Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!
Jimi Hendrix released Electric Ladyland in 1968, the last of his three lifetime studio releases. Produced by the guitarist himself, it was a double set and featured a veritable panoply of guests, over and above the core trio of Hendrix, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. Notable amongst these were Steve Winwood, Jack Casady (Jefferson Airplane), and the drummer in his later band, Buddy Miles. This sometimes led to criticisms of the album being a chaotic overindulgent sprawl, and there are moments that touch upon that, but it did not stop Electric Ladyland‘s swift elevation to bestseller, almost from day one. It attained the number one album slot in the US within a month of release. In the UK, where he had made his name, it fared less well, if still attaining a credible number six. Time has expanded and widened the appeal, winning over many of the initially sniffy critics, who saw it as overlong and muddled. In the year 2000 Rolling Stone ranked it at #53 in their Best 500 Records of All Time, a full 32 years after release. And we haven’t even mentioned the album artwork, which has a whole backstory of its own. Hint: there was a reason the UK cover was different from the US cover. Well, nineteen reasons. (Would you believe thirty-eight?)
But that’s another story for another time. Here we are interested more in covers than covers. We found sixteen of them, one for each song, even the ones where calling it a song is a stretch. You might not like them all – there’s one here that we think is an absolute clinker – but hopefully they evoke the best of Electric Ladyland when you hear them.
Elephant Tree – …And The Gods Made Love (Jimi Hendrix cover)
A bit of a cop-out this, it being neither really song nor instrumental, but more a bit of studio fun, playing with feedback and tape manipulation, “for atmosphere,” an off-kilter discord to introduce the feast forthcoming. Not an unusual hors d’oeuvre in this day and age, but in 1968 it was distinctly unusual to start with in this way. I am also sure the heads were able to hear much more than was actually there, given the right, um, stimulus. This cover comes from a 2015 album, Electric Ladyland (Redux), which features various artists covering the record, start to finish. Elephant Tree, a bluesy stoner/doomcore band from London, were assigned this dubious gift. Their electronic maelstrom could now be the centerpiece of many an acclaimed Pitchfork or Quietus review, rather than a preliminary taster.
One can’t help but feel the record company responsible missed a trick in not calling the album Electric Ladyland (Slight Return), but you can’t have everything.
Jesse Fischer & Soul Cycle feat. Chris Turner – Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) (Jimi Hendrix cover)
This always struck me as a song that, in different hands, could have become a stalwart of musical theater, with a full chorus and dancing girls. It is odd, although the prematurely Philly style backing vocals have some merit. It is, in fact, these that Jesse Fischer and his crew latch on to, turning the possibly experimental nature of the song into a full blown R&B groove, in the newer meaning of the description. (As in, it isn’t anything like the early Stones or Pretty Things!) It is good, for a style of music I can generally leave rather than take, the brass and keyboards perfect for the mood, together with the smooth raggedness of the vocal ensemble. Fischer has form, both as a sideman and bandleader, and plays the gorgeous electric piano parts here.
Benji Kirkpatrick – Crosstown Traffic (Jimi Hendrix cover)
“Crosstown Traffic” was arguably one of Hendrix’s more commercial efforts. Billboard predicted the “pulsating swinger… will make a powerful chart dent,” but it never did, failing to reach the Top 50 as a single. Benji Kirkpatrick, one of the bastions of a currently vibrant UK folk scene, does a lovely job of stripping it right back to voice and bouzouki, revealing the underlying beauty in the song. This comes from Kirkpatrick’s full album of Hendrix compositions, 2016’s Hendrix Songs.
Out Of Phase – Voodoo Chile (Jimi Hendrix cover)
Well, this is a gift, the first of two appearances of this track. This means I can cheat, and have, similarly, two cover versions included. In spirit with the original intent, this, the first, is a bit more of a sprawling jam. The longest track across the two vinyl discs, this is little more of an excuse for the guitarist to pick and mix various licks and lines from several key influences, principally Muddy Waters and his “Rollin’ Stone,” with new words. Having said that, the core tune emerges sufficiently frequently to allow for that indulgence. (Hell. it was the ’60s, maaan!!)
