SONG OF THE DAY
“Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Electric Ladyland, Track/ Polydor Records, 1968).
WHERE I HEARD IT
Radio Woodstock, baby!!
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” is the last track on the third and final album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Electric Ladyland.
– The song is known for its wah-wah-heavy guitar work.
– It is #101 on Rolling Stone’s list of 500 greatest songs of all time.
– The song was recorded in 1968, and was re-released as a single after Hendrix’s death in 1970.
– The genesis of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” was essentially in “Voodoo Chile”, a long blues jam featuring guest Steve Winwood.
– On May 3, 1968 (the day after “Voodoo Chile”‘s recording), a crew from ABC filmed the Jimi Hendrix Experience while they played. As Hendrix explained it:
[S]omeone was filming when we started doing [Voodoo Child]. We did that about three times because they wanted to film us in the studio, to make us—”Make it look like you’re recording, boys”—one of them scenes, you know, so, “OK, let’s play this in E, a-one, a-two, a-three”, and then we went into “Voodoo Child”.
– The song became one of Hendrix’s staples in live performances and would vary in length from 7 to 18 minutes.
– Notable live performances were at Woodstock and during his 1969 show at the Royal Albert Hall, originally released on the posthumous Hendrix in the West album, later re-released on the Experienced Box Set.
– On the Band of Gypsys live album Live at the Fillmore East, Hendrix refers to the song as the Black Panthers’ national anthem.
– Hendrix’s solo was named the 11th greatest solo of all-time in Guitar World’s 100 Greatest Guitar Solos; Guitar Legends Issue #46. Hendrix was listed 6 times, more than any other artist on the list.
– Kenny Wayne Shepherd: “This is pretty much the guitar anthem of all time. From that amazing opening riff to the way he breaks it down in the middle and gets funky, the whole thing is incredible. There are things Jimi did on the guitar that humans just can’t do. You can try all day, even if you’re playing the right notes, it’s not the same. It definitely seems as if he was coming from a higher place when he played.”
– The intro of the song was sometimes covered by Slash before Guns N’ Roses went into “Civil War” during their Use Your Illusion Tour.
– The song has also been covered numerous times by Ben Harper during live performances.
РThe song was also covered by Ang̩lique Kidjo for her 1998 album Oremi.
– Another cover was recorded by Yngwie Malmsteen on the album The Genesis.
– “Voodoo Child” was also covered by Rob Thomas and pedal steel maestro Robert Randolph.
– The track was covered by avid Hendrix fan Stevie Ray Vaughan for his 1984 album Couldn’t Stand the Weather in a slightly extended version. Stevie played this song all throughout his career, and it was included on his 1986 concert album Live Alive, as well as on several of his live video releases and the 2000 SRV retrospective box set.
– Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton covered it during their concerts in 2010.
– The song has been featured in the films Payback, In the Name of the Father, Under Siege, Almost Famous, Black Hawk Down, Flashback and Withnail and I. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s cover of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” was also featured in the 2002 film Black Hawk Down.
– Pro wrestler Hulk Hogan has frequently used this song as his theme music, most notably as a member of the New World Order in WCW, his return to the WWE as well as his current tenure in TNA.
– The Jimi Hendrix Experience were a psychedelic rock band that formed in London in October 1966. Comprising eponymous singer-songwriter and guitarist Jimi Hendrix, bassist and backing vocalist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, the band was active until June 1969, in which time the group released three successful studio albums.
– Redding left the band, and Hendrix and Mitchell stayed together through other projects. The Experience ‘reunited’ in 1970 with Billy Cox dubbed “The Cry of Love”, until Hendrix’s death in September 1970.
– All three of the band’s studio albums, Are You Experienced (1967), Axis: Bold as Love (1967) and Electric Ladyland (1968), were featured in the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, at positions 15, 82 and 54 respectively.
– In 1992, The Jimi Hendrix Experience were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
– Though initially conceived as Hendrix’s backing band, The Experience soon became much more than that. Following the lead of Cream, they were one of the first groups to popularize the “power trio” format, which stripped a rock band line-up down to guitar, bass and drums. This smaller format also encouraged more extroverted playing from the band members, often at very high volumes.
– In the case of The Experience, Hendrix combined lead and rhythm guitar duties into one, while also making use of guitar effects such as feedback, and later the wah-wah pedal, to an extent that had never been heard before.
– Mitchell played hard-hitting jazz-influenced grooves that often served a melodic role as much as they did timekeeping.
– Redding played deceptively simple bass lines that helped to anchor the band’s sound.
– The group came to prominence in the US only after the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, one of the first major rock music festivals. The band’s performance ended with Hendrix famously setting his psychedelically painted Fender Stratocaster on fire.
– After the festival they were asked to go on tour with The Monkees. They joined the tour on July 8, 1967 in Jacksonville, FL, the second act on a three-band bill, opened by The Sundowners. Less than two weeks later, and after only a handful of engagements, they left the tour, reportedly frustrated by audience response. The last Hendrix/Monkees concert was performed at Flushing Meadows in Queens, NY – Chas Chandler later said that it was all a publicity stunt.