Red House

Red House was one of the first songs the Experience recorded. They taped it at CBS on 13 December 1966 in the last fifteen minutes of the session, and Chandler said Hendrix winged through one take for reference. Redding played rhythm guitar tuned to sound like a bass. More takes at De Lane Lea on 21 December were not used, and the released track is the CBS take, remixed at Olympic.

It appeared only on the British edition of Are You Experienced. Hendrix said everybody was scared to release it in America because America did not like the blues. It reached American listeners on the Smash Hits compilation on 30 July 1969. It is a twelve-bar blues in B, around 66 beats a minute, and the biographer Keith Shadwick compared its solo to a human voice. Albert King's Travelin' to California was an inspiration. The subject of the lyric is disputed. Redding said it was about Hendrix's high school girlfriend Betty Jean Morgan, while Billy Cox said it was just a blues number.

Live and covers

It was a fixture of Hendrix concerts, recorded in versions from 1967 to Fehmarn in 1970, usually longer and slower than the studio take. Albert King, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker and Prince, who called his version Purple House, have all recorded it. Hooker said it would make you grab your mother and choke her.