Purple Haze
by Jimi Hendrix
- 112
- BPM
- D major
- Key
- 10B
- Camelot
- 54
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
Producer Chas Chandler had already told Jimi Hendrix that his new riff was the next single. On January 11, 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience began recording "Purple Haze" at De Lane Lea Studios in London. Drummer Mitch Mitchell said he and bassist Noel Redding learned the song in the studio. Hendrix hummed the riff and showed Redding the chords and changes. The band had it on the third take, as Mitchell remembered it, and Chandler put the basic track at four hours.
The rest of the work came in short bursts. Chandler and Hendrix kept going back in, two hours at a time, chasing a particular sound, and they booked only as much time as one idea needed. Chandler felt it was more efficient for the two of them to work alone. Redding and Mitchell took no part in that stage. He also carried the four-track tape from De Lane Lea to Olympic Studios for overdubbing.
Chandler had heard Hendrix toying with the riff at the flat in mid-December 1966. He claimed Hendrix wrote the rest in a London club dressing room on the afternoon of December 26, before a gig. The single came out in the United Kingdom on March 17, 1967.
Purple Haze runs at 112 BPM, the tempo of pop, funk and disco-leaning dance. In classical terms it sits in moderato territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.14 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 536 ms. It is in D major, Camelot 10B, which shares its notes with B minor and mixes cleanly with G major and A major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.