Jimi Hendrix Often Didn’t Have Artistic Control Over His Album Covers — It’s No Wonder He Wasn’t Happy With Them
Jimi Hendrix solidified his spot in rock music history in the late 1960s with three albums performed with his band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience. And although each album was a significant piece of work, Hendrix didn’t have much of a say in how the album covers looked when they sat on store shelves.
How Jimi Hendrix felt about his ‘Are You Experienced’ album cover
The Jimi Hendrix Experience released their debut album Are You Experienced in May 1967. The original UK version of the album featured an image of Hendrix wearing a cape with his arms wide open as he towered above his bandmates, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell.
“[Hendrix’s] music at the time was pretty wild, and the prevalent thing at the time was psychedelic and all things strange, so you had to do something odd,” Bruce Fleming, the album cover’s photographer, explained in the book Jimi Hendrix and the Making of Are You Experienced. “The more outrageous and outlandish you got, the better. So I went for a dark green background — deep, deep green — and then just him with his cloak up.”
“There was an alchemy about it,” Fleming continued. “There was something strange going on here, different. This was a man who was flying at night. This guy could fly, literally. That’s what I tried to get across.”
Hendrix himself, however, wasn’t a fan of how it looked. According to Ultimate Classic Rock, Hendrix reportedly hated that the photo made him “look like a fairy” and demanded they have a different image for the US cover of the album.
The North American version of Are You Experienced ultimately featured the three bandmates in a circle on a mostly bright yellow cover.
Jimi Hendrix wasn’t impressed with the ‘Axis: Bold as Love’ album cover
The Jimi Hendrix Experience released their sophomore album Axis: Bold as Love in December 1967, months after their first album’s release. The cover featured a portrait of Hendrix in the style of the Hindu deity Vishnu — an artistic choice that Hendrix was on the fence about, and not particularly passionate about.
“When I first saw that [cover] design, I thought, ‘It’s great,’ but maybe we should have an American Indian,” Hendrix is quoted as saying in the book Jimi Hendrix: The Ultimate Experience. “The three of us have nothing to do with what’s on the Axis cover.”
Jimi Hendrix didn’t like his ‘Electric Ladyland’ album cover
The band’s third and final album, Electric Ladyland, was released in October 1968. And just as with Are You Experienced, Hendrix wasn’t pleased with the UK version of the album cover. The cover featured 19 naked women, which wasn’t what Hendrix was picturing. According to Ultimate Classic Rock, Hendrix sent a handwritten letter and a detailed sketch to his record label outlining his vision for the album cover: having the three Jimi Hendrix Experience members sitting with children on the sculpture of Alice in Wonderland in Central Park.
His UK record label, Track Records, ended up photographing 19 nude women for the cover. “I didn’t know a thing about the English sleeve,” Hendrix told Melody Maker in 1968. “Still, you know me, I dug it anyway. Except I think it’s sad the way the photographer made the girls look ugly. Some of them are nice-looking chicks, but the photographer distorted the photograph with a fish-eye lens or something. That’s mean. It made the girls look bad.”
The US version of Electric Ladyland featured a blurred red and yellow photo of Hendrix performing on the cover. The group would part ways in early 1969, though Hendrix would go on to play with Mitchell again before his death the following year.
