“Voodoo Chile/Slight Return” by Jimi Hendrix

"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" is the final track on the Jimi Hendrix Experience's 1968 album Electric Ladyland, and what a closer it is: a guitar that creeps out of the speakers, then rears up and roars, with Hendrix improvising and singing over Noel Redding's bass and Mitch Mitchell's drums crashing like a storm front. Eddie Kramer engineered, Hendrix and Chas Chandler get the production credit, and the three players push blues rock until it cracks open into something else.

Hendrix made it a fixture of his concerts for the rest of his career, and live takes kept surfacing on albums long after he was gone. After his death in 1970, Track Records issued it in Britain as "Voodoo Chile", and it became his only number one on the UK singles chart. Rolling Stone later put it at 101 on its 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.