Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (1968)
When you consider the career of someone as iconic as Jimi Hendrix, it's kind of crazy to think he accomplished everything he did in a four-year span. I don't listen to much Hendrix anymore, just because I immersed myself in his music when I was first getting into rock music, but when I do, it's still pretty incredible.
Born in Seattle, Hendrix got his start playing guitar on the chitlin' circuit down South, first with the Isley Brothers, and then Little Richard and Curtis Knight and the Squires. He moved to England in the fall of 1966 after Chas Chandler of the Animals became his manager and formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. Once they started playing around London, it didn't take long for established stars like Lennon, McCartney, Clapton, Beck, Townshend and Jagger to notice.
The Experience released two singles, "Hey Joe" (a cover of a song by Billy Roberts) and "Purple Haze," and both became hits in the U.K. The band released their debut Are You Experienced in May 1967 in the U.K. and August in the U.S. and it became an immediate hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Hendrix's stock in the U.S. grew when he played the Monterey Pop Festival in mid-June and iconic photos emerged of him setting his guitar on fire.
The second Experience album, Axis: Bold as Love, came out in December 1967 and it featured experimental stereo panning and phasing. Hendrix was embracing psychedelia, as were a lot of the people who bought the album, which featured songs like "Little Wing," "Castles Made of Sand" and "If 6 Was 9."
In October 1968, the Experience released Electric Ladyland, their third and final album. It was a double LP and went to #1 on the Billboard album chart; it featured a cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" that was used in every '60s flashback montage in movies for a while. The album also saw Hendrix combining his psychedelic sound with funk, which he would explore further in his next band.
The last song on Side A of the double album was a near-15-minute jam called "Voodoo Chile," featuring Hendrix, Mitchell, Steve Winwood on organ and Jack Casady on bass. It was based on the Muddy Waters song "Rollin' Stone"; originally, Hendrix played the song as "Catfish Blues" but this version included new lyrics. The day after recording "Voodoo Chile," Hendrix returned to the studio with Mitchell and Redding to film a short documentary and improvised a new version of "Voodoo Chile," which ended up becoming "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)," the last song on Electric Ladyland and one of Hendrix's best-known songs. Hendrix came up with new lyrics on the spot, except for the chorus.
"Well, I stand up next to a mountain/And I chop it down with the edge of my hand/Well, I stand up next to a mountain/And I chop it down with the edge of my hand/Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island/Might even raise a little sand/'Cause I'm a voodoo child/Lord knows I'm a voodoo child baby."
The song starts with a wah-wah riff before kicking in full bore, as Hendrix plays trippy leads while the rhythm section pounds away behind him.
"I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time/I'll give it right back to you one of these days/I said I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time/I'll give it right back one of these days/If I don't meet you no more in this world then/I'll meet ya on the next one/And don't be late/Don't be late/'Cause I"m a voodoo child/Lord knows I'm a voodoo child."
He then takes his guitar into outer space, soloing as the song fades out. "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" became a Hendrix live staple, sometimes getting up to 18 minutes long.
The Experience split up in 1969 after Redding quit the band and was replaced by Billy Cox. For their performance at Woodstock, Hendrix called them a Band of Gypsies. They closed the festival at 8 a.m. Monday morning and the set included Hendrix's iconic instrumental rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," which included feedback, distortion and simulated rockets and bombs. It's one of the defining moments of the '60s.
Afterwards, Hendrix teamed with Cox and drummer Buddy Miles and played four shows at the Fillmore East that were used to create the album Band of Gypsys. The band was short-lived, though, and split up at the end of January 1970. There were plans to reunite the Experience, but Hendrix decided to with Cox instead of Redding on bass. They worked on some new material and then toured through the summer. They played a few shows in Europe before Cox quit after a show in West Germany. Hendrix died on the morning of September 18, 1970, after he was found unresponsive; he had taken nine sleeping pills and died after choking on his own vomit. He was 27, one of the first members of the infamous "27 Club."
There's been an amazing number of Hendrix music released over the years: live, unreleased and compilations. His father Al regained control of Jimi's song and image rights in 1995 and the family began releasing music as Experience Hendrix.
"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" has been covered by many, most notably by Stevie Ray Vaughan on his 1984 album Couldn't Stand the Weather.
The song is a guitar tour de force that has lost none of its trippy power over the years.
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