Unsurprisingly, many of the covers of “Voodoo Chile” are by blues bands. I prefer this version by Scottish ambient trance producer, Peter Mossman, under the name Out Of Phase, although my ears hear little remotely representative of either of those electronic styles, bar the clatter of mixed electronic and organic percussion. The smacks more of a the sort of electric fiddle based blues that the likes of Papa John Creach, or Don “Sugarcane” Harris, could pull effortlessly out of their hats. Mossman has made a career of tribute albums, with Pink Floyd the main recipient of his approach. This comes from a misleadingly titled Acoustic Ladyland, which is another whole album cover project, all by his band. The fiddle comes from Maske and the vocals from Cecilia, neither given more than one name.
Electric Lady Big Band – Little Miss Strange (Jimi Hendrix cover)
Actually both written and sung by Noel Redding, the bassist in the Experience, “Little Miss Strange” is nonetheless one of the jolliest pieces in the Hendrix canon, and his guitar is as upbeat as on any of his own compositions. The Electric Lady Big Band are another unit who perform a full cover of the original album, track by track, with–yes, you’ve got it–a big band applying jazzy brass fumes all over the piece. To be fair, this is possibly the least representative of the tracks, having more guitar that much of the rest of their renditions, but I needed and wanted them included. Bandleader, Denny Ilett, is actually the guitarist, and was responding to Hendrix’s desire, expressed in his lifetime, to have a band he could conduct. He took that idea further than Gil Evans had earlier tried to, with his own The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix (1974), by also taking it out on the road, with the a crop of Britain’s finest jazzers. This is the second of two Hendrix albums the Big Band have made.
8 Bit Arcade – Long Hot Summer Night (Jimi Hendrix cover)
Well this is really different, helping me avoid any duplication of source material, as well as, potentially, unlocking a treasure trove for any future projects. 8 Bit Arcade are, well, I don’t really know what they are, but their bag is the reproduction of music in old-skool computer game mode, the plinky-plinky synth routines of Atari systems. There are literally zillions of “albums” available, covering all and every style of music into their own minimalistic revisioning. Likely annoying in large doses, the odd dip in, as here, is oddly refreshing, if immediately also sending a frisson of fear up the spine, the feeling that there is homework that should really be taking precedence over such frivolity. I dare say it is produced entirely autonomously from human input, requiring little more than access to ChatGPT and a PC, but I may be wrong.
James “Blood” Ulmer – Come On (Part 1) (Earl King cover)
One of two non-originals on the album, “Come On” was originally by Earl King, a bluesman from New Orleans, who released it as a single in 1960. From that point of view, he and Hendrix were contemporaries, if as far sonically removed as a mere eight years could provide. Known also (and better) as “Let the Good Times Roll,” it has been covered by Dr. John, Freddie King, and Steve Miller, amongst a slew of others, none of which stray far from a 12 bar template. But there is method in my actual choice, in that, perpetuating the link, it was recorded at Electric Lady studio. (Did I not say that was why Hendrix had so named the project, after the building he had bought and converted into the studio, still running today, that he made famous by the making of this album there?)
James “Blood” Ulmer is a prodigious figure in black music, starting as a jazzman, if as happy blurring the lines into blues and rock, via and including funk. He served as instigator of the New York “No Wave” scene of the 1970s, where dissonance was king, with any link to overt or pre-existing genres actively rejected. By 2003, however, he was more prepared to embrace his heritage, with the record that includes this, No Escape From the Blues: the Electric Lady Sessions. Surprisingly, there is enough orthodoxy here to entirely belie his scary reputation.
