The Wind Cries Mary is a song by The Jimi Hendrix Experience

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

The Jimi Hendrix Experience were an English-American psychedelic rock band that formed in London in October 1966. Comprising eponymous singer-songwriter and guitarist Jimi Hendrix, bassist and backing vocalist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, the band was active until June 1969, in which...

 released as the band's third single, backed with "Highway Chile

Highway Chile

"Highway Chile" is a song by English/American psychedelic rock band The Jimi Hendrix Experience, featured as the B-side to their 1967 third United Kingdom single "The Wind Cries Mary"...

", on May 5, 1967. It reached no. 6 in the UK Charts. The track is an example of psychedelic

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

 blues-rock

Blues-rock

Blues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...

, as the song is in the key of F major

F major

F major is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat . It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years...

, with a guitar solo

Guitar solo

In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

 primarily involving the F major pentatonic scale. Today, it is #370 on Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time

The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published December 9, 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"....

. It has been covered by musicians such as Jamie Cullum

Jamie Cullum

Jamie Cullum is an English pop and jazz-pop singer-songwriter. Though he is primarily a vocalist/pianist he also accompanies himself on other instruments including guitar and drums. Since April 2010, he has been presenting a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on Tuesdays from 19:00.- Early...

, John Mayer

John Mayer

John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...

, Xavier Rudd

Xavier Rudd

Xavier Rudd is an Australian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in 1978 and grew up in Torquay, Victoria. He attended St. Joseph's College, Geelong....

, Richie Sambora

Richie Sambora

Richard Stephen "Richie" Sambora is an American rock guitarist, producer, musician, singer, and songwriter who is the longtime lead guitarist of the rock band, Bon Jovi. He and frontman Jon Bon Jovi form the primary songwriting unit of the band...

, Sting and Pat Boone

Pat Boone

Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone is an American singer, actor and writer who has been a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He covered black artists' songs and sold more copies than his black counterparts...

.

In the United States, the song was first released as B-side to the song "Purple Haze" in June 1967

1967 in music

The summer of 1967 is "The Summer of Love" in San Francisco. It also became an important year for psychedelic rock, with releases from The Beatles The summer of 1967 is "The Summer of Love" in San Francisco. It also became an important year for psychedelic rock, with releases from The Beatles The...

 and later on the USA compilation version of the album Are You Experienced

Are You Experienced (album)

Are You Experienced is the debut album by English/American rock band The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Released in 1967, it was the first LP for Track Records...

and along with the other sides of their first three singles, on most later re-releases of Are You Experienced.

The song was recorded at the end of the "Fire" sessions. It is said to have been inspired when Hendrix and his then girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, had an argument over her cooking; after she stormed out of their apartment, Hendrix wrote "The Wind Cries Mary", as Mary was Etchingham's middle name. Another possible inspiration could be the poem 'To Mary' by the English poet John Clare

John Clare

John Clare was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among...

. Kathy has said that many of the Dylanesque

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

 lyrics describe the test card

Test Card F

Test Card F is a test card that was created by the BBC and used on television in the United Kingdom and in countries elsewhere in the world for more than four decades...

 that appeared at the end of BBC television transmissions at that time. However, this is probably a mistake on Kathy's part as that particular testcard was not first broadcast until July 1967, while the song had been written long before that. Billy Cox, who was the bassist for the Band of Gypsys and long-time friend of Hendrix has stated Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer.He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly...

's influence on the song.

"'The Wind Cries Mary' was a riff that was influenced by Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer.He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly...

, who was a big influence for Jimi."

"The Wind Cries Mary" and "Highway Chile" were re-released in 1983

1983 in music

This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1983.-January-April:*January – ZTT Records is founded.*January 8 – The UK singles chart is tabulated from this week forward by The Gallup Organization...

, on The Singles Album

The Singles Album (Jimi Hendrix album)

The Singles Album is a compilation of The Jimi Hendrix Experience's and Jimi Hendrix's singles on a two record set and also on cassette, released only in Europe in 1983...

compilation.