Notes and Quotes: "Purple Haze"

Hendrix: I had this thing on my mind about a dream I had that I was walking under the sea. It’s linked to a story I read in a science fiction magazine about a purple death ray. . . . Put it another way. I met this girl, she was really outasight. I said, "Baby, what you doin’?" She said, "Well, you know, I’m alright. How are you?" I said, "Well, everything’s the same old thing, just a big drag. I was just wonderin’, what is this that you got in that little sack there?" She said, "This?" And she opened it up and it went like this (feedback). I said, "Whew! Close it! Close it! Baby, look out!" She put her little thumb in. So I stuck my fingers in and fpuufff!!! A big "Purple Haze!" (Notes to Jimi Hendrix: The Ultimate Experience, page 10)

Hendrix recordings often feature sounds panning from one channel to the next and here, at the end of the recording, the producers have played back, at high speed, a version of the guitar solo and pan it back and forth. At this point, this was new technology and they used it for it's effect.

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6 April, 2012