Jimi Hendrix
Electric Ladyland

THE REVIEW

How to classify Jimi Hendrix? Apart from as "Supreme Genius Of Rock Music," is he a bluesman? A rocker? Something else? Well, therein lies the essence of Hendrix: his defiance of genres; and it is precisely in this album, his third and last studio work, that his personality is reflected.
In fact, while both his debut "Are You Experienced?" and the following "Axis: Bold As Love" are influenced by target audiences, namely the radio playability of the tracks, and the record label's demands, in this album Hendrix, having now risen to the role of universally recognized musical genius, can give free rein to his creativity, which had always been somewhat constrained.

1968: Hendrix goes through a period of crisis, unable to transpose his immense creativity into something concrete due to immense pressures from his record label and his manager. Hendrix changes manager, locks himself away in New York's "Electric Lady Studios" and, with the Experience, gives birth to his definitive masterpiece: "Electric Ladyland".
The album opens with a track reminiscent of Broadway music, "...And The Gods Made Love", the psychedelic "Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)", and "Crosstown Traffic", one of the singles from the album, the track closest to rock 'n' roll on the entire album, with its frantic rhythm and lyrics harking back to the classic "Hot Rods" of the '50s. It continues with the magnificent "Voodoo Chile", the last frontier between blues and contamination: the work (because calling it a song is limiting) lasts 15 minutes and benefits from the collaboration of Jack Casady on bass and Steve Winwood on Hammond organ, which in long sections supplants the guitar in executing grand solos.
Then there is "Little Miss Strange", a track penned by Noel Redding and sung by the author himself; Hendrix returns as the "master of the house" in "Long Hot Summer Night", with Al Kooper on piano, and "Come On (Let The Good Times Roll)", a song that in its 4 minutes contains three frantic guitar solos. The next "Gypsy Eyes" is dedicated by the guitarist to his mother, who died when he was eleven years old, and was created with over seventy overdubs, of which Hendrix was still not satisfied. "Burning Of The Midnight Lamp" is the lightest track on the album and was also a single, while in the next song, "Rainy Day, Dream Away", which has a follow-up in "Still Rainin', Still Dreamin'", contamination returns, here openly jazzy, with the help of Buddy Miles, future drummer of the "Band Of Gypsys" and others like Mike Finnigan, Larry Faucette, and Freddie Smith.
Here comes the great masterpiece of the album: continuing on the path of contamination, Hendrix creates a masterpiece such as "1983: A Merman I Should Turn To Be", the most psychedelic track of Hendrix's entire production together with "Third Stone From The Sun", which gradually dissolves into "Moon, Turn The Tides", in which Chris Wood appears playing the flute.
After these two tracks comes the already mentioned "Still Rainin', Still Dreamin'", which revisits the theme of "Rainy Day", followed by "House Burning Down", a song with a driving rhythm and epic chorus, which closes with the collapse of the mentioned house imitated by Hendrix's guitar, a "trick" he would later use at Woodstock to mimic the bombings in Vietnam during his famous version of the American national anthem.
The album closes with its two most famous tracks: "All Along The Watchtower", a cover of Bob Dylan (my favorite song) and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", a nearly six-minute guitar showcase interrupted by brief delirious verses.

In conclusion, an epochal album that lays bare Hendrix's true soul: that creativity that eludes every scheme, tending only to create masterpieces in music.