Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Story Behind the Banned ‘Electric Ladyland’ Album Cover

Electric Ladyland - THAT cover! -

by the man who took that photo!

Shot by David Montgomery, this photography work was chosen as the European cover for Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 album Electric Ladyland. It features nineteen London Club girls, all non-models, who pose nude. When it was released, the cover was banned in the United States, while others sold it with the gatefold cover turned inside out, or in a brown wrapper.

In an interview with Louder Sound, Montgomery revealed how the shoot came about, and what happened on the day:

“Linda McCartney shot the original picture of Electric Ladyland in New York. She took a picture of a little white kid and a little black kid playing together. It was peace, love, harmony – all that stuff. But the record company in London looked at it and said: ‘What the hell is this? This isn’t gonna sell records.’ So that’s when I got the job. 

 

It is widely accepted that Jimi preferred the shot from Linda for the cover and indeed he featured it in his notes to the label but they chose to ignore the artists wishes and replaced it with the organ and red portrait well known as the American cover. Montgomery believes that Jimi did like his photo as he was “promiscuous”!? 

"I don’t actually believe that, because Jimi was quite a ladies man. He was a promiscuous character, so I couldn’t see why he was being all puritanical.” D. Montgomery

This is disingenuous if you ask me as it is well documented and Jimi has even said what he thought about the distorted lens used to get all the models in the shot and almost a fisheye making the women look ugly and distorted and didn’t do them justice.

The girls themselves didn’t hold back “Everyone looked great, but the picture makes us look old and tired. We were trying to look sexy, but it didn’t work out,” one of the models said in an interview, “It makes us look like a load of old tarts. It’s rotten.”

“Folks in Britain are kicking against the cover. Man, I don’t blame them,” Hendrix commented, “I wouldn’t have put this picture on the sleeve myself, but it wasn’t my decision. It’s mostly all bullshit”.Jimi Hendrix

Jimi’s preferred image shot by Linda McCartney (then Eastman and a known photographer for taking sympathetic photos of the rock world)