Celebrating the South African producer behind Jimi Hendrix’s studio sound – Texx and the City

A phone rings, piercing a melody being idly strummed on an acoustic guitar. Fwoosh. A cigarette crackles as it’s lit, followed by murmured conversation.

Walking into the former bedroom of Jimi Hendrix at Handel Hendrix House, it feels like the man himself has just stepped out a few moments before. While waiting for his imminent return, I scan his Sixties sanctuary and admire this rock ‘n roll time capsule in London’s Mayfair neighbourhood.

The illusion is carefully curated. The sounds I’m hearing are part of a background tape attempting to recreate the atmosphere of the flat as it was from 1968 to 1969. But the scene itself is, in many ways, true to life.

The room is decorated just as Hendrix and his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham kept it during the nine months they lived here, filled with Persian rugs, rich tapestries, an oval mirror above the fireplace, feathers, and a guitar resting casually on the bed. Even the bedside table is cluttered with handwritten lyrics and a pack of Benson & Hedges, ready for yet another fwoosh and another song idea to scribble down.

It’s a strange feeling, standing in a space so intimate yet so public. Bedrooms are personal places, not usually designed for visitors, and yet here I am, invited to look around.

For fans of Hendrix, 23 Brook Street is sacred ground. But for South African fans especially, there’s an added thrill: knowing that one of our own captured the chaos and creativity of Hendrix, playing to the world, both on record and on camera. And perhaps some of those guitar licks began life in this room.

Cape Town-born and bred Eddie Kramer was a close confidant and conduit between Jimi’s genius and the grooves etched into vinyl, ushering some of the most iconic sounds in rock history into global consciousness. And Hendrix wasn’t his only client.

Across a career spanning more than six decades, 83-year-old Kramer has worked with a who’s who of rock royalty. His technical inventiveness turned raw sessions into timeless albums, with the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Kiss, and The Beatles leading his long list of credits. The man even engineered the entire Woodstock festival in 1969, for peace sake. But it was his work with Hendrix that became his defining collaboration.

Eddie’s early life in South Africa was steeped in music, with him studying classical piano, cello and violin as a child, and eventually attending the South African College of Music during his high school years to nurture his talent. At 19 years old, he moved to London and immersed himself in the rapidly evolving early-1960s recording scene, quickly finding work in renowned studios such as Pye and Olympic.

He honed his sound engineering skills there and developed a keen ear for innovative recording techniques by layering sounds and experimenting with mic placement to shape sound with both precision and flair.

By 1966, Kramer had caught the attention of those in Hendrix’s orbit. Engineering a young Hendrix meant understanding what sonic sorcery the electric guitar wizard was hoping to achieve. What set Kramer apart wasn’t just his technical proficiency, but his musical sensitivity and flexibility to the artist’s needs.

Speaking of his first encounter with Hendrix, Kramer recalls having to think fast about how he would manage the maestro, picking microphones that gave them the best shot of capturing the enormity of that sound. Even communicating in colour seemed to do the trick with Jimi.

“He would turn to me and ask if I could get a green sound on his guitar and I knew exactly what he wanted, whether it was a red sound or a purple sound and I’d just dial some knobs and tweak shit until I came up with something cool. Then he’d come in and go ‘Whooaah, OK!!’ and run back into the studio and start tweaking his amp and his pedals.” 

It was a match made in musical heaven, and Kramer would be entrusted behind the mixing desk for all three of Hendrix’s studio albums released while he was alive, as well as archiving the late-rockstar’s extensive unfinished work.

Some of Eddie’s most delicate and devoted work with Jimi came out decades later, when he was called upon to help complete First Rays Of The New Rising Sun—the posthumous album Hendrix had been working on at the time of his death in 1970.

Unlike earlier compilations that were rushed to market or controversially altered by later producers, First Rays was a purist’s victory and endorsed by the Hendrix estate. Released in 1997, the album was assembled from Hendrix’s handwritten notes and restored master tapes, with Kramer bringing his trademark sonic sensitivity to the mix. The result is perhaps the clearest glimpse of where Jimi was headed next: a funkier, more soulful direction, with moments of psychedelic heat still glowing through.

One of the album’s standout tracks – “Night Bird Flying” – offers a window into the intricacies of
Jimi’s evolving sound and the interpretation it took to find a cohesive conclusion.

In a video filmed at Electric Lady Studios, Kramer—seated at the very mixing desk where he pulled it all together—describes the song as “a virtual symphony of guitars,” woven together from four distinct parts. He identifies one surprisingly delicate rhythm track as “the glue that holds it all together,” then carefully layers in the overdubs, which at times “fight for space” but ultimately land in balance.

It’s an act of audio archaeology and artistic intuition. “The man’s mind was on so many different levels,” Kramer reflects, still in awe. This spirit of sonic exploration permeates the entire Handel Hendrix House, where Jimi’s bedroom and gear at number 23 sit just a few steps away from the elegant Georgian rooms at number 25, once occupied by the 18th -century German composer, George Frideric Handel.

Two artists separated by centuries but united by one Baroque ‘n roll address, it tells a tale as old as
London itself—of foreigners who arrived with dreams, found a scene, and left behind something greater than themselves.

From Cape Town to Carnaby Street, Eddie Kramer dialled it in for the stars, but as he enters his 84th year this month, his heart is set on ensuring the next generation is on track too. With one hand on the faders and the other on the future, the octogenarian oracle continues to record and proudly promote young artists, while also offering sound advice at workshops and retreats about his process, from tracking to editing and mixing.

So let’s raise a glass to Eddie: our ballie behind the beats of some of the best that ever rocked out.