Now Playing: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - "Electric Ladyland"
Topic: Liner Notes
Voodoo Chile: In the April 4 issue of Rolling Stone Jim Miller called Axis "the finest Voodoo album that any rock group has produced." It was around the time of Miller's review that Jimi transformed Catfish Blues into Voodoo Chile. Noel remembers. "I came in the studio and there's like 30 people in the booth when we're trying to work, and I said, 'Can I sit down? I'm just the bass player.' You couldn't even move, it was a party, not a session. On May 2 I took it out on Jimi, letting him know what I thought of the scene. I told him to get all the people out. He just said, 'Relax man.' I had a big go at him and I walked out in front of all those people (laughs)."
"Out in the corridor were all these musicians waiting to be given a chance to play," recalls Steve Winwood. "Jimi came out and said, 'Hi, come in.'"
"We just walked in and hung out," said Jack Casady, "I had no idea that I would end up on record. I heard that there was a little problem with Noel, things were a little cold... Noel was sitting in an adjacent vocal booth with a few other friends on the floor, hanging out. There was a hammond B3 organ. I had my Guild Starfire bass. Jimi suggested we play a blues."
"There were no chord sheets, no nothing." said Winwood, "He just started playing. It was a one-take job, with him singing and playing at the same time."
"I watched him work," said Larry Coryell, "he was working on vocal and guitar overdubs for House Burning Down, and that same night he also jammed with Traffic's Steve Winwood, with Steve at the organ. The result was that long blues thing called Voodoo Chile.
The stream of energy just went back and forth between them. I wanted to get in there and play with Jimi, but he was saying it all, another guitarist would have been in his way."
"It's satisfying, working this way," explained Jimi, "I'd start with just a few notes scribbled on some paper and then we get to the studio and a melody is worked out and lots of guys all kick in little sounds of their own. Maybe, if you listen real close, you'll recognize some of the guys working behind. If you do, you'd better keep quiet about it because they're contracted to other companies."
"We all got to play with as many different kinds of musicians as possible," noted Mitch, "it was always encouraged. The usual thing was that late in the evening we'd go down to the Scene and then go 'round to the studio, which was only a couple of blocks away. We block-booked the studio through the night and Hendrix would turn up with endless streams of people."
"We don't know what we're going to do at the studio half the time," laughed Jimi, "it's just contact between the people sometimes, we just play by feeling."
The second take of Voodoo Chile may have gone on the album if Jimi didn't break a string. But then the final take was supernatural. "We finished around 8 in the morning and left." recalls Casady, "No one had any idea it was gonna end up on the album... We did the crowd noises later... about 20 people... Jimi said that this was a great live take... we sat around the mike and made comments, as if it was a party."
"We just opened the studio up and all our friends came down," explained Jimi, "like from after jam sessions. We wanted to jam somewhere, so we just went to the studio, the best place to jam (laughs), and brought about fifty of our friends along."
The "crowd" soundtrack was likely added on May 8, but as Mitch points out, "People like to make out that we were all playing together in the Scene, and it was 'Hey, let's take this down to the studio'. It wasn't really like that. Nice story though."
The final mix was finished on June 10. Jimi's Voodoo blues masterpiece was set to define his legend more than any other single Hendrix recording. "Around the southern United States they have scenes goin' on workin' roots," said Jimi, "like there's different things they can do, they can put something in your food, or put some little hair in your shoe - Voodoo stuff. I saw it. If I see it happen or if I feel it happen then I believe it, not necessarily if I just hear it talked about. You think that sort of thing is rubbish 'till it happens to you, then it's scary. Things like witchcraft, which is a form of exploration and imagination, have been banned by the establishment and called evil. It's because people are frightened to find out the full power of the mind."
When Electric Ladyland came out Disc & Music Echo named Jimi "World Top Musician" and pointed out "he is the first major rock musician to put the idea of the all-star jam session into concrete form on record." Eye called Voodoo Chile "One of the strongest blues efforts to date... This boy has got the goods."
