All language subtitles for Classic.Albums.Jimi.Hendrix.Electric.Ladyland.DVB.XviD.MP3.MVGroup.Forum.ENG

You have another LP coming out.

It's finished completely, finished.
It will be out in about ten days.

It's called 'Eletric Ladyland".

This song is off the LP Jimi Hendrix,
'Electric Ladyland'.

The title of the LP,
'Electric Ladyland'.

Directed and produced
by Jimi Hendrix.

Photography, Linda Eastman.

Engineers, Gary Kellgram
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...

doing shows and recording.

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

stitched it for him.
He was...

he was absolutely...

the man on the scene.

He made the leap in 68,
you know 20 years...

When you heard that record
you were thrown into the future.

There was no question about it,
Jimi was tremendously gifted...

and he was meant to play guitar,
but by hell he worked at it.

I always felt with Jimi, that he was...

a very major...

artist, as a musician
and as a composer.

I knew that he was going to sort of
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 Jimi ran
into one anyhow...

as we were doing
'Are You Experienced'...

we're messing around with songs
that became part of the 'Acts of Love'...

and we were doing songs that
ended up on 'Electric Ladyland'.

Wejust 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.

It was never like it was planned.

This is the next album.
There was never time enough to...

to do a complete
plan of campaign.

'Electric Ladyland', I'd say was,
if 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 out there.

That's probably the most experimental
album that Jimi had ever done.

The whole LP means so much.
It wasn't just slot together...

every little thing on there
means something...

it's not a game that we were playing.

The morning is dead

And the day is too

There's nothing left here to greet me

But the velvet moon

All my loneliness

I have felt today

It's a little more than enough

To make a man throw himself away

I continue

To burn the midnight lamp

Alone

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

harpsichord on a record.

The idea for the harpsichord
was right there from...

literally as soon as the playback...

Yeah, it needs
something there.

Harpsichord?
That would be nice.

This is a combination track with...

guitar and a very strange
sounding instrument...

it sounds like a mandolin
but it's not really a mandolin.

Its Jimi playing electric guitar
that's been recorded at 7,5 IPS...

and played back at 15, otherwise
recorded half speed. So you get this...

very strange mandolin effect.

Now the smiling portrait of you

Is still hangin' on my frowning wall

But it really doesn't really
Bother me

Too much at all

It was the first time
we'd 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.

And so wejust went down there
and tried it, it was good.

I met Gary Kellgram when
he was still at Mayfair.

He of course was the creative genius
who was working with Jimi Hendrix...

and Tom Wilson and Bob Dylan
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 did know his stuff.
He had quite a classical background.

He came swishing into
the New York record plant.

That was also the night we'd had
the first real session with Jimi...

and of course 'Electric Ladyland'
was our very first big hit.

Bass Guitar, played by Noel Redding,
a very funky, dirty sound...

growling away in the background.

For most part
a pretty distorted sound but...

when it's mixed in with the drums...

A pretty hard driving force.

And here are the angelic voices...

of Cissy Houston &
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.

For a man who really thought that his
voice stunk and was so embarrassed...

this is an amazing vocal performance.

About the circus and the wishing well

And someone who will buy
And sell for me

Someone who will toll my bell

And I continue

He was always laughing
and carrying on in the sessions.

You can hear
there's a very jovial Hendrix...

that underlying the intensity
of his vocal at the end...

he would just explode into laughter
and make ajoke about something.

One of the things
that annoys me most...

you know, since Jimi died...

and people around
his estate prior to this...

always made out Jimi to be some
kind of tragic character...

and sort of gloomy, mystical
and all the rest of it.

If I think of Jimi, I think of him
with a smile on his face...

cos he was full of fun
all the time.

A lot of humor.

For him was in what
he did with his music...

and 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 and
he'd have all the curtains closed...

all the lights off and he'd put
scarves all over all the lights.

So you couldn't see
anything in the room...

and he'd have the telly on
so we called him the Bat.

He was a great mimic...

he used to have us in stitches with
his imitations of Little Richard.

He had one tale after the other
of Little Richard coming out.

You had to see him to believe it,
hejust became Little Richard.

There was so much joking around
and jokes and goofing...

just so, doing voices, imitating people,
so much fun stuff.

Jimi James, what's my man doing today?
I say, you know what...

go look in the mirror,
look at your hair.

