Hearing “Purple Haze” on the radio as a kid headed for 7th grade in the fall—only occasionally, usually late at night, because remember the single only made it to #65—scared me and intrigued me. It took me a few years to gird up and give the album a listen, by way of a friend. At that time the issue under discussion was Jimi Hendrix’s somewhat strained or restrained or even muffled vocals, which some reviewers called a detriment. The guitar playing and (surprisingly for me) the songwriting too were obvious. We both agreed his singing was a strength, not a weakness, and I still think so. I accepted the working-hard-but-hardly-working rhythm section at face value, the two Brits Hendrix took with him back to the States (bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell) for a tour opening for the Monkees, which altogether speaks volumes about the nascent state of “rock” music in 1967. Redding and Mitchell may or may not have been poorly recorded here, but mostly it’s that their talents are over-swamped by Hendrix. They were competent but little more. I’m not sure what I was expecting at the time, in relation to my favored Grand Funk Railroad and Led Zeppelin, but certainly Are You Experienced exists for me now as a bouquet or cornucopia of all that psychedelia led by electric guitar could be.
It opens with a strategy often turned to here, the primitive attack of “Purple Haze” as blunt as a tomahawk, spiraling out at will from there like galaxies. In a word, trippy. Hitting you hard often seems to be the intent, springing spinning rainbow globes in the brain for stunning seconds. Many a suspended open space of near silence is squelched on this album by bumptious power chords. I must say that claiming songs that are about drugs are not about drugs is something people did in the ‘60s. Perhaps it was finally retired by Spacemen 3? Hendrix was no exception. He explained he had intended “Purple Haze” as a science fiction narrative inspired by a Philip Jose Farmer novel. He was frustrated the song would be too long with all the verses. OK, maybe. I can’t hear anything now but “’scuse me while I kiss this guy.” Later availability of LSD tabs dubbed “Purple Haze” (or anyway buyers hoped it was LSD) speaks to how the song was taken by a significant cohort of fans.
Most of my favorites were on the other side—the glorious near seven minutes of the space-rock epic “Third Stone From the Sun” along with the introspective and strangely moving “The Wind Cries Mary.” But the first side had high points I didn’t want to miss either. “Manic Depression,” “Love or Confusion,” and “May This Be Love” are inspiring workups in a vein out of a vein. “I Don’t Live Today” has a spook factor for the obvious reasons, with nice droning undertones on a guitar string. I like the sequencing of following “Love or Confusion” with “May This Be Love,” although that reminds me there is another issue with this album between markedly different US and UK versions. “Love or Confusion” and then “May This Be Love” don’t follow one another on the UK edition and that album also includes “Red House,” which is sorely missed on the US edition, now that I know about it. We got “Hey Joe” instead, which is not “Red House” (available in the US then only on 1968’s Smash Hits). “Hey Joe” and “Foxey Lady” are the low points of the album for me, which is otherwise an outstanding set. The second side also includes the big-time fun rave-up of “Fire” as well as the album-closing title song. Which, like the album-opening “Purple Haze,” is formally disclaimed (explicitly in “Are You Experienced”) as a song about drugs. Yeah, OK, whatever. Please, just let me stand next to your fire.
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