Written and self-produced by Hendrix, he recorded it for his planned fourth studio album just months before he died in September 1970.

[7] According to sessionographers Gary Geldeart and Steve Rodham, Hendrix made a private recording of "Angel" at a New York apartment in March 1968.

[8] In 1995, the apartment recordings were released on a companion disc to the book Voodoo Child: The Illustrated Legend of Jimi Hendrix.

[8] After delaying progress on the song for over two years, Hendrix returned to work on "Angel" with Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox in July 1970, during sessions for his planned fourth studio album.

[12]In the biography Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy, Hendrix historians Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek have compared "Angel" – which they describe as "arguably Jimi's finest ballad" – with fellow The Cry of Love track "Night Bird Flying", citing similarities in their lyrics as evidence of the more personal subject matter explored by the musician in his later career.

[13] The song has also been likened lyrically to "May This Be Love" (from Are You Experienced) and "Long Hot Summer Night" (from Electric Ladyland), in which Shapiro and Glebbeek feel that Hendrix is seeking a "mystical woman ... as his only means of inner peace and personal salvation".

[14] Following Hendrix's death in September 1970, "Angel" was among the ten songs selected by Mitch Mitchell and Eddie Kramer for inclusion on the first posthumous studio album, The Cry of Love, released in March 1971.

[5] In 1995, the track appeared on the controversial Alan Douglas-produced Voodoo Soup album, and in 1997, it was featured on the first new release by the family-run Experience Hendrix, First Rays of the New Rising Sun.