Your curls don't come undone, brother.

He said,
"Well, I tried Bryl Cream...

but it don't seem
to work these days."

Thank you very much.

The 'Electric Ladyland' sessions
started way back in England...

at the Olympic studios
in Barnes, London...

where we cut the basic tracks
for 'Crosstown Traffic'...

and 'All Along The Watchtower'.
Of course written by Bob Dylan.

Whenever I mentioned...

or whenever somebody
mentioned Bob Dylan's name...

just his name...

I mean, the man's eyes and body
and mind would just like...

he's like, "where is he?

He's like, he's my messiah."

He liked the latter day Dylan
and I liked the early day Dylan...

but between the two of us there
was so much meeting of minds.

He would keep in his flight bag
a Bob Dylan song book...

and refer to it on a daily basis.

He loved Bob Dylan.

He did 'All Along the Watchtower'.

There must be some kind of way out
Of here

Said thejoker to the thief

There's too much confusion

I can't get no relief

Jimi obviously just heard...

'Watchtower' and just
fancied doing it.

I'd never heard it before, it was just
like a quick play through...

maybe of the original.

It was just the usual thing: The strum
guitar and this is how it goes.

This is a great example
of Jimi's ability to orchestrate...

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

Jimi played the six string...

and wejust sat
opposite each other.

And there was just us, and Mitch...

so wejust put it down with just
the acoustic guitar and Mitch Michell.

I think Noel was over the road...

at the Red Lion or the Green Cow
or whatever it was.

It's great how Jimi is telling Mitch
where to put the bass drum part...

because he knows instinctively
what the rhythm should be.

All along the watchtower

Princes kept the view

While all the women came and went

Bare-foot servants too

We obviously had 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...

but as we can hear
it was abandoned...

and they went back to cutting
the basic track without him.

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

for the percussion effects.

It was anyone that was around, here,
hit this, let's try and see what works.

He would just take
a cab to the studio...

and it was when he was doing
the 'Electric Ladyland' album.

The cab driver said to him,
"Hey, ain't you Jimi Hendrix?"

He said, "Yeah".
"Where you going, man?"

"I am going to the studio."
Cab drive says, "I play congas."

He says, "Well go and get them,
come down."

So the cab driver went home
and got his congas...

and came down and played
in the studio that night.

He was a cab driver.

But that was pretty typical.

If somebody could play something,
they could play.

Jimi 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 didn't like the tune.

I saw Jimi frustrated...

running around to get a sound out
he had in his head...

and grabbing different bottles,
beer bottles, soda bottles...

knives and everything,
trying to get that...

middle section where there's
an Hawaiian guitar sound.

Hejust played
that with a cigarette lighter.

He loved Dylan.

I think this became the definitive
version of the song.

I prefer Dylan's version.

On the 16th of April...

we went back to America.

There was no major plan, just...

Jimi was an American
and naturally...

an American wants
to be big in America.

So wejust went there.

We played sort of like 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 management's
point of view...

from agent's point of view.

You've got bands going from
one side of America to another.

And more or less
you're told to be grateful...

because, "Hey in my day it 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 thousand
miles away the next day to 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
9 weeks worth of gigs...

and we didn't have too many days off
in those 9 weeks, maybe...

4 or 5 days.

I think I have recorded in my diary
19 thousand miles of driving alone...

and that doesn't include flying.

When you're in a band and you're
on the road you don't get tired.

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

Going to bed at 4 and getting up at 8.
Getting on two airplanes.

And doing another show, doing
a press reception in the afternoon...

and thank you very much.

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

And gig, club, bed, airplane.

Thank you very much
for about 3 months.

We were sort of going on the road
like 3 or 4 days...

coming back into NY, going to the studio
for like 2 to 3 days...

which isn't very good,
I don't think.

It's like if you're gonna try
and get some work done...

you should sit and think it at least...

and without running around
playing all the time.

I have a certain amount
of bitterness.

Especially, from my friend Jimi.
It's giant stupidity.

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

You can't do 2 or 3 or 4 things
at the same time.

I think pressure is an
over used word in the industry.

What's a musician really doing?

Doing want he wants to do more
than anything else in the world.

It was Michael Jeffries who said,
"Would you like to come down to Miami...

and record Jimi
at the Miami pop festival?"

The first night Jimi did the show
and it was alright.