Turtle Island String Quartet – Gypsy Eyes (Jimi Hendrix cover)
Is it so obvious that anything that mentions a gypsy should attract an Eastern European interpretation? Never the mind, I think this is a spunky iteration that, even without any vocals (scarcely the high point of the original), is still worth the shout-out. OK, once the initial theme comes and goes, the way is lost a little, but the idea is fairly sound. Turtle Island String Quartet have been around since 1985, in one form or another, but always with David Balakrishnan at their helm, on violin, and they specialize in “how to weave seemingly disparate strains of humanity together into a unified whole.” I don’t know about that, but if a jazz and rock classical hybrid is your bag, they are just the job. It is available on an album where their various Hendrix covers are collated, entitled Have You Ever Been…..? (If you have been following this piece, you will know how that sentence ends.)
The Rotary Connection – Burning Of The Midnight Lamp (Jimi Hendrix cover)
With one of the simplest and most effective opening riffs in Hendrix’s repertoire, this is peak psychedelia, as well as his first recorded appearance of wah-wah pedal. And, by embracing the limitations of his vocal range, and all but talking his way through it, he sounds like many a latter-day troubadour. Rotary Connection maintain the psychedelia, but remove much the rawness, replacing it with a glossy sheen of commerciality. Oddly, this was not their usual métier, as earlier work had them down as a very much more avant-garde arrangement, baffling listeners as they switched between genres, unallied to any one, even within the same song. However, by the time 1969’s Songs came along, they were a far tamer beast, with a far greater sense of radio friendliness than earlier obvious. The lead female voice is Minnie Riperton, which adds some degree of extra kudos. Other songs on the set included “The Weight,” “Respect,” and “Sunshine of Your Love.”
Jarek Śmietana Band – Rainy Day, Dream Away (Jimi Hendrix cover)
The exemplar track as to the added value that Stevie Winwood brought to the sessions, this is as overt an example of Hammond blues as anything made by Jimmy Smith or Jack McDuff. Until Hendrix starts to play and sing, it is hard to appreciate it coming from his hand, other than as an example of possible future directions. It takes Polish blues turned jazz guitarist, Smietana, to take it still further down that direction of flow, keeping the organ center stage but adding jazzy licks of his own. Hanka Wòjciac maintains the vocal non-style of Hendrix to continue that trend, the English as foreign language intonations actually quite appealing. There are a host of other Hendrix songs on the 2009 parent album Psychedelic: Music Of Jimi Hendrix, and it also features violinist Nigel Kennedy on some of the other tracks, himself an avid Hendrix fan, as we will see.
The Kennedy Experience – 1983…. (A Merman I Should Turn To Be) (Jimi Hendrix cover)
Did someone say Nigel Kennedy? For here it is he, adding his glissando-ing fiddle to this most pastoral of Hendrix compositions. Neither classical nor rock in context, there is certainly a sense of chamber, even if the percussionist is granted freer rein than Bob Dylan with his spanner. But, it is a disconcertingly odd amalgam of parts and it (just) sticks together, even with the mammoth stretch Kennedy gives it, pulling it out to over 15 minutes. For those who need to know, guitar parts are from John Etheridge, currently fronting Soft Machine, but a guitarist who has worked often best alongside fiddlers, with a track record encompassing both Darryl Way (Curved Air) and Stephane Grapelli.
Claymation – Moon, Turn The Tides…. Gently Gently Away (Jimi Hendrix cover)
As with “And the Gods Made Love,” which opens the album, this is more soundscape than anything you might find yourself humming along to. As such there were few versions that I could source, without duplication of the parent album. So, indulge me, please, and ignore the picture within the above video. Yes, it suggests it is from the self same album as that equivalently free-form composition was lifted from, but, given it is also available on another Hendrix covers compilation, a Bandcamp subscribers exclusive from 2016, The Best of James Marshall Hendrix, so please pretend that is where it came from first. (Even if it didn’t.) Sounding more like the intro to a prolonged workout from space-rockers, Hawkwind, Claymation is actually Baird Buchanan, a Troy, NY based guitarist/ composer who uses baritone guitars, loops, layering, feedback and drones to weave similar moods. No connection with Aardman studios, and their clever films and videos, q.v. Wallace and Gromit and Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” video.
