It's tough to say which of the 3 Jimi Hendrix Experience albums is my favorite, but Electric Ladyland was definitely the most important to me as a youngster. Here Jimi continues his close collaboration with engineer Eddie Kramer, maximizing the use of the studio as an instrument with lavish amounts of overdubbing & effects. (Stereo flanging, innovated by Kramer for the previous Hendrix album, is all over this record, to the point where it becomes kind of annoying in songs like the title track & "Crosstown Traffic.") But more importantly (in my view) than the studio wizardry, Hendrix was becoming comfortable with more expansive types of songwriting, & this record boasts several of the best songs he ever penned.
"The Burning of the Midnight Lamp" was my 1st favorite Hendrix song, & on this listen I think I finally figured it out. There are lots of things to love about this song--the mysterious, vaguely Middle Eastern main riff, the multi-tracked guitars that are such a Hendrix trademark, the wah pedal (1st time he ever used it), the harpsichord for crying out loud--but I think what really makes this song work are the wordless backing vocals by the Sweet Inspirations. They lend a grand, almost cinematic quality to the psychedelic freakout, & they beg the question: if the song is all about loneliness, then who (or what?) is making all these sounds of other people? The mystical atmospherics of the song are what draw you in & make you slap that repeat button.
Speaking of psychedelic freakouts, it took me a long time to appreciate the 14.5-minute blues jam that is "Voodoo Chile." It used to be a skip for me, but the sheer quality of guitar playing on display & the superb organ of Steve Winwood create a powerful statement, buoyed by the room noise that open & close the track & underlie it as well--the picture of being in a crowded smoky club & having Hendrix come onstage & just annihilate the place is painted clearly.
The centerpiece of this album, & the reason I loved it so much as a science fiction-obsessed teenager, is the aquatic post-apocalyptic prog epic "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)." Hendrix's love for science fiction showed up in a lot of his work, but this is the only time he told a full SF story through song: the surface of a future Earth is devastated by war machines & on the point of becoming uninhabitable. A small group of scientists have created a device to transform their bodies into half-fish creatures that can survive in the sea. They say goodbye to the surface & descend into the seemingly endless depths to find a hidden undersea world that welcomes them as brethren. With grandiose riffs, soaring melodies, marching drums that turn into hard bop jazz cyclones & guitars simulating whalesong, the 14-minute suite is by turns rocking & soothing, bookended by the jazz fusion workouts of "Rainy Day, Dream Away" & "Still Raining, Still Dreaming." I've always hated the "it was all a dream" gimmick in storytelling, but this one is handled so elegantly I can't help but smile every time.
It wasn't planned, but is nicely coincidental that I listened to Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding right before this, being the source of the well-known "All Along the Watchtower" cover that appears on this album. The best testament to Jimi's genius is the fact that ever since, Dylan has played the song live in Hendrix's style. But part of the reason the cover works so well is that the song lives inside Jimi's mystical poetic wheelhouse, & both parties are necessary for such a potent combination.
I hate to harp on about it, but Noel Redding was never the right bassist for Hendrix & he knew it, considering how Jimi took over bass duties himself on some of the album's best songs, including "1983" & "All Along the Watchtower." As I noted a few albums ago, Jimi would soon lose Redding for the much better-suited Billy Cox, but unfortunately he died before that band could record anything truly worthy of the musicians' talents.
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