THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE - ARE YOU EXPERIENCED @ 55

 

 

May 12 marks the 55th anniversary of the UK release of the debut LP by The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced, which was issued on this day in 1967 (the US release followed on August 23). It remains one of the most critically and commercially successful debuts by a rock artist and not only redefined the parameters and direction of psychedelic rock, but became a touchstone in the development of hard rock and heavy metal while also staking out an entirely new landscape for blues and R&B music.

 

By 1966, Jimi Hendrix was going nowhere in his career as a backup guitarist on the US R&B circuit, but that would all start to change when he caught the attention of Linda Keith, who was dating Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards at the time. She saw something there and started introducing him to various managers and industry people. Eventually this lead to a meeting with Chas Chandler, who was just coming off a stint managing The Animals. Chandler brought Hendrix to the UK and London, where he set about recruiting a new backing band for him to work with, finding guitarist Noel Redding, who took on bass duties, and drummer Mitch Mitchell.

 

With a group in place, they started hitting the studios over the course of a five month period between October 23rd, 1966 and April 4, 1967. It took a total of 16 sessions to record all the material for his debut LP, which was done at three studios: De Lane Lea, CBS and Olympic. The shifts between studios were in an effort to improve sound quality as the initial sessions at De Lane Lea were not entirely satisfying to Chandler, so they moved to CBS and later Olympic, which had the best quality equipment and latest technology.

 

Because of budget constraints, most of the pre-production work was done at an apartment Chandler was sharing with Hendrix at the time. Chandler also ensured that the creative autonomy remained squarely with Hendrix, deliberately limiting the input from from Redding and Mitchell in order to avoid having to deal with the usual politics of band relations and compromises. It was Jimi’s show and that was made clear from the get-go. Besides, Hendrix had all the details of his songs worked out in his head anyway, so there was little need for additional input.

 

Recording of the album was interspersed between live gigging throughout the UK and Europe. Things were initially a little tense in the studio as the technicians struggled to record Hendrix at the screaming loud volume he insisted upon. The volume of his twin Marshall stack was so loud that it was causing audible rattling throughout the studio, which was getting picked up by the mics. When Chandler insisted on him turning the level down, Hendrix threw a tantrum and threatened to head home to the US. Chandler responded by placing his passport and travel papers on the mixing console and telling him to “piss off”. Hendrix laughed it off and said, “Okay, you called my bluff.” He then adjusted the levels (slightly) and got back to work.

 

Hendrix was far from confident as a vocalist compared to his prowess on guitar. He hated having anyone around when he did his vocals and, at Olympic Studios, had a privacy booth constructed to try to get isolated from the engineers, but this was problematic for them, particularly with the low lighting as it made it difficult to communicate with him and give him the correct cues while recording. The volume wars continued on at Olympic as well with nearby neighbors regularly complaining about the noise coming from the studio.

 

The studio also had to struggle with the distraction of fans showing up, especially the girls. Hendrix wasn’t exactly discreet and had no qualms about blabbing to fans where they’d be at any given time of day, which resulted in a lot of unwanted guests at the studio. Studio staff were tasked with keeping them at a safe distance so that work could continue, but later Chandler commented that he had worked with The Beatles, Stones and Led Zeppelin and none of them had caused such chaos with their followers. However, other than the quibbling about volume, Hendrix himself was generally easy going and not difficult to work with, it’s just that a bit of discretion from him would have been helpful for recording.

 

The songs for the album covered a wide range of genres from R&B to free jazz with each track possessing its own distinct personality. Yet they were all inseparably bound together by the strength of Hendrix’s style and personality, which ignited each like he would set fire to his guitars on stage. And his band, while kept on a short leash in terms of creative contributions, nonetheless stepped up to the task of supporting such a dynamic and distinctive guitar player. Cream may have invented the concept of the “power trio”, but The Jimi Hendrix experience took the “power” knob and added “11” to the dial.

