“I saw a white Strat walk out the door”: Studio employee recalls how people took Jimi Hendrix’s gear from Electric Lady Studios in the days after his death
A recording engineer who worked at Electric Lady Studios at the time of Jimi Hendrix’s death has recalled the chaos that unfolded as they found out about his passing. Andy Edlen had started working there just 10 days before the iconic guitarist passed away in 1970.
A new feature-length documentary about the studio, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision, has just been released. It chronicles the creation of the iconic space, from the rubble of a Greenwich Village nightclub to a state of the art recording facility.
READ MORE: New book offers up-close look at the guitars of Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Keith Richards and more
The studios were designed by architect John Storyk and audio engineer Eddie Kramer, after Kramer and Jim Marron advised Hendrix to pivot from his original idea of renaming the club and continuing with a live venue business.
Speaking to Uncut for its new print edition, Edlen recalls, “There was an air of unreality about it. People were trying to verify if it was true, but it also felt like when a light goes on in the kitchen and the cockroaches scatter. People were freaked out that the golden goose had died. Jim Marron and Eddie Kramer got pretty heroic at this point… Eddie and Jim were inspirational because the emotional impact was vast.”
According to Edlen, many employees were worried the studio would be shut down, and over the course of the next few days, John Jansen (a studio assistant) and Edlen saw staff empty a closet that was filled with Hendrix’s guitars. “I saw a white Strat walk out the door,” recalls Edlen. “It was like people wanted icons.”
You can watch the trailer for the documentary below:
Electric Lady Studios is still open today. You can find out more about the studio, or view the full list of showtimes and locations for the Jimi Hendrix Vision documentary now.
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