may have had supernatural guitar ability, but it seems his legendary recording studio has a different kind of supernatural air to it.
The studio, which Hendrix opened just weeks before his death, is supposedly haunted, with staff complaining of constant unexplained occurrences.
Odd shapes out of the corner of your eye, ghostly old men staring at you, shimmering silver dresses floating away – The Electric Lady Studio is said to have it all.
Hendrix opened the studio on August 26, 1970, after two years of preparation and construction.
This was a mere 23 days before he while staying in Notting Hill with his girlfriend, Monika Dannemann.
The coroner ruled was asphyxiation through aspiration of vomit due to a barbiturate overdose.
It’s not thought to be Hendrix himself haunting the halls, but ghostly activities are part and parcel of working at the 50-year-old studio.
‘Pretty much every assistant I know has had some kind of sighting late at night when they are alone,’ mixer Michael Brauer told .
The Grammy-winner has worked with the likes of and , with other stars like , and laying down tracks at the studio.
In a haunting encounter, Brauer thought he saw his assistant go into the lounge in his peripheral vision and called out to him.
Brauer called again to no reply before getting up and walking to the door – only for his assistant to come in from the bathroom in the opposite direction.
Nobody was in the lounge when he went to check.
Another supernatural occurrence happened to an anonymous sound engineer who saw a person walk past them into the live room, only for nobody to be there when he investigated.
He turned around and saw something reminiscent of a silver dress ‘shimmering’ near the patch bay.
Even worse, the engineer once spent the night sleeping at the studio only to wake up to an old man staring at them.
He said: ‘I have a vivid memory of an old man staring right in my face as I slept. It startled me when I half woke up for a moment.’
The Electric Lady Studio had been a nightclub before Hendrix and his team began the renovation into a recording space.
At the time, is believed to have been the only artist-owned studio in existence.
It remains incredibly unique as Hendrix insisted on building the space with round curved walls to improve sound quality.
His reasoning was that God does not make things with corners or edges in nature, everything is rounded.
A new documentary, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision,features an inside look at the famous studio and discussions about the star with those who knew him.
Eddie Kramer, who worked as Hendrix’s producer and studio manager, is heavily involved in the documentary and said: ‘There is a spirit of Jimi Hendrix in the studio, somewhere, whether it’s in the walls or the ceilings … in the atmosphere … it’s embedded in there, somehow. His spirit is very strong. I truly believe that.
‘I think any artist who has graced the presence of Electric Lady … has felt that. I would say 99.9% of the people walk in and say, “I’m feeling something.”’
However, Hendrix’s sister Janie isn’t so convinced, instead believing artists simply feel a ‘sweet’ connection to her late brother rather than an actual presence.
Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision is out in cinemas from August 9.