 

The cover for the album had two variations with the UK version coming first, but proving unsatisfactory to Hendrix as he felt it looked to drab given the music it contained. He subsequently commissioned the US label to come up with something more reflective of the content. The UK version featured a muted color palette with only the album’s title on the front, oddly omitting the band’s name. For the US edition, noted graphic designer and fashion photographer Karl Ferris was recruited. His fashion background was put to use in helping to select the group’s wardrobe and he used a fish-eye lens and an infrared technique of his own invention which combined color reversal with heat signature manipulation. Upon listening to the band’s music, the designer had conceptualized the shot as a "group traveling through space in a Biosphere on their way to bring their unworldly space music to earth.”

 

Upon its release, the album was an immediate commercial success in both the UK and US and received rave critical reviews. Since then it’s gone on to become recognized as one of the most significant debut albums of all time. Hendrix’s influence on the world of rock music and the evolution of guitar playing is incalculable as he can lay claim to having an impact on everything from heavy metal to funk to industrial music. Anyone who’s picked up a guitar in the last half century and wanted to do something more with it than strum a few chords eventually has to look to Hendrix as a pioneer and inspiration. His debut LP could not be a more perfect representation of that talent.

SONG TO THE SIREN - SURRENDERING TO THE SEA OF LOVE

If there is such a thing as a “perfect” song, my vote goes to Tim Buckley’s Song to the Siren as the most likely candidate.  Ever since it first entered my life in 1984, it has been a go-to piece of music whenever I’ve been gripped in the melancholy of romance.  It’s the song you want to put on whenever you’re feeling alone or when that special someone you thought was your soulmate turns out to be another lost leader.  It’s the perfect “poor me” tune or the ideal song to sink into when you’re adrift in that sea of forlorn love-sickness.  Most people who know the song are familiar with the 1983 version by This Mortal Coil, but there are a lot of other splendid versions out there too and it has something of a fascinating history, which starts with that oddball “pre-fab four”, The Monkees.

By the beginning of 1968, The Monkees had reached a point in their career where they were able to have a bit of a say in not only their own artistic direction, but in helping the careers of other artists whom they admired.  This manifested in ways like using the set on their TV show to display the work of various upcoming visual artists, bringing Jimi Hendrix to tour with them as an opening act and featuring performers on their TV show like Frank Zappa.  On what would turn out to be the final episode of the series, The Frodis Caper, director Micky Dolenz booked upcoming singer/songwriter Tim Buckley to perform on the show in his first network television appearance.

For the performance, which was recorded live and not lip-synced, as was normally done for such shows, Buckley insisted on playing a song he and his songwriting partner, Larry Beckett, had written sometime in late 1967, but hadn’t released yet.  This wasn’t a popular decision for the show’s producers because such opportunities were generally used to promote new releases or some physical product the public could go out and buy, but Tim insisted and the appearance was recorded with him debuting Song to the Siren for the world.  The episode first aired on March 25, 1968.  Not long after this, spurred by the disastrous box-office of their debut feature film, HEAD, NBC pulled the plug on the Monkees TV show and set the band adrift.

On March 4 & 5, 1968, Buckley went into the studio and recorded a version of Song to the Siren using the same basic arrangement he’d use for the Monkees TV show.  The only addition to his 12 string accompaniment was a bit of minimal electric guitar and bass.  This version, however, would never be released in Buckley’s lifetime.  It got shelved and would only ever come out years later, first in 1999 as part of an interment only collection of rarities, and then in 2001 as part of a CD retrospective collection. 

It was two years after the Monkees appearance that he re-recorded the song with a very different, more psychedelic arrangement featuring electric guitar accompaniment instead of the 12 string acoustic.  This was the version released on Buckley’s 1970 LP, Starsailor.  In addition to the updated arrangement, the lyrics were modified slightly as the line “I’m as puzzled as the oyster” didn’t sit right with Buckley and was changed to “newborn child” on the 1970 recording.  At the time of its release, Starsailor represented something of an abrupt shift in style for Buckley, veering off the “folk” trail and into more jazz & experimental territory.  As a result, the album would require some distance from its release before people would retroactively begin to appreciate his bold adventurism.  Because of that, Song to the Siren probably lost a lot of potential fans at first.  This, however, wasn’t the first version of the song to be released.

