Background
"Red House" is a slow twelve-bar blues, usually notated in 12/8 time in the key of B (although played in fingered key of B, with Hendrix's guitar typically tuned 1/2 step lower to B♭). Bassist Billy Cox of Hendrix's post-Experience band Band of Gypsys described "Red House" as "Jimi's way of using his musical roots, everything he knew and understood best, in a pop context".
The song's theme is "as old as the blues itself; the singer's woman doesn't love him any more and has moved". According to Experience bassist Noel Redding, Hendrix told him "the song was written about Hendrix's old high school girlfriend Betty Jean Morgan", although her house was reportedly brown. It has been suggested that Linda Keith's (who brought Hendrix to the attention of future manager Chas Chandler) friend's New York apartment with "the red velvet walls and decor influenced Jimi's writing". However, Billy Cox has stated, "As far as I know, 'Red House' didn't have any significance in reference to a particular person, place or thing. It was just a blues number that Jimi put together".
According to Hendrix biographers, "Red House" was inspired by blues Hendrix was performing with Curtis Knight and the Squires in 1965 and 1966. One biographer calls the Knight/Hendrix version of Albert King's "Travelin' to California" (from his The Big Blues album, later re-recorded as "California" for Door to Door) as "a dead ringer, both in structure and mood, for his 1967 perennial 'Red House'". The song (sometimes listed as "California Night") featured an early vocal performance by Hendrix; and in one version, Hendrix reminded the band "B♭" before counting off the song. Another biographer calls Knight's and Hendrix's arrangement of Jimmy Reed's "You Got Me Running" (also known as "Baby What You Want Me to Do") "closely parallel that of 'Red House', down to the parallel-harmony bass part and the loping rhythmic feel".
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