From New York to London
By the summer of 1966, Jimi Hendrix was a working guitarist who had played behind well-known soul and rhythm and blues acts and was trying to build his own career in Greenwich Village, New York, under the name Jimmy James. Chas Chandler, who had just left the Animals as their bassist, saw him play at a Village club in July 1966 and was impressed enough to propose bringing him to Britain as a solo act and manager’s project.
Hendrix arrived in London in September 1966. Within weeks Chandler had helped assemble a group around him: Noel Redding, a guitarist who switched to bass, and Mitch Mitchell, a drummer who had worked with other London bands. They became the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the three-piece format would define the sound of the debut. Mike Jeffery was also involved in managing the group, working alongside Chandler.
The reaction among London musicians was strong. Accounts describe other guitarists, including players in the British blues and rock scene, turning up to watch him in small venues. Details of who said what vary between retellings, so it is safest to say simply that his reputation spread fast among fellow musicians before his records appeared.
Singles first
The Experience launched with singles rather than an album. “Hey Joe” came out in Britain in December 1966 and was a hit. “Purple Haze” followed in March 1967, and “The Wind Cries Mary” in May. At the time it was normal in Britain for singles to stand apart from albums, and the band’s label, Track Records, did not at first plan to put all of them on the debut LP. That decision explains much of the later confusion about the album.
Making the record
Recording took place in London between late 1966 and early 1967, in several studios, including De Lane Lea, Olympic and CBS. Chandler acted as producer, and engineer Eddie Kramer’s work at Olympic is often credited with helping capture the band’s volume and sustained feedback without losing clarity. The sessions were quick by later standards, and the band often had little studio time, working around live dates.
The material mixed fast, riff-led rock with slower blues and some stranger ideas. Hendrix used effects and stereo placement as part of the writing, not as decoration, which was unusual for a debut.
The UK track listing
Are You Experienced was released in Britain on 12 May 1967. The original British album had eleven tracks:
- Side one: “Foxy Lady”, “Manic Depression”, “Red House”, “Can You See Me”, “Love or Confusion”, “I Don’t Live Today”
- Side two: “May This Be Love”, “Fire”, “Third Stone from the Sun”, “Remember”, “Are You Experienced?”
The singles “Hey Joe”, “Purple Haze” and “The Wind Cries Mary” were not on it. The record was a major British success, reportedly peaking at number two behind the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album, and it stayed on the chart for a long period.
The American version
In the United States the album appeared in August 1967 on Reprise, after the Experience had made its American breakthrough. Reprise’s version was assembled differently. It added the three singles, which American listeners had not had on a long-playing record, and dropped three tracks from the British original: “Red House”, “Can You See Me” and “Remember”. The result still had eleven songs, but with a stronger lean toward the hits. It also carried a different cover from the British one.
Both editions are now widely reissued, and later CD and vinyl releases have tended to restore the original British running order and add the singles as extras. When people argue about which is the “real” debut, they are usually arguing about whether the singles belong inside it. Collectors tend to treat the British version as the intended artistic statement and the American one as a record shaped by market expectations.
The songs
“Foxy Lady” opens the British album with feedback and a heavy riff, and became a staple of the band’s concerts. “Manic Depression” is a waltz-time piece in which the drumming carries as much weight as the guitar. “Red House” is a slow twelve-bar blues, a reminder that Hendrix’s roots lay in American blues and soul. “Fire” is short and quick and was a live favourite. “Third Stone from the Sun” is an extended instrumental with a spoken passage and guitar played at varied speeds, and the title track closes the record with tape effects, including reversed sound.
Why it mattered
The album arrived at a moment when audiences were ready for heavier, more experimental guitar playing, and it helped define what that could sound like. Hendrix’s performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, where he is reported to have set fire to his guitar, introduced him to a wide American audience, and the Reprise release followed in time to benefit from that attention.
Jimi Hendrix’s career lasted only a few more years, which gives the debut extra weight as the clearest picture of what the Experience sounded like at the start. It came out during the same months as the Beatles’ record and others that made 1967 a year of ambitious albums. Cream’s Disraeli Gears, also a trio record, appeared later in the year and invites comparison, though the two groups took the format in different directions.