The first ever official release of the song was by Pat Boone on his 1969 album, Departure.  Boone’s interpretation completely misses the nuances of the work by treating it as if it were some kind of novelty sea shanty.  He even crudely grafted on this ridiculous “Yo-ho-ho” pirate refrain as an intro before proceeding to bluster his way through an entirely unsympathetic rendition.  As such, it was up to the original Monkees performance to buoy the song along in syndicated reruns for the next 2 decades.  The song wouldn't find its full flower until 1983.  This was when Elizabeth Fraser & Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins would record a version for the 4AD label’s “super-group” collaboration/compilation project, This Mortal Coil.

Fraser and Guthrie managed to finally grasp the song’s ethereal essence and translate it into a recording which immediately captures the imagination of anyone who hears it.    Fraser’s angelic voice was the perfect vehicle for the song’s mythical lyrical threads and she became the very embodiment of the “siren” from the Greek legends which inspired the song.  Her voice sounded enchanting enough to lure any number of sailors to their doom along those rocky shores.  Along with a suitably intimate and beguiling promotional video, tailor-made for the emerging MTV generation of the era, the ingredients were at last right for the song to become enshrined as a pop music touchstone.  

Since then, it has continued to build momentum as a popular standard with a multitude of cover versions snowballing with each new generation of music makers.  Since it’s re-emergence in 1983, it has received some very respectable treatments from the likes of Sheila Chandra (2001), Robert Plant (2002), Bryan Ferry (2010), Sinéad O'Connor (2010) and Dead Can Dance (2013), to mention only a few of the more notable renditions.  It’s a song that has also proven to be relatively bulletproof in terms of interpretation, at least since its butchery by Pat Boone.  It’s a song that lends itself well to a variety of vocal styles and arrangements while maintaining its ethereal beauty.

In its essence, the song comes to life thanks to the emotional resonance it generates.  It’s a kind of tension between longing and loss and a contrasting sense of hopelessness and optimism.  Thematically, the foundational concept of it is the myth of the Greek sirens, the enchanting creatures of the sea who vex sailors with a song so alluring that they are inescapably drawn to the shores where their vessels are smashed against it’s craggy rocks.  It uses this myth to weave a braid of the feelings of helplessness, anticipation and sorrow which one is possessed by when experiencing the deep passions of romance, particularly the tragic kind.  There’s a sense that love is a doomed adventure, but that it’s so beautiful that it’s worth the price of one’s own demise.  There’s a kind of surrender to the inevitable in the lyrics.  “Should I stand amid the breakers or should I lie with death my bride?”  Should I try to resist or should I give in to my doom?  “Swim to me, let me enfold you” is the act of surrender and sublimation into the inescapable nature of it all.  It’s a kind of melancholy that washes over you like the tide.

Structurally, the song has been referred to as the perfect marriage of melody and lyric and for good reason.  There’s a flow to it all that makes every movement as natural as rolling waves on the shore.  Each line and verse flows together so seamlessly that you can’t resist the current of it as it carries you along.  There’s not a wasted meter or measure in it as it has that ideal economy of an ecosystem in immaculate balance.  The tune swells and subsides as automatically as breathing.  It’s no wonder that it has become such a favorite standard for contemporary vocalists.  

For me, and for many others, the definitive rendition remains the one by This Mortal Coil as it was the one which breathed new life into the song after languishing, mostly forgotten for over two decades.  This was the first version I can recall, which is odd because I have been a huge fan of the Monkees ever since I was a toddler when the show debuted.  Yet I don’t recall Buckley’s performance from my youth and it was only when the show was revived by MTV in 1986 when I saw The Frodis Caper episode again and had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I realized where the song had originated. I have found myself returning again and again to that Monkees show performance since then.  There, in the simplicity of Tim's heartfelt rendering, with nothing but his voice and guitar, that you feel like you're witnessing the birth of an angel.  That it would end up being the “swan song” for the TV series is somehow appropriate as The Monkees became victims of their own tragic love story, lured into their own rocky shore.  But we can be thankful that this rendition has survived in these reruns for future generations to be able to witness this remarkably intimate revelation as it occurred all those years ago.

Check out my complete playlist of even more versions on YouTube.