Jimi Hendrix as Electric Dylan
Electric Ladyland (1968) is the third and last-to-be-completed studio album by that pioneering, lushly imaginative, and life-altering force in music history known as the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Here the influence of Bob Dylan abounds, and not only in the inspired transmutation of “All Along the Watchtower” from oracular acoustic folk lamentation to electronic progressive powerhouse. Even the album’s title delivers a nod to the troubadour sage from Hibbing:
ELECTRIC laDYLANd
= ELECTRIC DYLAN.
Though the all-too-brief career of Jimi Hendrix has been sliced and diced and minced and pinched and minutely scrutinized from every conceivable angle, no one until now seems to have detected in the album’s title this covert wink of approbation from one great musical artist to another.
Remember folks, you read it here first!