This "double-album" (when such things were divided into four sides) is a masterwork despite the chaotic conditions under which it was made. Finally finished in August of 1968, it would break apart the Experience — a frustrated Noel Redding would jump ship for a solo career, and Chas Chandler would leave Hendrix to his own studio devices — even as it opened Hendrix to the possibilities of following his muse through many musicians and settings.

Jimi set up camp in the Record Plant on W. 44th St. in New York, around the corner from Steve Paul's club The Scene, which had become the watering hole of choice for at-liberty rockers; and combining business with pleasure, invited the party into his creative lair. The album that resulted contains late-night jams (especially you-are-there in the afterhours feel of "Voodoo Chile"); solid urban rockers ("Crosstown Traffic," "Gypsy Eyes"); ever more tributaries of the Mayfield songbook ("Have You Ever Been…," which in turn would influence Curtis when he went Superfly); and songs that could only be genre'd as now-you-see-it now-you-don't Hendrixiana: "Burning of the Midnight Lamp" and "House Burning Down" (the latter his response to the turmoil following Martin Luther King's assassination). All this and… read more »