He wrote on restaurants. I've seen him
write on cars, bags of cars or

limousines. I saw him write in clubs, at
bars.

He was constantly writing, and he had
these little pads that he would carry

around with him that he wrote on all the
time.

Long, long, long night.

As far as my eyes could see.

My heart was way down. He's always
making notes all the time.

He's always talking about psychedelic
things, spaceships and all that sort of

stuff.

Where can you be, baby?

Where can you be?

That is Jimmy.

doing all the background vocal parts.

Fantastic gospel sound that he's
created, just two voices.

And with Al Cooper on piano doing great
gospel parts.

Where are you when it's a hot, cold
summer? Where are you when it's a hot,

summer? Where are you when it's a hot,
cold summer?

And even if the harmonies sound a little
strange, when you put it in with the

whole band, it's just a wonderful blend.

He's just had this incredible ability to
be able to pick the strangest notes in

harmony and stack them, and it just
fits.

And here comes the rest of the band.

Boy,

well, how you doing?

Wednesday the 7th of August 1968.

Went and did some photos in Central Park
with Linda Eastman.

Dear sirs, here are the pictures we
would like for you to use anywhere on

cover, preferably inside and back,
without the white frames around some of

black and white ones.

Please use the color picture of us and
the kid from the statue for front or

cover. The sketch on the other page is a
rough idea, of course, but please use

all the pictures and the words.

But the photos were good by Linda
Eastman, Linda McCart.

We just said, well, we're going to
Central Park.

And we just sort of sat there and did
the photo session and got all these kids

sitting about. And we just sat there and
had a bit of fun. Thank you very much.

We've had enough personal problems
without having to worry about the simple

effective layout.

Thank you.

Jimmy Hendrix.

A guy called David King, who's the art
director at Sunday Times, Colour

Magazine, he called me up and he said,
we got this idea to do Jimi Hendrix for

Electric Ladyland and the idea is a
bunch of nude girls.

There was the artwork that came out in
England that Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp

put together.

As far as I was concerned, it wasn't the
grand old tradition of, let's see, who

were kind of upset, you know. I didn't
care.

I think David King and Stamp...

uh went to nightclubs in london and um
got these girls to come down i think

saying that jimmy was going to be here
you know jimmy had a great love of women

and the idea of that sleeve was they
were just beauties from the street and

they were all sitting there posing and
they all loved jimmy i mean that was the

idea that was the shot it was meant to
just show a sort of freedom the

was like a freedom it wasn't sort of
like a sexual pose or anything when

saw the final artwork of the english

Cover which he had had no control over
who's very very annoyed because it was

the antithesis of what he wanted He
thought that the naked ladies was an

It was all down here and it started
looking like a ladies shower room

said that there'd been a big thing in
the paper about the experience We've got

this album out with all these women on
the front of it and there's a huge

But it's great publicity for us a lot.
They still had their knickers on in

underwear So they said, you've got to
take those off. And they said, no way.

So I think they were making like five
pounds each.

So they said, okay, another three
pounds.

So... Was that some kind of statement?

When Jimmy got hold of the reference
acetate, which was a test of what the

disc was going to be for Electric
Ladyland.

It had been cut over at CBS Studios.

Now, the white -coated technicians over
there, in their infinite wisdom, got the

name wrong, and it came back on the
label written, Electric Landlady. I'm

A, he wasn't pleased about that, after
all the hard work we put in, and B, the

sound of the acetate was not what was
represented on the tape.

It was pretty awful, in fact.

Have you ever been?

Have you ever been?

Got Jimmy playing backwards guitar, a
Leslie guitar, regular guitar, bass

guitar, and Mitch doing speeded up
drums.

It's full of feeling and emotion.

There is a slight difference between a
virtuoso and a musician.

He was both.

You know, he was a great accompanist. He
had an understanding of, you know,

arrangement, voicing, chordal movement.

And he was virtuoso as well.

He was cutting tracks with just guitar
and drums.

The only track I saw him do with the
band was a track we did.

Jimmy played quite a lot of bass on
this.

And from a drummer's point of view, I
wish that had been there for me right

the start.

This is just rhythm guitar and drums.

By itself, it doesn't make any sense,
one would think, and yet you put the

to it, and it becomes a wonderfully
complex

rhythm.

He didn't read music.

He didn't use musical terms like
arpeggios and all that stuff, those type

terminology.

Jimmy talked about colors a lot and
sounds.

He said, make it sound like the ocean.

Or I want it to sound like the wind
here.

There was nobody else doing what he
could do on guitar. There was nobody

At all.

I seem to get inside

the guitar.

with his personality.

He didn't seem to be... You can hear all
the influences, some of them, and then

some of them he just steps aside of all
of that and it melts together and

produces new things.

The public perception of him was based
more on this wild guy, you know, than

it was based on, you know, this
innovative, musician, you know.

There's three beautiful falsetto
background vocal parts, as well as the

voice on top.

He still has this charm and grace about
his music that people just

still adore.

And it's just relentless, man.

I heard him as a guy coming out of the
blues, you know, I mean, a really,

good blues player, but had gone had
taken it to another place.

Similar to, you know, Charlie Parker or
Louis Armstrong or John Coltrane or any

other great people in jazz that were
responsible for the innovations that

occurred, you know. In the classical
sense, I mean, I think he was like a

Mozart. I think that he actually was
just beginning to sort of express his

That's the mark of a true genius, that
someone who creates sort of a generic,

form all his own.

I need him so bad.

He was a very special person.

I have yet to meet anyone who had the
same energy he had, and I miss him very

much.

It's got to be right up there.

I put it right up there with Sarge and
Pepper.

I do.

Records like Electric Lady Langlois will
be accessible

to all ages, and young people will
always seek out good music.

Considering it's still selling 25 years
later, I think everybody got their

money's worth and all those people who
got frustrated by the length of time

should sit there and say we were wrong.

It's definitely a classical album.

It'll stand, it'll completely stand the
test of time.

His music will last forever as far as
I'm concerned. I think that, you know,

the next couple of hundred years, you're
still going to be hearing Jimi

Hendrix's music. I don't think it'll
ever die.

But Hendrix, obviously, a wonderful
guitar player and a wonderful writer.

I still think about him.

I miss him a lot.

There are certain times I think of him a
great deal.

Most of the time it's with, you know, a
lot of laughter.

You know, people, it's the kind of
connotation that people think of as a

character, which is not true. I mean,
the man was a lot of fun to be around.