Jimmy Thackery & the Drivers – Still Raining, Still Dreaming (Jimi Hendrix cover)
A remarkable track, opening as it does with talking/skwarking guitar, propelled along with what would now classify as a hip-hop drum part. Erstwhile Nighthawk Jimmy Thackery strips back on any such future trendsetting, imposing a lazy backbeat that is equally effective. From the freak flag credentials of the original, he finds a simple 4:4 blues based boogie, with some retro honking on sax to further extinguish the innovation that seemed so outré in ’68. This may sound like a putdown; it isn’t, more a paean of praise to finding the core elements, buried within.
Larry Coryell – House Burning Down (Jimi Hendrix cover)
One of the many tribute albums devoted to Hendrix is Voodoo Crossing: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix, which answers the question as to what the later, more purist jazz/blues players thought of the Seattle axeman. The answer is, seemingly, quite a lot. However, the album is surprisingly sterile, despite the presence of Coryell, Robben Ford and Steve Lukather, amongst others. Sure, they have all the notes, can play ’em both in order and disorder, often faster, but most tend to miss out the integral passion. This track is a case in point, which, after a promising slowed start, simply ramps up into a soulless recreation, but with worse bass, worse drums and godawful vocals. The guitar is probably technically superb, but that ain’t enough.
Alexei Aigui & Dietmar Bonnen – All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover)
It would be far too easy to pluck any old cover of Dylan’s version out of the legion available, but, in keeping with the Earl King cover above, there needed to be a palpable link with the Hendrix version. In truth, the best example would have my editor champing at his bit, being Bob Dylan’s take on his own song with The Band, from 1974’s Before the Flood. Much of the credit due then, clearly, to Robbie Robertson, who tips a whole lot more than a nod of his cap to the pyrotechnics of that electric masterclass. But it would break our rules, so it is to yet another violinist that I turn, this time the Russian Aigui, a rocker turned classical and soundtrack composer. What is it about the violin that sees it so often grafted into replace Jimi Hendrix guitar parts? Regardless, I enjoy greatly this low key interpretation, performed in tandem with the piano of Dietmar Bonnen. As well as this album, the duo have performed a similar service to the music of Frank Zappa, but you may need better luck than me in tracking either of them down.
Angelique Kidjo – Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (Jimi Hendrix cover)
One thing that struck me, as I prepared this piece, was the the lack of reggae covers, of bluegrass covers or even zydeco, these usually an essential building block to getting as wide a cross-section as possible. Indeed, there aren’t very many out there at all, especially relating to the songs on this album. There is the album Electric Reggaeland, but with none of the requisite tracks needed, save “Watchtower.” Likewise, the usually excellent “Pickin’ On” series do cover Hendrix, but their version of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” isn’t up to much. (See what I mean?) Luckily, world music came to the rescue, courtesy the estimable Angelique Kidjo, with an inherently African take on it. The vocals do much of the heavy lifting and it is entirely joyous. Guitars are not especially obvious within this version, all the honors going to the vocal onslaught of Kidjo and her backing singers. In fact, there couldn’t be a better track to book-end the set.
Incidentally, there is also a later live version Kidjo has gifted this song, with the additional presence of Buddy Guy and Vernon Reid. Guy was a clear inspiration to the younger Hendrix, the two later meeting up and becoming friends. Reid, guitarist of Living Colour, has been as influential as anyone in taking forward the mantle of black psychedelic rock music, for which Hendrix was the standard bearer.
Kidjo is, without doubt, the doyenne of African music, with a stack of releases to her name. Scattered amongst her largely traditional and original material, there is a gamut of well chosen covers, all well worth investigating, including her recent full album covers of Talking Heads’ Remain in Light.
