Album Cover Art for Jimi Hendrix Experience Phonograph Record "Are You Experienced?"

The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut album, Are You Experienced? was released in the UK on May 12, 1967, on Track Records. The US version was released on Reprise Records on August 23, 1967. This original cover art with a color key overlay was designed by British photographer and designer Karl Ferris (b. 1948). 

Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter who gained mainstream prominence in the late 1960s with hits such as “Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze,” “All Along the Watchtower,” and “Fire,” and is now celebrated as one of the most influential electric guitarists of all time. 

Throughout 1967, between constant club gigs, tours, press interviews, and television appearances, Jimi Hendrix recorded songs for his debut album, Are You Experienced?. It was released one week after the debut of the band’s third single, “The Wind Cries Mary”. The album soon shot up to #2 on the charts, behind the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  

While the album launched in the UK and Europe in March of 1967, the Experience’s explosive US concert debut at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June convinced Reprise to release the record in North America, albeit with some track changes. The label requested the addition of the band’s early single hits: “Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze,” and “The Wind Cries Mary,” but omitted “Red House,” “Can You See Me,” and “Remember,” because Reprise felt US audiences weren’t as receptive to Blues songs. 

For many fans that weren’t able to see Hendrix live, the album was a revelation. The Jimi Hendrix Experience in concert was about dynamic showmanship, raw instrumentation, and pure volume. For Are You Experienced?, the recording studio became not only a method of documentation, but a powerful tool in composition. With it, Hendrix created a new paradigm in psychedelic sound.