The second night it got totally
swamped out, it rained in buckets.

There was a draught in that whole part
of Florida...

which had gone
on for about a month...

and I guess sometime the night before
the show they sent some...

planes out to see the clouds
over the Everglades.

And it worked.

And the whole show was cancelled.

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

and Jimi was furiously scribbling
in the back of the limo...

and I glanced over and I could see,
'Rainy Day, Dream Away.'

Alright.

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 just is...
it's just copying in "d".

And then later on, on a cue, I remember
we talked about doing this...

that kind of thing.
There's a section there...

I think...

You go...

Freddie Smith?

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

And then I was playing...

drums.

And this tune itself was one...

of the highlights of my career.
Most definitely, just in...

Do know who was on bass?

- There was no bass.
- Just the organ?

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

The first I did as far as
the bass line, was...

that kind of feel...

so that was cool.

I think a couple of times I did
some walking lines...

and he said, "No, don't be walking,
just keep pumping."

We would check out the words,
"Rainy day...

rained all day, ain't no use
to get up tight.

Lay back and groove
on a rainy day."

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

If he had a lyric,
I didn't know about it.

If he had like...

a form, he kept it to himself because
it was a very loose construction.

The first half was like mellow...

and the second half was insane.

As I told you, there is no bass player
at the end of the tune, we get into a...

and everything is going...

and then...

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

It was easy for me because one of my
specialties is playing a shuffle...

which they call "gut bucket"...

to where you can really
float with time...

and you kinda get that imaginative,
like in other words...

like when you float with time,
you back like this.

Man, it's cool.

It wasn't like this, wild party scene
that a lot of people...

might have associated
with Jimi Hendrix.

All this mad, mad moving,
lots of women, people getting high.

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

What's he saying in the background?

- Lay back the harmony.
- The harmony thing.

"Lay back and dream
on a rainy day."

Something like that.

I think we were playing like...

the ugliest thing we could find.

I didn't know that
was gonna be on his album.

Hell, I never got paid
for the session, 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.

Because of the fact
that he is so important in it...

it has more to do with be in the right
place at the right time...

than it does with
my ability, you know.

I'm glad I was able to be there.
I'm glad I was good enough...

to hold up my hand.

But it wasn't something, "Hey, I'm gonna
do this, get Finnegan."

This was the time where...

it was his time after going back to
New York, after doing the circuit...

and the times he would go
to New York were...

it wasn't really under his terms...

of doing the Cafe Whap really
struggling in Greenwich Village.

Now the guy is back
under his own terms...

and I can't say
know New York is his.

But...

he decided to make it...

a base.

You've got to remember that
Jimi's first success was Europe...

then he went to America.

And it had to be great satisfaction
for him there...

he was a black kid
and suddenly...

thousands of white guys were coming
to see him play.

It was the first artist that
had done that in America...

in real terms, in modern Europe.
It had to be tempting...

to wanna go out
and do the rounds...

the lap of honor
at every opportunity.

Everywhere he went
he took his guitar.

Everybody after a while knew
the best to see Jimi Hendrix...

was in a club,
after the show.

So it don't matter where you went...

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

We had like the Scene Club just around
the corner, two blocks away...

where some
of thejam sessions...

if you want, ever took place...

and it was breaking down
a lot of barriers at that point.

You'd find people like Gabor Szabo
playing with Albert King...

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

And it's a tiny little cub,
in a basement.

And it was
a real crossover period...

people would play with anyone.

When things got
a bit silly in the studio...

we'd all go down
the scene club at 3 in the morning...

because it was still open
until 6 in the morning.

And it was like
our second home, actually.

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

It had 3 rooms that focused in
like across on a stage...

and as a subterranean
basement...

it had this Paris
cave disco style to it.

There were some great nights there.

I think it was the night
with Dylan and Hendrix...

just jamming one night.
A lot of people would just...

walk in and go,
"God, look at that band."

It'd be rock n' roll heaven up there.

I like to hear what you played
originally, it's kinda fun.

That slapping of string
which gives it that front edge.

The session itself was...

after a rather long evening...

and I believe it was somewhere
around daybreak...

around 7 o'clock or something when
we started working on that song.

And Stevie Windwood was there
and my buddy, Mitch Mitchell...

a comrade in rhythm
and in sanity.

And...

with Jimi, and it was...

a great experience,
a lot of fun...

and very close. Lots of fun.

