Eddie Kramer on Valleys of Neptune
Eddie Kramer’s credit on Valleys of Neptune is co-producer, along with Janie Hendrix (Jimi’s adopted half-sister) and John McDermott of Experience Hendrix, the company owned by the Hendrix family. But such a humble title belies Kramer’s true, deep connection to Hendrix. A native of South Africa, Kramer was a 25-year-old recording engineer in London when he began working with Hendrix, in spring of 1967. He stayed with Jimi, as an engineer, mixer and co-producer, until Hendrix’s death in 1970. “Basically,” he says, “I’m the person in charge of all the sounds and all the technical aspects of Jimi’s albums.”
Ben Fong-Torres recently spoke to Kramer by phone for eMusic.
How did Valleys of Neptune come about?
It came from the research of John, Janie and me. We had known of the existence of these tapes for quite a few years. We transcribed them in England when we got them from (former manager and producer) Chas Chandler, and it’s something we’ve thought about for a while, and we wanted to put something really good out for the new Legacy Recordings deal. We started working on this over a year ago, restoring them and making sure we got the best out of the tapes.
We felt they addressed a period of time, in 1969, which was a crossroads for Jimi. This batch came from Olympic Studios (in London) in 1969, when he’d hired the studio basically to prep the band for the upcoming Albert Hall shows. It’s a magnificent set of performances, which he did in a couple of days. This was probably the last time the original Experience band would record together. It was a unique set of sessions. Jimi and the band are just on fire. I mean, he’s relaxed, he’s having a great time. It’s a fresh look at Jimi.
This is a diverse collection of material. Is there a theme?
Oh, very much so. If one goes back to ’68 and looks at the success that Jimi had with Electric Ladyland — that was really a watershed album, in terms of his being in charge of his destiny. He proved he could put an album together. If one takes the journey with Jimi to the beginning of ’69 and looks at the change that was about to come upon him — Noel Redding leaving the band and Jimi bringing in Billy Cox. That brings in a musical turn of events; you can really hear the R&B influence very strongly, and you can trace it all the way through ’69, up until Woodstock, when he comes out with the Band of Gypsys.
Right after that Jimi is at the Record Plant in New York, where some of these extra tracks come from, and you can hear the shift in influence of the new band, with Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox, and Jimi’s direction is now much more R&B based but very rock. There’s a definitive curve to the development of Jimi’s music, and that’s what this album represents: Jimi trying new things, new arrangements, new musicians, a different way of looking at things, and it has never been put together in a cohesive form. And that’s what we’ve done.
There is one track there that is not from that era, but from ’67.
“Mr. Bad Luck.”
Which is a fabulous track. But it never fit any album! When we heard the track and found the best take of it, we said, “You know what? This is a perfect song for this album.”
Someone decided it’d be good to have Noel and Mitch adding bass and drums from 1987.
Chas gave Mitch and Noel the chance to try some overdubs on some tracks he had cut with them. This is very much in keeping with what Jimi, myself, any of us would’ve done had we had the opportunity. We often overdubbed stuff when Jimi was alive. The way I mixed those tracks was by listening to the original drum playing and bass playing and comparing it with the overdubbed playing, and cutting between the two and finding the best from both. It really is a combination. I have no qualms about it whatsoever.
I heard that “Valley” was originally a couple different takes?
There’s two distinct performances. Jimi recorded the vocal and guitar parts in 1969 and then did a whole band track almost a year later. The fascinating thing for me was that his performance in 1969 was so accurate — not only was it in time and in tune with the 1970 performance, but when I married the two, you couldn’t tell. It was as if he planned it that way.
Why did he decide to re-do “Stone Free”?
It was just to come in and do it with a radically different feel. I think when you compare the different versions of it, this is a particularly brilliant one. The same thing with “Red House” and “Sunshine of Your Love.” “Stone Free” is probably one of the most difficult tracks to record, from an engineering standpoint, because of the huge dynamic range, and it’s very hard for a guitar player and a rhythm section to pull that off with some sort of accuracy. And that performance is one of the great performances of that song.
Overall, how was it for you to deal with this material and to produce this album?
I was able to not only go in and get the original master tapes and work on them and bring them to life; it was one of those times when you could go back into the mists of time and hear Jimi’s voice coming at you, saying things like, “Hey man, how was that take,” and hear my voice saying, “That was good, Jimi…let’s try one more.” And it’s stuff like that, it makes you smile and say, “My goodness, this was such a wonderful time.” And when you hear the performances, that’s when it gets really exciting. The hair stands up on the back of your neck and you say, “Christ almighty, this shit is unbelievable.” ‘Cause there’s nobody like him.
