Jimi Hendrix Week: Eddie Kramer remembers

Jimi's producer gives insight on working with a guitar legend

Stephen Lawson, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 4:08 pm BST

Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland is 40 years old today

On 16 October 1968, The Jimi Hendrix Experience released their third and final album, Electric Ladyland.

A bold and sprawling smorgasbord of rock, blues, soul, funk and psychedelia, Electric Ladyland is still considered the crowning glory in the canon of the world's greatest-ever guitarist.

40 years of Electric Ladyland

To commemorate 40 years of Electric Ladyland, MusicRadar presents Jimi Hendrix Week. Over the next seven days on MusicRadar, we'll give you playing tips, audio and video lessons, some insight on free software to help you get Jimi's sound, a poll on the greatest Hendrix tracks and much more.

And to start, MusicRadar presents the memories of Jimi Hendrix's right-hand man in the studio, the legendary producer/engineer Eddie Kramer.

Jimi Hendrix remembered by Eddie Kramer

What was Jimi really like behind the wild man of rock image?

"He was great. He was one of the funniest guys I ever worked with, too. He was always taking the piss out of me, Mitch [Mitchell, drums] and Noel [Redding, bass], and himself. He had a lot of self-deprecating humour. And he was fast. He had an acerbic sense of humour – very cutting.

"Besides that, he was a very shy guy and he could only open up to you once he trusted you. I got as close as I could – as close as anybody could – in a working relationship. He trusted me, and I admired him and what he did so much that I was just really happy to be part of the crew."

Does that mean Jimi deliberately cut himself off from others when he wasn't working?

"Well, he was very private in that sense. His private life was his private life. I wasn't involved in that. This was a man who kept himself to himself… although he did have lots of girlfriends. He had a very active social life! My relationship with him stopped outside the studio door, to a certain degree.

"There were a couple of times when he was very friendly to me. If you go to my website, there's a gallery of my photography. There's this great picture of [Mick] Jagger and Jimi sitting backstage at Madison Square Garden. Jimi called me up – it was his birthday – and said, 'Come on, The Stones are playing Madison Square Garden!' So he picked me up and I dragged my camera along. It was a gesture that I never forgot; Jimi being very friendly.

"Jimi was probably the greatest guitar player of the last 50 years."

"But, like I said, that was the exception rather than the rule. Our relationship was a very close one in the studio because we collaborated on lots of different sounds. He would come up with a sound on his amp and then I would re-interpret it in the control room. And he'd go, 'Wow! That was cool!' then run back out and try to top what I did. It was just some really friendly and inspiring competition."

MusicRadar