The Jimi Hendrix Experience Electric Ladyland Song by Song Thread

I watched a video and coulda sworn he said 'Eric'. I assumed Clapton but maybe it was Burdon? If EB wasn't there than I musta been hearing things!

 

Pretty much just that!

 

I remember the clip now, I think he was referring to Eric Burdon since he was definitely at Monterey. The confusing thing is they talk to Clapton during that segment so it could be confusing

 

Voodoo Chile is one of the best Gtr based songs ever recorded, it has the intensity of the early blues masters, Robert johnson comes to mind.

It takes the blues out of the fields and into the mainstream.

An important part of musical history.

Hendrix used to call it the new national anthem.

As an important part of musical history and groundbreaking as the Rite of Spring or Debussy.

 

Voodoo Child (slight return) - my favorite guitar tone of all time. Just wicked.

Strangely, something that really stands out about the album version, after hearing tons of live versions, is the way Mitch Mitchell's kick-heavy drum part locks in with the shaker. It makes the album version groove in a way the live ones don't.

Also, the bootleg of the sessions for this one are really interesting. The first few aborted takes have the intro played without the wah pedal. As soon as Hendrix kicks on the wah for another try, it's like you're hearing cavemen inventing fire for the first time! Once again, a small effect makes such a huge difference on this track.

 

"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)"

What a way to end a double album! A tune that's Jimi's epitaph, in a way.

 

"All Along The Watchtower" greatest guitar intro ever......ever.

 

Jeez I'm a little sad this threads almost over. Especially because we know that Jimi's life is almost over after such a grand statement at such a young age...

 

Iam very late to the party as i can hear dishes being washed but have often thought that side 4 of Ladyland is quite possibly the greatest single side of an lp ever. Don't be too sad yet as his recordings for Cry Of Love document a rebirth and new ensenble based direction with Billy Cox.

 

Voodoo Child (Slight Return): Once again, at that time, some of the slickest guitar playing ever heard. You had to be to there to really understand what I'm saying. Jimi set the bar high. In many subsequent years many guitarists have taken his blueprint and built on it. What Jimi did, he did in a very short time. Who knows what he would have accomplished in a "normal" length lifetime.

Anyway, when I saw Hendrix on May 23, 1969, he left us with this song. No encore. The moon turned a fire red.

This has been a fun and informative to thread. Thanks again, Musicman1998.

 

Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Opens with Jimi strumming his muted guitar strings with some sweet wah pedal. The famous delta blues theme of the song follows based around E blues. A little pickup note and then at :32 a massive slide down the low string and Jimi opens up the skies with an amazing Muddy Waters (Rolling Stone) inspired boogie riff that focuses around the blues standard of pulling off the third fret of the sixth string and then playing the octave. A Killer bend on the third string completes the riff. Electrified boogie to the max. At ;38 Jimi plays call and response with the riff with some searing fills. At :43 a psychedelic flick of the pickup toggle switch gives the sound like the notes are trying to escape Jimi's dominating fretboard control. At :59 listen for the Hendrix chord for but a fleeting moment. At 1:05 the verse starts and Jimi plays the guitar in unison to his vocal melody. At 1:33 Jimi adds in a pop touch with partial D and A chords. At 1:43 another somewhat blues departure with the chords C-D to turnaround the frenzy with the chorus. At 1:55 Jimi's astonishing finger vibrato takes full flight. Some more amazing runs flow until at 2:25 a harrowing string bend that sounds like it could conquer worlds played in the upper most registers of his guitar. A bluesy war cry. At 2:27 Jimi dissipates some of the enormous energy with a freer funky flow of the main riff. He gives us some time to feel groovy and lay back but look out.......it lasts until around 3:28 with the return of the chorus. Jimi plays some more solos that are searing and mind bending. At 3:58 the Hendrix chord puts us in a holding pattern until at 4:10 an amazing set of trademark Jimi seventh chords on the first three strings. The overtone he gets at 4:15 is simply beyond description. And then at 4:21 something truly amazing for me happens.....Jimi plays a mind shattering variation of the "I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time" melody from the verses. A brilliant recall of the verses that came before. He plays the line ending with a moaning reverse bend. This is not a guy just jamming but a brilliant melody minded genius. The Hendrix chord returns and time stands still only to be warped at 4:38 with some free time wah playing. At 4:46 Jimi lengthens the bent blue note in the riff and tries to wrestle the song to the ground along with a toggle switch net at 4:56 trying to tame this ungodly beast of a performance. Some vibrato bar thrashings and the final cries of the main riff bring the song to a close.

A lot I would like to say about this song has already been set forth by you fine Hendrix fans so............One of my favorite guitar performances of all time. A performance that showcases Jimi's supernatural physical domination over his instrument. That along with an innate melodic genius makes it also one of my favorite songs of all time. It floors me today as much as it did when I first heard it back in October of 1968. Transcendent is the only one word description that fits for me.

 

Great review and awesome thread. Perfect.

 

Awesome...

