Jimi Hendrix Experience – "Are You Experienced?" (1967)

Are you experienced?

Have you ever been experienced?

I hadn’t really thought about the two different meanings of “experienced” in the lines quoted above until I sat down to write this post, which features the oldest of the initial group of songs being inducted into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.

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In 1961, after he was caught riding in stolen cars on two different occasions, the 18-year-old Jimi Hendrix was told he could either go to jail or join the U. S. Army.

He chose the Army, which assigned him to the 101st Airborne Division and sent him to Fort Campbell, Kentucky: 

In one of his first letters home, Hendrix begged his father to ship him his red Silvertone Danelectro guitar.  Fellow soldier Billy Cox – who performed with Hendrix at Woodstock – heard him playing that guitar at a club on the base and was impressed.  He later described Hendrix’s technique as a combination of John Lee Hooker and Beethoven.

Hendrix eventually completed his paratrooper training, but he was hardly a model soldier.  He was graded “unqualified” as a marksman, and was caught napping while on duty.  His platoon sergeant wrote a very negative report about Hendrix:

He has no interest whatsoever in the Army. . . . It is my opinion that Private Hendrix will never come up to the standards required of a soldier.  I feel that the military service will benefit if he is discharged as soon as possible.

Hendrix was granted an honorable discharge on the basis of unsuitability for military service a little over a year after he enlisted.

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After his discharge, Hendrix worked as a backing musician for Wilson Pickett, Ike & Tina Turner, the Isley Brothers, Little Richard, and others.  

But he didn’t like playing the same setlist of songs night after night, so he moved to Greenwich Village in 1966 and formed his own band.  

Linda Keith

Model Linda Keith – she was the girlfriend of Keith Richards at the time – heard him playing one night and was “mesmerized.”  She told Andrew Loog Oldham, the Stones’ manager, that he should sign Hendrix, but Oldham was not as impressed by his playing as she had been.

Keith then introduced Hendrix to Chas Chandler, the original bass player for the Animals, who had recently left that band to seek his fame and fortune as a talent scout, manager and record producer.

Chandler persuaded Hendrix to come to London with him, talked him into changing the spelling of his first name from “Jimmy” to “Jimi,” and recruited bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell to play with him.

Chandler picked “Hey Joe” for the group to release as its first single, and that record made it to #6 on the UK singles chart early in 1967.  The Jimi Hendrix Experience followed up “Hey Joe” with “Purple Haze” and “The Wind Cries Mary,” which were also top ten hit singles.

Jimi Hendrix and Chas Chandler

Between tours and TV appearances, the group managed to find the time to record enough tracks to fill up an LP.  Are You Experienced – there’s no question mark in the title of the album – was astonishingly original. 

Chas Chandler was the unsung hero of the album, which was recorded on relatively primitive four-track recorders.  The sixteen recording sessions that eventually produced Are You Experienced took place at three different London studios, in part because Hendrix played his guitar so loudly while recording that the studio owners got numerous complaints from those who worked and lived nearby.

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In the words of one music historian, Are You Experienced is “still a landmark recording because it . . . altered the syntax of the music.  [I]n a way I compare [it] to James Joyce’s Ulysses.”

I actually rank Are You Experienced ahead of Ulysses because I’m able to listen to Are You Experienced all the way through.  I’ve never come close to finishing Ulysses, and I bet you haven’t either.  (I can guarantee you that when I’m on my deathbed, I won’t be thinking “I wish I had read Ulysses!”)

The album’s title track – which was the last track on the both the UK and North American versions of Are You Experienced – was Hendrix’s most original composition.  Given that Hendrix may be the most original rock musician of all time, that’s saying something.

If “Are You Experienced” doesn’t deserve to be the first song inducted into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME, then – pray tell – what song does deserve that honor?

Click here to listen to “Are You Experienced.”

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