It was a musical highlight.

That's one thing that he always kept
and kind of returned to as concept...

was the idea of getting together
with Stevie Windwood...

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'd chicken out of the idea...

he'd get frightened
of the idea of calling.

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

Would he? What do you think?"

He was always kind
of exploring a bit...

and I think he was ready to do...

lots of different things...

and maybe one of the things was...

he might have an idea
to do something with me.

We would have killed...

at any time...

night, day, month year...

to have been able to persuade...

under any circumstances...

Steven to be any part
of any situation.

What I liked about Jimi...

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 DC.

Was that you just basically go in a room
to do some pickening, do some playing...

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 a sense
of camaraderie...

of all being in it together, really...

and often we would jam together...

and bands would play and
we were maybe setting up or...

what you would call
sound checks today...

we would just set up
and trying out instruments...

and someone would come
and Jimi would kinda play.

It's interesting hearing
this so many years later...

and it's still fresh,
it still feels that...

it was done yesterday.

You're revisiting something
you've done...

and I put the faders up when...

- it feels it falls under my fingers.
- It's really a little creepy, isn't it?

It's like were entering
into the vaults or something.

Well, we are.

But it's amazing.

I can really remember...

the feeling on the floor,
of the studio.

When it comes down to it
it's the music...

and that night or morning...

the music worked.

The voice in him...

He had so much rhythm
in his voice.

An all he could hear
was his voice...

all he could hear
was his rhythm and...

that's where all the rows 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.

He always wanted
to have his voice buried...

and I always wanted
to bring it forward...

and he would say,
"I've got a terrible voice."

And I'd say, "You might but you've got
great rhythm in your voice...

and it's as important
to the song...

your diction and
the way you deliver words."

And there was always
a controversy between us.

Which I always won by pulling
his voice forward.

Backing vocals were done by me
and Dave Mason of all people.

- You know what else is on here?
- No.

- That's Jimi with the comb.
- Comb and paper.

The kazoo is an instrument that
has always been associated...

with He Ha and Hill Billy music.

And he was
on 'Crosstown Traffic' and...

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

and to someone
in the studio Jimi said...

"You got a comb on you, man?
Somebody get me some cellophane."

And if you take a comb and put
cellophane across it...

and blow through it
it gives a kazoo sound.

So the guitar track on...
the solo...

on 'Crosstown Traffic' is, the guitar
is lazed by the sound of the kazoo...

and that's Jimi
with this particular comb.

Which I just though was amazingly
brave of someone to do.

Jimi would reach and grab anything he
could 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 have been some good reason.

We'd probably ran out of tracks.

Excellent rhythm player.

I think a lot of that had to do
with the time that he spent...

backing other people
and playing with Little Richard...

and Isley Brothers
and people like that.

Like your basic R&B chops...

learning how to fit into a band
in a subordinate role...

and there's a lot of guys
that can play...

a handful of solo kind of things...

that don't have
the first clue of how...

to comp changes and stuff.
And he certainly knew how to do that.

He played rhythm in parts...

but it was really a lead
but it was rhythm.

Hejust had these great big arms.
To do it all.

That piano track,
the chords for that...

I was messing around
with thosejazz chords...

and Jimi came in the studio and
said, "Wow, what's that chord?"

So I showed him the chord
and he said, "Well, you play it."

I've never heard it was
specifically ajazz chord, Eddie.

It was ajazz chord.

The great thing of recording with Jimi w
there were no rules.

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

22nd April, 68 recording.

Went to the studio,
did 'Little Miss Strange'.

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'.

I'd written a 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's 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
and the two...

electric 12 string rhythm parts.

28 of April, 68
with a session at 2 o'clock.

Finished mixing
'Little Miss Strange'.

Did nothing else finished
at... 10 o'clock.

Jimi, 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, he liked it
and I put the guitar on it.

So it was like...

I think Jimi 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 you are, mate.
Have a song on the album."

Noel found this whole period
very difficult.

He had a certain frustration
because Noel...

before hejoined Jimi,
was a guitar player.

And he started playing bass for them.

He more or less got thejob
because of the way he looked.

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

Noel didn't want to sit there
all night waiting to...

maybe not even working
at all that night.

I used to get to the studio at 6 o'clock
to go to work...

and Hendrix wouldn't turn up
until three in the morning.

