Arts

Music

Jimi Hendrixs (Originally Johnny Allen Hendricks, then James Marshall Hendricks)

Legend has it that…

According to Eddie Kramer, who was a sound engineer on the Jimi Hendrix and the Experience album Electric Ladyland, the All Along The Watchtower track originally had Dave Mason, guitarist from traffic, playing 12 string acoustic guitar along with Jimi on 6 string acoustic but apparently he wasn’t playing up to Jimi’s standards as he was chastised several times before Hendrix decided to play the part himself. Then he and Noel Redding clashed and Noel stormed out of the studio complaining about Jimi’s obsessive quest for perfection. Dave Mason then played the bass part but it wasn’t good enough for Jimi so he redid it himself. The rest of the session went very quickly as Hendrix was so well prepared for his guitar overdubs he was able to put them down in short order. It’s also interesting to note that he played the slide part of that song with a cigarette lighter.

Electric Ladyland

While Jimi Hendrix and The Experience were recording Electric Ladyland ABC contacted them and asked if they could film some footage to do a story on the bands rise to fame in America. They wanted to film the band playing a song. Jimi suggested a sped up and improvised version of a song they had already recorded for the album called Voodoo Chile. They played the song three times. The third of which was good enough to add to the record as Voodoo Chile (slight return). Unfortunately the video footage was stolen from ABC and remains lost to this day.