My uncle RIP went to this gig

 

It is and I guess I'm taking it for granted a bit. It's like "Stairway to heaven" with guitar players.
You could have a sign in a guitar shop "Absolutely no Voodoo Chile"....

That said, with all due respect to RRB here, few play it like Jimi did, but every hack has a version.
Guess I got misleading info on Hansen playing tonite and the 20th.. He can be seen in Tacoma on July 7...Ended up taking the nite off, and just took a little drive..

 

At the Fillmore East during the famous Band Of Gypsys concerts, he introduced the song as "the Black Panthers National Anthem" !
Addressing hecklers at Newport '69, he shouted "This is a black militant song, don't you ever forget it !".

 

Here's an amusing personal anecdote regarding "Slight Return": My old band back in high school used to cover the song (when our guitar player got his wah wah pedal the intro riff was the first thing he figured out how to play). In 1992 we'd landed a gig playing at Klondike Days, Edmonton's annual fair/exhibition, one of the biggest gigs we played, probably a thousand people or so, all crammed into this red and white tent that looked like the world's biggest bucket of KFC. In addition to all of our parents and most of our friends being there, our drummer saw fit to invite his girlfriend, whom he had just started dating (that, my friends, is a story in and of itself...) Anyway, when we started playing "Voodoo Child" it went pretty well until, it seems, all our drummer's girlfriend needed to do was start making goo goo eyes at him and he immediately upped the tempo- like, practically double time! Our guitarist and I (I played bass) gave him a quick glare as if to say, "Josh, what the f--k are you doing?!" (we would do that quite a lot, actually, Josh was an adequate drummer when it came to keeping the beat but his drumfills tended to go off the rails- he idolized guys like Neil Peart and Ginger Baker but couldn't play like them if you put a gun to his head) before we just looked at one another like, "Well, if this is how it's gonna be..." and we just wrapped up the song in it's newly found bordering on speed metal arrangement. Afterward Josh says, kinda sheepishly, "Sorry about that, guys...she looked at me!"

Of course, even 26 years on, every time I hear "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" -either Hendrix or Stevie Ray's version- I get flashbacks to that scene...

 

I first heard of Jimi's music in the early 80's reading guitar player magazine. My 14 year old self was was intrigued he was rated above Clapton. (I was happiest Keef was rated top 10) Anyways i knew Jimi song titles but only a few songs as i was not mature enough to relate. In 85' i borrowed a school friends ZepIV & Out Door as i did not have them and Dbl lp Essential Hendrix plus one other as it was time to give him more investigation. I dug the Voodoo Chile SR intro but struggled with some of the rest, at the time i was falling for Zep as i related to them easily. The next year i incorporated a Hendrix charactor into a school play going down on his knees playing VCSR like it was Woodstock and it was no tomorrow. I then bought the Electric Ladyland lp (nude cvr and later nude fatboy cd though own neither now...duh!) and warmed to it quickly, especially VCSR! In 87/88 i formed a band called "Motherless Children" bought a wah wah and attempted Purple Haze, Hey Joe, White Room, Stones and others. In the 30 years that followed i thirsted for Jimi and was on a feverish quest to obtain all manor of studio and live recordings and read all i could get my hands on. To me Jimi and his music are totally inseperable, it is at his very being"s core, his music is bold, brave and honest. Someone once said "He didn't play guitar, the guitar played him" His impoverished and dysfunctional childhood shaped him as a shy but determined loner solely reliant on himself. This also lead to confusion, isolation and depression and contributed to his early death. For very many years i like many others, just thought of and worshipped the wild music and image but now i clearly can see the man. A very young man that felt trapped, afraid and misunderstood

 

For all the (deserved) praise heaped upon Voodoo Child (Slight Return), most folks tend to overlook the obvious: the sound of the rhythm section is absolute MUD! A veritable swamp of murk! It's a shockingly abrupt shift from the bountiful sonic beauty of Electric Ladyland as a whole. Of course, I wouldn't want it (nor could I envision it) any other way, but it suggests that perhaps those tales of Hendrix's hearing damage (see McDermott's Setting the Record Straight) may well have been accurate. There are stories of Hendrix doing quick mixes of takes in the studio, with the results being dreadful! Following one such episode, Hendrix apparently submitted to a quick hearing test engineered by Eddie Kramer, with the results indicating significant damage to at least one ear...

 

But for some reason on this track, it works. The bassy sonic sludge is just enveloped by the swirl of guitars.

 

the panning and phasing is just off the charts here...love it.
again, this album needs a surround mix.

 

I think it was the sound Hendrix wanted so that was the effect he was going for regardless of sonic's and not a poor mix or master etc

 

I believe I asked this earlier and either missed the answer or never got one: is there a dedicated mono mix available anywhere of the Electric Ladyland LP?

 

If only Jimi could've included an instrumental EP with it ala Songs in the Key of Life:

Side A

Tax Free
South Saturn Delta

Side B

Rainy Day Shuffle
Cherokee Mist

Too forward thinking I know, but still...

 

No.

 

Shouldn't that be (one) guitar?