John Perry - "Electric Ladyland"

This year being the 40th anniversary of the death of one of Chuck D’s heroes “who won’t appear on no stamp,” I thought I’d revisit John Perry’s Electric Ladyland.

For those who don’t know, John Perry is one of The Only Ones’ guitarists. The Only Ones was a British band from the late 1970s- early 1980s that have a fierce cult following and have been influential to other bands following in their wake: bands such as The Libertines, which is how I found out about The Only Ones. Perry has since gone on to be a session musician.

Perry has also written about The Who and The Rolling Stones and his Electric Ladyland benefits from his familiarity with the ins and outs of Hendrix’s instrument, from having seen Hendrix play multiple times, and from conversations with musicians (for example Mitch Mitchell and Steve Cropper) and others who actually knew or played with Hendrix.

Perry makes good use of this access to set the stage for his in-depth discussion of Hendrix’s crowning studio achievement. He’s enlightening about English and American reactions to Hendrix’s sudden rise in a long ago era when Keith Richards was still straight and racism rampant in America. Well, I guess, some things never change.

His descriptions of Hendrix are written so painterly that you can see the man: the beckoning left hand, the swallowed bottom lip, the playful sexuality. Perry’s comparison of Hendrix to a star athlete having the time to make the play that a bench player would rush and miss rings true, as does his explanation of how Hendrix’s playing differed from Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton and was much more in line with Pete Townshend. It’s like Neil Young said: “He was at one with his instrument.” Neil was talking about Hendrix but Perry shows how this is true of Townshend too.

My favorite part of the book is Chapter 5, but “Track by Track” may lose some readers if Perry hasn’t already lost them with his explanation of feedback: what causes it and the variations guitarists have available to them to help shape their sound. In Chapter 5 he continues the shop talk with a digression on detuning and how Hendrix could make his wah-wah pedal talk whereas with Clapton it just yawned. He’ll explain to you why ‘Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)’ is not of the same lineage as ‘Little Wing’, how piano notes can center the ear and trick it into thinking an off-key vocal is on-key, what the Hendrix chord is.

I have some disagreements with Perry. He talks of the album’s poor reception by critics and now I know it was Tony Glover who wrote the negative Rolling Stone review of Electric Ladyland that I read so long ago … the one that got ‘1983’/‘Moon Turn The Tides’ so wrong. And so it’s a wonder that Perry too gets it wrong. ‘1983’/‘Moon Turn The Tides’ is Hendrix’s apex as a songwriter and musician and producer. When Perry explains how nothing about the song is an accident, that the demos contain the same elements such as “the distinctive “Oriental” phrase,” I don’t understand how he can wonder if it’s too indulgent. (The soundscape he objects too is perfectly in line the middles part of ‘Third Stone From The Sun’: the only difference is the presence of a drummer.)Glover – if I remember correctly – theorized that ‘1983’ was so perfect that Hendrix had to undermine it and destroy it with ‘Moon Turn The Tides’: what Perry calls the “most ethereal of sections.” In fariness to Glover he was reacting to a new, groundbreaking recording. Perry has the benefit of hindsight and yet still gets it wrong, which is also odd since elsewhere Perry goes to some length to mock Hendrix’s previous producer Chas Chandler who – as former bassist for The Animals – fervently believed in the 3:00 length for rock songs.

I also find argument with “the suggestion is Jimi had done his finest work, exhausted the formula, and come to a creative halt” and if he had lived would not added significantly to his body of work. I don’t buy it. Exhausted his formula? Hendrix had a formula? Yes, he was physically exhausted from a year or two of legal and management problems and the building of his recording studio but to say he had “come to a creative halt” is like saying Eric Clapton came to a creative halt with Blind Faith. Suppose Clapton had overdosed on heroin, which he was addicted to at that period? We’d be saying the same thing about Clapton: it’s too bad but he had exhausted his formula.

I could go on for a few thousand words on this theory of mine but he fact is the average rock genius gets ten peak years – the only notable exceptions to date are Lou Reed and Neil Young. Hendrix had only used four of his. He was 27 years old: a young man in anyone’s books. His guitaring on live recordings such as “Red House” on Hendrix In The West or ‘Hear My Train A Comin’’ on Blues or ‘Instrumental Solo’ on the Woodstock soundtrack Marshalls loudly that Jimi Hendrix had not run out of ideas.

(The true title of the solo that ends Woodstock is ‘Villanova Junction’: At Woodstock on Monday morning it was a meandering mess but producer Eric Blackstead cut the performance like jeweler and lets it shine. I was listening to 27:38 blues jam of the same song taped during the same time period and it got me thinking that maybe Jimi Hendrix had a train album in him like Johnny Cash or Jimmie Rodgers. For all that ‘Hear My Train A Comin’’ was near and dear for him, it was not intended for the double album he was working on at the time of his death. I can hear it on a train album alongside the likes of ‘Villanova Junction’.)

Anyway, all Jimi needed to do was find his equivalent of Derek and The Dominoes. I agree with Perry’s allusions that despite Hendrix’s differences with Noel Redding, Billy Cox wasn’t a suitable replacement. Hendrix no doubt would’ve come around to this understanding too. Like so many other musicians of the era with bad managers, Hendrix would’ve ditched his, regrouped (literally and figuratively), and moved on, taking us and other musicians with him.

Minor disagreements. I loved this book. It helped enormously my understanding of what is probably one of my top ten albums of all time. I loved Perry’s investigations of ‘All Along The Watchtower’ and ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)’ and other tracks. Dylan’s statement of Hendrix’s versions of his compositions - “He did them the way I would’ve done them if I was him.” - is a hoot. Makes me wish I could appreciate Dylan more. Makes me wish Hendrix had lived long enough to put out an album called The Dylan Songbook after his album on trains; might’ve made me appreciate Dylan more just like Perry made me appreciate Electric Ladyland more.