2. Carly Simon: “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be”
Slotted into some studio time while Hendrix was on tour, the then up-and-coming singer-songwriter Carly Simon was one of the first artists to record at Electric Lady, where she and Kramer tracked the entirety of her star-making 1971 debut album.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Stevie Wonder: “Superstition”
Seeking to stretch his musical imagination beyond the confines of the Motown formula, Stevie Wonder made Electric Lady the locus of his early 1970s creative liberation — the place where he recorded much of “Music of My Mind,” “Innervisions” and his 1972 declaration of independence “Talking Book.” That album’s associate producer, Robert Margouleff, has recalled how the spaciousness of Studio A contributed to the spontaneous composition of one of Wonder’s greatest songs. “We were at Electric Lady,” he told Jon Pareles for a package commemorating the album’s 50th anniversary. “Malcolm [Cecil, co-producer] and I had set up every instrument that we thought Steve could use in a big circle in the studio: the acoustic piano, the Rhodes, the Clavinet, the synthesizer. Everything was always all plugged in and playable immediately. Steve could move from instrument to instrument with ease.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. David Bowie: “Fame”
In early 1975, shortly after his notorious “lost weekend” era, John Lennon met up with his pal David Bowie for some free-form jamming at Electric Lady. The result was this wry, funky, soon-to-be single from Bowie’s next album, “Young Americans,” on which Lennon — whose backing falsetto can be heard throughout — received a writing credit.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Patti Smith: “Break It Up”
In her memoir “Just Kids,” Patti Smith writes about attending Electric Lady’s opening party in late August 1970 and meeting Hendrix there. “He spent a little time with me on the stairs,” she writes, “and told me his vision of what he wanted to do with the studio.” Though Hendrix didn’t live to see that vision of communal musical experimentation through, Smith would contribute to it five years later when she recorded her raw, kinetic debut album, “Horses,” there.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. The Roots featuring Erykah Badu and Eve: “You Got Me”
In the late 1990s, a loose collective of hip-hop and neo-soul musicians who called themselves the Soulquarians — including the Roots, Common, Erykah Badu and D’Angelo — claimed Electric Lady as their home base. An outpouring of fresh, imaginative music emerged from freewheeling studio jam sessions, often organized by the Roots’ drummer, Questlove. Among the classic albums recorded there during the Soulquarians era were D’Angelo’s “Voodoo,” Badu’s “Mama’s Gun” and the Roots’ incisive 1999 album “Things Fall Apart,” on which this track appears.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Frank Ocean: “Ivy”
Few albums from the past decade have embraced Hendrix’s vision of genre fluidity and boundless ambition as wholeheartedly as Frank Ocean’s 2016 epic, “Blonde.” The earliest sessions for what would become Ocean’s masterpiece took place in the creatively generative environs of — where else? — Electric Lady Studios.
