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Look Pottus, I don't have any book to reference
the recording dates for all the tracks etc, but
it's plainly obvious that the dates are
irrelevant because you have it in your head that
Jimi was ripping off the Cream. They are not even
comparable, the Cream was a supergroup with 3
people at the helm, Jimi was the only one driving
the Experience. Jimi wrote everything, everything
was his vision, his sound, his talent. If you
fail to see the massive leap Jimi had made with
his creativity and playing that Clapton hasn't
even verged on to this day, then I'm afraid you
never will. Clapton just played old blues stuff
which he copied and beefed up for the 60's
audience, sure he was a good player, but Jimi was
in a whole other world. Jimi was an innovator,
using all manner of new sounds and techniques
mixed with his love of traditional blues to get
to where he was going.
Most of the early tracks on Electric Ladyland were
short because Chas was still in the production
seat, difficulties between Jimi and Chas ended up
with Chas leaving. Jimi then managed to do what
he wanted and make soundscapes of music, this is
what sets apart Electric Ladyland, as well as
songs he painted another world of sounds. It
would impossible for him to do lengthy songs that
achieved this on a single album, so you're logic
of him only trying to copy the Cream is
completely unfounded. In fact, Jimi wanted his
next LP to be 4 records long, he wasn't copying
anyone, it was to accomodate for the sheer amount
of ideas for music he had. Jimi was a dreamer and
wanted to take people with him on those dreams.
Voodoo Chile and other tracks are jams yes, but
Jimi loved jamming, it allows the freedom he
wanted, maybe you prefer tight pre-arranged band
stuff, I think Voodoo Chile is a great firey
blues jam, it's loose, and the musicians are
communicating fine since they had no practice and
were just feeding off eachother. I do agree the
mixing for it is quite terrible though, I've
heard other mixes and they sound much better than
the album.
I really can't see any form of copying on Jimi's
part of the Cream. Voodoo Chile and Spoonful are
entirely different, the Cream's version is not
that much different from other traditional covers
of the song, except Clapton does some nice
soloing near the end, the best thing about it is
Jack Bruce's voice, I fail to see how a good
cover can be compared to Jimi's original and well
executed 15 minute blues jam which was entirely
off the cuff and I bet Jimi even had to have the
lyrics written out in front of him otherwise he'd
forget each line. If Spoonful was an
improvisational tour de force unheard in rock
circles at the time, why did nobody listen to
Jimi's countless renditions of Catfish Blues or
one of my favourites, Hear My Train a Comin'
which he played at many of his live gigs and
totally put Spoonful to shame.
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