Writer: Jimi Hendrix
Producer: Chas Chandler
Recorded: January 1967 at Olympic Studios in London, England
Released: May 1967
| Players: | Jimi Hendrix — vocals, guitar Noel Redding — bass Mitch Mitchell — drums |
| Album: | Are You Experienced (Reprise, 1967) |
“The Wind Cries Mary” was recorded on the same day the Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded “Purple Haze.”
Producer Chas Chandler recalled that it took the group 20 minutes to record the song, from Jimi Hendrix's first performance of the song to the final guitar overdub.
The song was dedicated to Hendrix's then-girlfriend, Kathy Mary Etchingham.
Although never a single, “The Wind Cries Mary” is one of Hendrix's most popular tracks and a rare slow song in his canon of hits.
The Are You Experienced album, which also included “Purple Haze,” “Hey Joe,” and “Foxey Lady,” was one of the most revolutionary albums of 1967, falling just behind the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in terms of notoriety.
The album peaked at Number Five on the Billboard 200 chart and has sold more than two million copies. It hit Number Two on the U.K. chart.