purchase [Electric Ladyland] because the whole album is one you should own if you are into owning your music
When I think back on it, my first listen to Electric Ladyland was one of a few musical experiences where I can remember most of the 5 Ws. I was maybe 14 and I had an invite to a limited audience, listening studio to hear the work. I left the room changed. In truth, I had already been "experienced" a year or so earlier when a friend played the Are You Experienced album, and I recall an even more abrupt awakening then - never had I heard anything remotely like this before. But even with that experience behind me, Electric Ladyland was ... stunning. electric. different. The sound system in the "auditorium" was pretty good: we are talking about the days when "stereo" was still cutting-edge, and good stereo with decent Hz rates and quality speakers even more esoteric - all of which meant that the phase-shifting and Hendrix's cross channel effects were pretty novel.
If I don't insert too much of my current perspective into this, Little Miss Strange was one of the weaker cuts from the album. I prefer the more melodic Rainy Day, Dream Away and 1983 ... A Merman [...]
When I listen to Little Miss Strange in 2019, it now seems obvious that it wasn't a Hendrix composition (indeed it wasn't: it is a Noel Redding piece) Curiously, by the time recording on Electric Ladyland had begun, Bassist Redding wasn't playing much of the bass on the album - Hendrix himself and the Jefferson Airplane's Jack Cassady were taking on some of the bass playing. Although I do believe the liner notes say that Redding did play on LMStrange.
The 1968 Rolling Stone review of the album calls this song the most commercial of the songs on Electric Ladyland. Hmmm - I guess I am not terribly representative of the commercial market: I would have chosen something more melodic, like the above (Rainy Day or even All Along the Watchtower). But the overdubbed guitar tracks (in 5ths is it?) work pretty well to provide an element of harmony to a song that comes across to me as kind of raucous overall.
And, yeah, this too, from the Randy Hansen Band:
