Electric Lady Land, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Released on Reprise, August 1968
Electric Ladyland, the Experience’s third and final album, marked a new direction as Jimi took took greater control. Sessions held in London’s Olympic Studios and the Record Plant in New York City were looser, more jam oriented, and took on a party-like atmosphere, causing friction between Jimi and co-manager/producer Chas Chandler and bassist Noel Redding, ultimately leading to Chandler’s exit and the disintegration of the band. In addition to the two versions of Voodoo Chile, the sprawling 15-minute jam with Steve Winwood and Jack Cassidy, and the tighter pop Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), Ladyland is best known for Hendrix’s reinvention of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower (U.S. # 20), which Dylan performed in Jimi’s style thereafter.
[This item was on display during the Wilson Special Collections Library exhibition, “Sounds of ’68: Revolution in the Air,” January – April, 2018. Drawing from the deep holdings of UNC Libraries’s North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Music Library, and Southern Folklife Collection, The exhibit celebrates the recordings and the artists that defined an era.]
