A last minute gift idea for the fan of classic rock and the greatest Stratocaster virtuoso: released at the beginning of autumn, the box set Electric Lady Studios brings together 38 previously unpublished recordings by Jimi Hendrix, made between June and August 1970, in the studio of his dreams, newly inaugurated in a semi-basement in Greenwich Village in New York. There is also a documentary on the creation of the legendary Electric Lady Studios, told by the sound engineer, Hendrix’s acolyte since his beginnings and pioneer of musical recording technologies, Eddie Kramer, whom Duty met at his recording studio, on the shores of Lake Ontario.
At 82 years old, Eddie Kramer still has the sacred fire. He stamps his feet while making us listen to the Dolby Atmos mixes of the Hendrix recordings that he himself made – the original take as well as these new mixes made possible by advances in the science of sound recording. Kramer was also a privileged witness to this evolution, from its beginnings (on a single-track console!), in 1962, at Advision studios, to modern digital multi-tracks.
“At the start of my career, it was difficult — there was no school to learn how to become a sound engineer and mixer,” he recalls. We learned the craft by immersion in the studio, trying different ways of recording. My thing at the time was: keep your ears open, your eyes open, and shut your mouth! I did everything in the studio, cleaning, making coffee, I was nicknamed the “tea boy”. »
« Check this, man ! » exclaims Eddie, pointing to the sound of the late man’s instrument. guitar hero American wandering from one speaker to another. The sound spurts everywhere, Kramer smiles toothily. A South African of origin who started his career in Great Britain, he still remembers his first meeting with Jimi Hendrix, at the time when he worked for the Olympic studio in London, “the best studio of the time “.
“It was January 1967; I receive a call from the studio manager. She said to me: “Oh, Eddie… There’s this American with a very curly head, could you come and record him?” She thought I was the right guy for this contract because I was the one doing the weird shit au studio… »
It was very cold that day, recalls the sound engineer, who, after recording classical orchestras, Petula Clark, the Kinks, the Beatles, worked in the 1970s on classic albums by rock greats ( Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones), also developing a specialty for concert recordings — Curtis / Live ! (1971) de Curtis Mayfield, Alive ! (1975) by KISS, Frampton Comes Alive ! (1976), etc.
« Son managerChas Chandler, had booked the studio; I open the door, I hear a dull noise, it was the roadie from Jimi, a huge guy who carried a Marshall amp on his back: “Where do you want me to put this?” Sitting at the back of the studio, Jimi waits for his equipment to be set up, then walks over to the amp, plugs in his guitar, turns it on and strikes a chord. My life changed in a split second: I had never heard anything like it! My challenge was to be able to record the full force of his Music. »
Kramer touched all the albums of his friend Hendrix, Are You Experienced (1967), Axis: Bold as Love (as chief sound engineer, 1967), the ambitious Electric Ladyland (1968), Band of Gypsys (live album recorded at the Fillmore East studio in New York, 1970) as well as those recordings collected in the box set and which were intended for the double album project First Rays of the New Rising Sunobviously aborted with the sudden death of the guitarist in a London apartment on September 17, 1970. “By working together, our brains were merged. Everyone knew what the other wanted, we worked instinctively and with confidence. Jimi knew I was going to pick up what he was playing. »
A studio in his image
After recordingElectric LadylandJimi Hendrix dreamed of having his own studio in New York, where he had returned after spending a while in Britain. Kramer did not immediately follow him, continuing to work at Olympic; under the supervision of architect John Storyk, work on the development of the premises, a former church, then a synagogue, which became a nightclub in the 1920s, began in 1968.
Hendrix had an idea in mind: to create a comfortable place, halfway between the bar and the recording studio, with sofas and attention to decor, Kramer recalls: “There were white rugs on the walls; with the lighting system, we could project lots of colors. When he was recording, Jimi would ask, “Hey! I need more purple on this wall!” It had its own color system: gray for more reverb, red for distortion. The studio looked like the music he had in mind, the colors inspired him. This atmosphere… It was the first time that we had designed such a studio. »
All this is told in great detail in the documentary, which however limits itself to recounting the history of the Electric Lady Studio through that of Hendrix, although it attracted, after the guitarist’s death, many rock stars and pop (Stevie Wonder for Talking Book in 1972, David Bowie for Young Americans in 1975, Patti Smith for her classic Horses the same year). At the end of the 1990s, the neo-R&B-soul-rap collective Soulquarians made it their headquarters, recording classics there. Things Fall Apart (The Roots, 1999) Voodoo (D’Angelo, 2000) and Mama’s Gun (Erykah Badu, 2000).
Eddie Kramer finally found his friend Jimi in April 1968. “When he saw me disembark, Jimi said to me: “Where the hell you’ve been ?” It was the beginning of this whole American adventure” as told in the box set. Electric Lady Studios. “I’ve never seen Hendrix happier than during those four months that we recorded these tracks,” says Eddie.
The documentary Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision by John McDermott is included in the box set (3 CD, 5 LP, 1 Blu-ray) Electric Lady Studiosavailable on the Experience Hendrix / Legacy label.
Travel expenses for this report were covered by Sony Music Canada.
