Jimi Hendrix had had two albums before the 1968 release of Electric Ladyland. From the covers of his first two albums, it seems as though the record companies struggled to find a great angle of presenting Jimi Hendrix.
In his album, Are You Experienced, the cover featured the band shot with a fisheye lens. Seems groovy enough, it has its own charm. Then came the second album, Axis: Bold As Love, which featured the members of the band again, with a Hindu backdrop showing Vishnu and his avatars.
Hendrix commented how disrespectful it was seeing that the three of them were in no way related to what was shown on the cover.
Finally, with Electric Ladyland, Hendrix wanted to have a bit more input. So he wrote a letter to Reprise Records stating exactly what he wanted to include on the cover as well as the layout and typography. The recording company ignored his letter below and came up with the cover as shown above.
The UK cover was completely different and used a picture taken by David Montgomery of 19 naked women. Hendrix stated how he preferred Linda McCartney's photograph depicting two children in Central Park. In the end, what the art directors chose was what the recording companies put out.
Montgomery shares the story behind the UK cover and how his own artistic decisions were also ignored by David King, the art director, on Flashbak.
(Image credit: Flashbak)