Electric Lady: Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah introduces us to the Ghosts of Jimi Hendrix Legendary studio
DJ Premier, D'Angelo, J Dilla & Alchemist at Electric Lady studio.
Electric Lady--the name of the legendary studio built by the even more legendary Jimi Hendrix--is one that will be well familiar to Okayplayer readers. Over the years the core Okayplayer artists--The Roots, Erykah Badu, Common, Mos Def, J Dilla, D'Angelo, Jill Scott, Bilal and more--have all recorded there, helping to revitalize the landmark of American bohemia and in the process writing themselves firmly into the legend. But if you have never set foot inside the space's curvy, tapestry and mural-covered walls--and maybe even if you have--you may not realize what a vast universe Electric Lady comprises, a space that bears the traces of some of our greatest artists, both living and dead--Keith Richards, Kanye West, The Clash--and if Badu and The Clash's Joe Strummer are to believed, perhaps a few that blur the lines between the living and the dead.
Fortunately for the uninitiated, however, a new long-form essay in The Believer, authored by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah takes the reader on a journey through the many decades and dimensions that co-exist with Electric Lady, including a splash in the actual, factual river that runs through the studio, an underground creek that provides the space a direct connection to pre-European Mannahatta, as well as the title of Rachel's piece, A River Runs Through It.
Full disclosure: Rachel is the protége of the late, great Rich Nichols, The Roots' producer and manager and therefore extended family to Okayplayer. In addition to a treasure trove of musical lore, the piece is also a moving eulogy for Rich, who almost single-handedly gave the studio a second life by booking the various musicians of The Soulquarian movement there. Read some excerpts below, including brilliant moments of Amiri Baraka and Erykah Badu:
When I first went to Electric Lady, ten years ago, Richard had booked the oval-shaped Studio A for [Amiri] Baraka to record in, and among the things I remember now is the way, late in the night, the red lights made the room gleam—as if the three-story building were a collection of bedouin tents set into the bow of a very fine, Jules Verne–built boat. There are no straight walls on the first floor of Electric Lady. Most of the studio’s rooms are lit by antique lamps and overhead mood lights that change color and make light shows against the white walls. Now a leather Eames recliner sits in the lobby and, next to it, a wooden record cabinet containing records from the studio’s most recent clients: Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Daft Punk. There are Moroccan and Persian carpets and objets d’art throughout the building, such as a working 8-track with Ray Charles and Dolly Parton tapes that the current studio manager, Lee Foster, found and painted scarlet. There is a tiny hole in the door of an upstairs bathroom that Keith Richards cut for his microphone cord, so he could record his guitar solos in private. - Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
>>>Read More (via The Believer)
“The artwork puts you automatically in Jimi Hendrix’s world… You don’t know what time it is, you don’t know what year it is, you’re just in a warp, in a wormhole or a vortex. There were many times that I would sleep there for days and didn’t see the outside world. I would take a sponge bath in the bathroom.But I didn’t mind that, because the mural in the bathroom makes me feel like I’m going into another part of myself. And just to see those people painted on those walls—those people are living still! And breathing through those walls. They are characters who are frozen in one position for the rest of time, who have millions of stories, depending on who lays their eyes on them. And those stories touch all our senses, and they have contributed to many of our songs, I’m sure.” - Erykah Badu
>>>Read More (via The Believer)
The last time I saw Richard, the biggest man I had ever known was smaller than I have been in years, sedated in his hospital bed, bald, without his long dreadlocks. I was there to say goodbye. But I could not find the words. I stood there in my hospital gown and mask, wanting one last conversation, the chance to ask him if he remembered that night in Electric Lady, many years ago, when we had sat in Studio A, watching Amiri Baraka rap. The lights had cast red but the room felt frigid. On that night I kept joking to the tech that Jimi was with us. And he said that many people say they feel Jimi’s presence in the studio. Lights are said to flicker, and Joe Strummer reportedly swore that a phantom guitar track appeared on a track the Clash were recording for Sandinista! I remember wanting something ethereal to be felt among us, to give us goose bumps from the connection. Over the drumming, in the cold, Baraka, who is now also gone, rapped, keeping time with the beat by tapping his cane on the floor. Rapping fast and hard, speaking his way through air. I was young and I didn’t know about death then. - Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
