Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
| "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" | |||||||||||
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1970 UK maxi single picture sleeve
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| Single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience | |||||||||||
| from the album Electric Ladyland | |||||||||||
| B-side | "Hey Joe" and "All Along the Watchtower" | ||||||||||
| Released | October 23, 1970 (UK) | ||||||||||
| Format | 7-inch 45 rpm maxi single | ||||||||||
| Recorded | Record Plant Studios, New York City, May 3, 1968 | ||||||||||
| Genre | |||||||||||
| Length | 5:12 | ||||||||||
| Label | Track (no. 2095 001) | ||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Jimi Hendrix | ||||||||||
| Producer(s) | Chas Chandler | ||||||||||
| Experience UK chronology | |||||||||||
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"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" is a song recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1968 that appears on the Electric Ladyland album released that year. It contains improvised guitar and a vocal from Jimi Hendrix, backed by Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. The song is one of Hendrix's best known; it was a feature of his concert performances throughout his career and several live renditions were recorded and released on later albums.
After his death in 1970, "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", using the title "Voodoo Chile", was released in the UK and became Hendrix's only number one single in the British record charts. Several artists have performed or recorded versions of the song. Rolling Stone magazine included it at number 102 on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" was developed from "Voodoo Chile", recorded May 2, 1968, during a studio jam with Steve Winwood on organ and Jack Casady on bass. The next day, Hendrix returned to the studio with Redding and Mitchell for the filming of a short documentary by ABC television. Noel Redding explained, "We learned that song in the studio ... They had the cameras rolling on us as we played it". Hendrix added,
[S]omeone was filming when we started doing [Voodoo Child]. We did that about three times because they wanted to film us in the studio, to make us—'Make it look like you're recording, boys'—one of them scenes, you know, so, 'OK, let's play this in E, a-one, a-two, a-three', and then we went into 'Voodoo Child'.
According to Hendrix biographer Steven Roby, eight takes of the song were recorded by Hendrix, Redding, and Mitchell, and the final one was chosen as the master, which appeared on Electric Ladyland.
Author Charles Shaar Murray examines Hendrix's use of the term "Voodoo Child" in his book Crosstown Traffic. He notes that "Voodoo symbolism and reference resound through the country blues, and through the urbanized electric county blues of the Chicago school ... In Hendrix’s case, this is pure metaphor. He certainly was not a Voodoo inititate in any formal sense ... Both with ‘Voodoo Chile’—and, most specifically, with the West African even-before-Bo-Diddley beat he percussively scratches from his guitar and wah-wah pedal at the beginning of ‘Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)’ [sic]—he is announcing as explicitly as possible that he is a man of the blues, and one who honours, respects and understands its deepest and most profound traditions". Except for the chorus, the lyrics of "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" are different from "Voodoo Chile":
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