New box set of previously unreleased recordings: Eddie Kramer, the scholar keeping Jimi Hendrix’s legacy alive

WELLINGTON, ONTARIO – Eddie Kramer’s life “changed in a nanosecond” when he first heard Jimi Hendrix vibrate the strings of his guitar. The Journal went to meet a living legend of sound engineering, who made possible the vision of the prodigious guitarist who tragically died at the age of 27 and several other giants of rock history.

Some 60 years have passed since he started in the business, but Eddie Kramer is tireless. When we arrive at his friend Mark Rashotte’s state-of-the-art studio on Lake Ontario, he’s busy mastering a song.

Next October 4, a compilation of unreleased versions of Jimi Hendrix songs and even pieces hitherto unknown to the public will be unveiled, 54 years after the guitarist’s tragic death. And it was his musical soul mate, Eddie Kramer, who spearheaded the whole thing.

“He is the only one with whom I had an intuitive and spiritual connection like this,” admits the man who also lent his talents to Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and Peter Frampton, to name a few. We were laughing so much. We had a lot of fun.”

A fusional encounter

Of South African origin, the 82-year-old lived in England and the United States, before settling in Toronto a few years ago. He has become a leading authority in the world of sound engineering thanks to his avant-garde recording techniques and his ability to produce quality live albums.

Eddie Kramer remembers his first meeting with Jimi Hendrix like it was yesterday. A few months after being hired by Olympic Studios in London, he had already coordinated the recording of two Rolling Stones albums. He then received a call from the studio manager.

“She said to me: ‘Eddie, there’s an American with big hair and you’re good with the weird cases. Why don’t you take care of it?” That’s how I was able to record Hendrix.

“He sat in the back of the studio, a little huddled up, wearing a slightly dirty rain coat. He stood up, picked up his guitar and made a chord. From that moment on, I knew things were going to change, because I had never heard a sound like that. It was scary: how was I going to record this?

We know the rest. During their four years together, Jimi and his band released three albums that changed the course of rock history, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love et Electric Ladyland.

Eddie Kramer has a sparkling look when he recounts the last months of the life of the man who died at 27, like Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain. A compulsive creator, Jimi Hendrix spent his life between studios and concert halls. Before giving up the ghost, they were able to comb through all his recordings that had not yet been released to the public.

These long moments spent in the studio with Jimi offered a “direction, a point of reference” to Eddie Kramer in the conception of this new box set.

“I knew what he wanted,” he said. It took us a few weeks, but it allowed us to determine which songs we should focus on. The album The Cry of Love [publié de façon posthume] was supposed to be a double album. That’s why there’s so much extra material.”

“Some [versions] on the box set are great, since they give access to the skeleton of the songs: just Jimi’s guitar, bass and drums.

A passionate

Many of the works have been released posthumously since 1970, but Eddie Kramer, one of the few people with access to Hendrix’s entire catalog, is adamant that no more lost Jimi Hendrix recordings will surface in the near future. years.

“If that’s the case, I’ll have to kill everyone, including me,” he says, sneering.

Before leaving us, Eddie Kramer gives us a wild performance of air guitar while Crosstown Trafficwhich he remixed using sound technology surround Dolby Atmos makes the studio walls shake. And we cannot help but believe that, like his work, the intoxicating passion of Jimi Hendrix has stood the test of time inhabiting this friendly scholar.

At the height of his fame, Jimi Hendrix had to perform shows at a breakneck pace to finance the long hours he spent in the studio. The daring solution of the guitarist and his collaborators: build their own studio in New York.

Thus was born the Electric Lady studio in Greenwich Village. The documentary Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Visionpublished in August, tells the story of the conception of this extraordinary project.

In 1968, Jimi Hendrix and his manager, Michael Jeffery, took over the Generation nightclub with the aim of transforming it. They called on the young architect John Storyk and Eddie Kramer to materialize their vision.

The studio will open its doors two years later. Tragically, Hendrix only enjoyed it for four months before passing away on September 18, 1970.

“Before the studio was built, [Hendrix] was constantly playing and getting ripped off by the studios he frequented, remembers Eddie Kramer. During this period between May and August, I had never seen Jimi so happy. He was radiant. He couldn’t believe he was playing in his own studio.”

It should be noted that Electric Lady was in no way like the studios of the time, which did not particularly adhere to the feng shui philosophy. The trio decided to paint the walls white and opt for a “theatrical lighting system”.

“We could project green, purple, red, blue, etc. We even had a color system [correspondant aux effets sonores]. If he asked me for green, I knew he wanted reverb, red, distortion, and so on. It was the first studio of its kind.”

Although he left the studio in 1975, five years after its opening, Eddie Kramer maintains a very special relationship with this creation and recording space, which is still open today. From the Rolling Stones to Taylor Swift, including David Bowie and U2, countless legends have recorded songs in this legendary venue.

“To this day, the studio is still incredible,” he says. It’s not the biggest piece, but it has depth. I believe Jimi’s soul is in the walls.”

Since his successful career can only be summed up by his collaboration with Jimi Hendrix, here are five other albums that benefited from Eddie Kramer’s know-how in the studio:

Magical Mystery Tour – The Beatles (1967)

From his first years in the business, Eddie Kramer collaborated with the Fab Four. He was in the studio during the recording of the anthem All You Need Is Love a you single Baby You’re a Rich Man.

Beggars Banquet – The Rolling Stones (1968)

In addition to having worked on this legendary Mick Jagger band album, he coordinated the recording of the live opus Love You Liveeight years later.

Physical Graffiti – Led Zeppelin (1975)

Eddie Kramer is one of the rare people who had the chance to collaborate with two of the greatest guitarists in history, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page. “Page had a philosophy similar to Hendrix: he identified his goals and didn’t stop until he achieved them. They didn’t have the same approach, on the other hand, and Page was more dictatorial in nature,” he describes.

Alive – Kiss (1975)

Kiss owes much of its success to Eddie Kramer, who produced the four-song demo that earned the New York group its first record label deal. The six albums that resulted from their collaboration have been certified platinum.

Frampton Comes Alive! – Peter Frampton (1976)

After leaving the Electric Lady studio in 1975, Eddie Kramer has not been idle. This other live album sold more than 14 million units, a peak in 1976.

• Le box-set Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Visionincluding 39 songs and the documentary of the same name, will be released on October 4.