A Brief History of Backwards Guitar

Tracing those spine-tingling moments from Hendrix to the Beatles and beyond

As I have mentioned in other Substack columns, I often wake up each morning with a song stuck in my head. It might be a familiar Bing Crosby ditty from the 1930s or an obscure Monk tune that I can’t immediately name. It coule be some lonesome melody from Hank Williams or the Louvin Brothers or a memorable riff from Charlie Parker, Tadd Dameron or Beethoven that seduces me. One time it was the sound of Aretha Franklin singing “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot. But on this particular day a few weeks ago, I woke up with faint memories of the Beatles’ fairly obscure “I’m Only Sleeping" stuck in my head. Naturally, I had to track it down on YouTube, just to hear the complete song that stuck in my memory banks that day. And not only did I revel in the rich harmonies of that tune, sung so magnificently by John Lennon, I was also treated to this fantastically surreal, dream-like video done by artist and director Em Cooper. And as I watched the swirling, painted images of John tossing and turning in bed…there it was, first revealing itself at the :45 mark as a hint of things to come before erupting into a full-blown solo at the 1:33 mark. It was backwards guitar!

I immediately thought about time and context. Was this before Jimi Hendrix’s backwards guitar solo on the closing title track to his life-changing album, Are You Experienced? Dripping in backwards effects from the outset, including a mind-bending guitar solo at the 1:40 mark — after he proclaims in sexy tones, “Ah, let me prove it to you” — Jimi’s “Are You Experienced” was recorded on April 3, 1967 at London’s Olympic Studios. That album, Hendrix’s auspicious debut, was later released in the UK on May 12 and in the States on August 23. And to my 13-year-old mind, that was the ultimate expression of ‘60s psychedelia. Listening to Jimi’s genius now, 58 years later, brings tears to my eyes:

This cat gets it:

And here’s Jimi’s backwards guitar solo from “Are You Experienced” played forward (and it still sounds amazing to my ears, like Albert King on LSD):

But of course, “Are You Experienced” was not the first recorded example of backwards guitar. I had previously heard the Beatles’ “I Am Only Sleeping,” which was released in the States more than a year earlier, on June 20, 1966, but for some reason it didn’t register with the same jaw-dropping power of Jimi’s more revelatory backwards anthem. “I’m Only Sleeping,” which was reportedly about the joys of staying in bed rather than any kind of drug euphoria (as was often alleged by pop writers of the day), was released in the UK in August 1966 on the Beatles’ Revolver, though in the United States and Canada it was cut from that album and instead included on Yesterday and Today, released on June 15, two months before Revolver.

And actually, the Beatles had messed with backwards effects even earlier than that. Their single, “Rain,” released as the B-side to “Paperback Writer” in the States on May 20, 1966, contained a 30-second coda of Lennon’s backwards vocals. Music critic Jim DeRogatis described the track as “the Beatles’ first great psychedelic rock song” as well as a forerunner to the unprecedented studio exploration of “Tomorrow Never Knows” (released on August 5, 1966) and subsequent songs like “Strawberry Fields Forever” (released Feb. 13, 1967) and “Helter Skelter” (released November 22, 1968).

Right around the same time that the Beatles released “Rain,” another pop tune from across the pond, albeit one far less renowned, came out Stateside that contained a backwards guitar break. It was Lee Hazelwood’s “Sand,” performed by Nancy Sinatra on her second studio album for Reprise, How Does That Grab You? Released in May 1966, it featured L.A. studio guitarist Glen Campbell, a member of the famed Wrecking Crew, coming in at the 1:58 mark with psychedelic results:

Another early entry into the backwards guitar sweepstakes was The Byrds, who pulled off some psychedelic effects on David Crosby’s “Mind Gardens” from their February 20, 1967 Columbia release, Younger Than Yesterday:

Shortly after Hendrix recorded his revolutionary backward guitar tracks for “Are You Experienced?” and “Castles Made of Sand” (from his second album, Axis: Bold As Love, released on January 15, 1968), his close friend Stephen Stills applied that same experimental effect on Graham Nash’s song “Pre-Road Downs” from Crosby, Stills & Nash’s self-titled debut album released in May 1969.

Another guitar great who followed in Hendrix’s wake was Chicago-born Harvey “The Snake” Mandel, whose own experiments with backwards effects were documented on his brilliant but under-the-radar debut album, Cristo Redentor, released on the Dutch label Phillps Records in November 1968. Perhaps the best example of his use of backwards guitar on the record can be heard on his funkified version of the African American spiritual “Wade in the Water,” featuring Cuban conguero Armando Peraza (later of Santana) and full string section arranged by Nick DeCaro. After introducing some nasty, cutting edge fuzztone licks at the outset, then indulging in the kind of radical panning that Hendrix explored on Axis: Bold As Love. Then at precisely the 4:00 mark he unleashes a deluge backwards guitar for the next minute and a half to rival Jimi’s “Are You Experienced.”

He also introduces some nifty backwards guitar early on in his wah-wah-laden jam with pedal steel guitar ace Pete Drake on “Bradley’s Barn” (named for Nashville studio owner Owen Bradley,

And he also sneaks in some backwards guitar on the album’s closer, “Nashville 1 A.M.,” again featuring Drake on pedal steel:

Despite its brilliance, both guitaristically and sonically, Cristo Redentor was overshadowed by Hendrix’s double album Electric Ladyland, released a month earlier on Reprise (a subsidiary of the major label Warner Bros.), and Jeff Beck’s Truth, released three months earlier on Epic (a subsidiary of the major label Columbia Records). Given its timing, the smaller label it was on and a lack of widespread promotion, Cristo Redentor was unfortunately destined for the cutout bins.

Mandel would subsequently join forces with blues violinist Sugarcane Harris to form the band Pure Food & Drug Act and also play with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in 1971. He was later recruited to play on the Rolling Stones’ 1976 album Black and Blue, unleashing his patented licks on the funky “Hot Stuff” and the ballad “Memory Motel.”

In subsequent years, guitarists like Henry Kaiser, Bill Frisell, John Scofield and others were able to produce backwards guitar effects in live settings through the use of pedals like the Electro-Harmonix 16-Second Digital Delay, Eventide H-3000 harmonizer, TC Electronics Flashback pedal, Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler and Boomerang Phrase Sampler. Hell, I can even do it myself at home on my trusty and relatively inexpensive Behringer EM600 Echo Machine pedal.

Of his pioneering use of backwards guitar on Cristo Redentor, the now 80-year-old Mandel said, “Back then, I had to do it the hard way. We had to get the 24-inch reel, turn it around on the machine, and I’m playing over a certain section. So all I could do is determine the beat to make sure that I was locked into the beat and was in the right spot. And just through experience and experimentation, I was able to play licks that worked. So when they put the tape back on proper and you’re listening to it going in the right direction, it sounded perfect the way I did it. I didn’t plan it out, but I had the ability to hear the tape backwards. And it was a miracle because I was flying by the seat of my pants. It was the first time I was ever doing any of that stuff in the studio but it all worked out great. I’d know where the beat was and I was able to set up the section with the ingenuity of ‘This is where I was going to be utilizing that effect.’ And I could start a little early, go a little late, and we just edited that out. No problem.”

He added, “Nowadays, I can get a lot of that sound just from pedals. I don’t have to worry synching up a backwards part by turning the tape over and recording. With Pro Tools, you can turn shit around, you can do anything. Anything you can do with the tape machine you can do with Pro Tools, if you know what you’re doing.”