So we were expected
to sit around and wait for him...

which I wasn't prepared to do.

By the time we got into the middle
of'Electric Ladyland'...

we were working on songs
we'd never worked on...

in terms of rhythms or anything.
They werejust outline ideas.

So the songs started getting
almost written in the studio...

which takes an awful long time,
it's very boring for a producer.

Well I realize
I've been hypnotized

I love you gypsy eyes

I love you gypsy eyes
All right

Gypsy

Way up in my tree
I'm sitting by my fire

Wonderin' where in this world
Might you be

lmagine 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 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 tojam...

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 gonna happen, Jimi...

you can't have all these people partying
and cluttering up the control rooms".

New York is the capital
of hangers-on...

and by the time we get in
there was 10, 20, 30 people...

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

So he'd play a thing and...

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

And again and again.

So I used to go in there and sort
of go into the booth and say...

"Excuse me, can I sit down?" and
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 the hangers-on,
but they were Jimi's hangers-on...

and so it was Jimi's decision
to have them around...

and I don't think
Chas liked any of that.

Many, many takes of this.

I think that by the end
of about the 45th take...

Chas, who was producing
this track said, "Seee yaaa".

I just said, "I'm going.

I've had enough, you're not
listening to us like you used to.

When you've decided to start listening
to me again, I'll be there.

- Goodbye for now."
- Chas had quite a valid point.

Time is money, and
"The House Of The Rising Sun"...

was done for 10 dollars,
at first take.

A lot of the sessions werejust...

you know,
an expensive way to...

have some fun.

I was exhausted...

I needed to get away from telephones
and everything.

My first wife was pregnant...

she told mejust at the time. I thought,
"Let's get the hell out of here."

I asked Jimi one day at a restaurant
we used to go...

called the 'Ten Angel '...

what that song was about.

And he explained to me that the song
was about a lot of things...

but specifically it was
about the Watts riots.

I think, 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 everyone.

First of all,
it was about the insanity...

of people burning their own
neighborhoods up.

And, you know, why you're burning
your own brothers house down?

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.

And then, a couple
of months later...

Robert Kennedy was assassinated.

In one way everybody was...

a lot more serious about what they were
doing by the end of that year.

Guys were getting gunned down and
you were, "Well, nothing's changed."

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 was political.

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

was integrated as
a political statement.

At the end of the song there's...

something that Eddie does,
a guitar sound...

that sounds like
a cat purring.

The sound of a panther
at the end of it...

can mean a lot of things. There were
some political groups at that time...

that were extremely, extremely...

powerful and potent in
the consciousness of this country.

Once Chas left, Jimi took over and
began to experiment with sounds...

in 1983 in
'A Merman I Shall Turn To Be'...

which is an 18 minute
sci-fi epic...

which is the complete opposite...

of the Chas influenced
4 minute pop structured song.

And any sound that Jimi could dream up,
we included.

Listen to this, this is Jimi...

making air sounds
with his mouth.

Pretty neat sci-fi effect.

He was always writing lyrics or
what looked poems, I think...

on scraps of paper.
Even writing pads.

He wrote in restaurants. I've seen him
write in cars, limousines.

I saw him write in clubs, at bars.
He was constantly writing...

and he had these little pads that
he used to carry around with him.

He was always making notes
all the time.

He was always talking about
psychedelic things...

space ships and all that sort of stuff.

That's Jimi doing
all the background vocal parts.

Fantastic gospel sound
that he's created with...

just two voices. And with...

Al Cooper on the piano
doing great gospel parts.

And even if the harmonies sound
a little strange...

when you put it in with the whole band
it is just a wonderful blend.

Hejust had this incredible ability
to be able...

to pick the strangest notes and
harmonies, stack them, and it just fits.

And here comes the rest of the band.

Wednesday,
the 7th of August, 1968.

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

Dear Sirs, here are the pictures...

we'd like you to use anywhere
on the LP cover...

preferably inside and back...

without the white frames around
some of the black and white ones.

Please, use the color picture of us...

an the kids on the statue
for the front or back cover.

The sketch on the other pages is
a rough idea of course...

but please use
all the pictures and the words.

The photos were by Linda Eastman,
Linda McCartney.

Wejust said we'd go into
Central Park...

and wejust sort of sat there
and did the photo session...

and got all these kids sitting about
and we had a bit of fun.

"We have enough personal problems...

without having to worry about
the simple yet effective layout.

Thank you. Jimi Hendrix."

The guy called David Kind,
who's art director at...

Sunday Times color magazine.

He called me up and he said...

"We got this idea to do Jimi Hendrix
'Electric Ladyland'...

and the idea is a bunch of nude girls.

There was the artwork
that came out in England...

that Kate Lambert and
Chris Stamp put together.

As far as I was concerned it was
in the grand old tradition...

of "let's see who we can upset."
I didn't care.

I think David and Stamp went
to night clubs in London...

and got these girls
to come down.

I think saying that Jimi was
gonna be here.

Jimi had a great love of women
and the idea of that sleeve...

was they werejust beauties
from the street.

And they were all sitting there posing
and they all loved Jimi.

I mean that was the idea,
it was meant tojust show...

a sort of freedom,
the nakedness was like a freedom...

it wasn't sort of a sexual pose
or anything.

When Jimi saw the final artwork
of the English cover...

which he had had
no control over...

was very, very annoyed,
because it was...

the antithesis of what he wanted.
He thought that the naked ladies...

was an insult.

It was down here, it started looking
like a ladies shower room.

Someone said there had been
a big thing in the papers about...

'The Experience' had got this album out
with all these women on the front of it.

And there was this huge outcry.
But it was great publicity for us lot.

They still had their knickers on
and their underwear.

So I say, "You gotta take those off"
and they say, "No way."

So I think they are making
about 5 pounds each.

I say,
"Ok, another 3 pounds."

What was that,
some kind of statement?

When Jimi got hold
of the reference acetate...

which was a test of what the final disc
was going to be for...

'Electric Ladyland',
it had been cut over at CBS studios.

Now the while coated technicians
over there...

in their infinite wisdom...

got the name wrong and it came back
on the label written Electric Landlady.

I'm sure he
he wasn't pleased about that...

after all the hard work
we'd put in.

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

It was pretty awful in fact.

You've got Jimi playing
backwards guitar...

a Lesley 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
and he was both.

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

arrangement, voicing,
chord or movement...

and he was a virtuoso as well.

He was cutting tracks
with just guitar and drums.

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

Jimi played quite a lot of bass,
on this...

and from a drummers point of view...

I wish that I'd been there
right from the start...

instead ofjust rhythm guitar
and drums.

By itself it doesn't make any sense,
one would think...

and yet you put the drums to it...

and it becomes a wonderfully
complex rhythm track.

He didn't read music.

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

Those types of terminology. Jimi
talked about colors 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 the guitar.

There was nobody else...

at all.

He seemed to get inside the guitar...

with his personality,
he didn't seem to be...

you can hear
all his influences.

In some hejust steps aside
of all that and...

it melts together
and produces new things.

The public's perception of him was based
more on this wild guy...

than it was based on
this innovative musician.

There's 3 beautiful falsetto background
vocal parts...

as well as the lead voice on top.

He still has...

this charming grace
about his music

that peoplejust still adore.

And it's just relentless, man.

I heard him as a guy coming out
of the Blues...

I mean, a really good Blues player
but he'd gone...

taken it to another place.

Similar to Charlie Parker...

or Louis Armstrong or John Coltrane
or any other great...

people in jazz that...

were responsible for the innovations
that occurred.

In a classical sense, I think he was
like a young Mozart.

He actually was just beginning
to sort of express his gift.

That's a mark of a true genius.

It's someone who creates
a generic form, all his own.

I miss him, man.

I need him so bad.

He's a very special person...

I've yet to meet anyone who
had the same energy.

I miss him very much.

It's gotta be right up there.

I put it right
up there with Sgt Pepper.

I do.

Records like 'Electric Ladyland'...

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's got
their money worth and...

only being frustrated by
the length of time.

It's definitely a classical album.

It'll completely stand
the test of time.

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

in the next couple of 100 years you're
still gonna be hearing Hendrix's music.

I don't think it will ever die.

Hendrix is obviously
a wonderful guitar player...

and a wonderful writer
who I still think about.

I miss him a lot.

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

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

It's a kind of connotation that people
think of this morose character...

which is not true, I mean,
the man was a lot of fun...

to be around.

Jimi, what's it called?

- What?
- What's it called?

'Electric Ladyland'.