Wiki
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Release Date
12 May 1967
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Length
11 tracks
Are You Experienced is the debut album by English/American rock band The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Released in 1967, it was the first LP for Track Records. The album highlighted Jimi Hendrix's R&B-based;, psychedelic, distortion-and feedback-laden electric guitar playing and launched him as a major new international star. Are You Experienced has remained a critical and commercial success since its release. The album reached #2 in the UK, behind The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The US version of the album contains some of Hendrix's best known songs, including "Purple Haze", "Hey Joe", "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Fire". In 1987, as part of their 20th anniversary, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it #5 on "The 100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years." In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it #15 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album was an instant success and was a best-selling album in the United States in 1968, and critics subsequently regarded it as one of the best rock albums of all time. In 2005 Are You Experienced was selected for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in the United States.
Hendrix, along with producer and former bass player for The Animals, Chas Chandler, formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience in England in 1966 with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass. The band signed with Track Records, a new label formed by The Who's managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp. They recorded three singles produced by Chas Chandler while simultaneously touring throughout England: "Hey Joe"/"Stone Free", which was released in December 1966 through Polydor Records because Track Records was not yet operational; "Purple Haze"/"51st Anniversary", released in March 1967 and was the first release by Track Records on a special white label; and "The Wind Cries Mary"/"Highway Chile" which was released in May 1967 and is said to be written by Hendrix for his longtime love, Kathy Etchingham (whose middle name is Mary), after he was left alone at home when she stormed out after a fight. All three of these singles reached the top ten in the UK. The Experience's first single, "Hey Joe", reached #6 on the UK chart in early 1967, followed soon after by "Purple Haze", which peaked at #3 on the charts and its double platinum debut album, Are You Experienced. During the making of these singles, the Jimi Hendrix Experience also cut the tracks that became their debut album, which Chandler produced, again, mostly with engineer Dave Siddle at De Lane Lea Studios, he also used Mike Ross at CBS for several tracks. Some tracks were finished at Olympic Sudios with engineer Eddie Kramer, as was the final compilation, mixing and editing of the LP.
The album was recorded over a five month period, but relative to his later work, little time was spent in the studio. According to the background information in the 180 gram vinyl re-release as of 2010, Hendrix stated he wanted to record with "the best gear and musicians available".
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