JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIANCE ‘FREEDOM, ATLANTA
POP FESTIVAL’ AUDIO TO BE RELEASED WITH BRAND NEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTARY
It has today been announced that the new 2 CD set Jimi Hendrix Experience: ‘Freedom, Atlanta Pop Festival’ will be
released on 28 August. Taken from
his now legendary performance on 4 July
1970, in front of his largest ever
US audience of
approx. 300,000-400,000 people, the album will be available as a 2 CD set as
well as a 180-gram 2 LP vinyl. In
addition to the unearthed recording; a new documentary about the music legend’s
Atlanta Pop set and the circumstances surrounding it ‘Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church’, will be released on DVD and
Blu-ray on 30 October.
About 100 miles south of Atlanta, next to a field just
outside the town of Byron, there stands a plaque erected by the Georgia
Historical Society marking the location of the Second Atlanta International Pop
Festival, where from 3 -5 July, 1970, “Over thirty musical acts
performed, including rock icon Jimi
Hendrix playing to the largest American audience of his career.” Despite
the overwhelming attendance, the festival and Hendrix’s performance in
particular, has not received its due in terms of historic importance and impact
until now.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience: ‘Freedom, Atlanta Pop Festival’
2CD/2LP VINYL set includes all performances in the forthcoming documentary plus
six additional tracks.
Disc 1
1)
Fire
2)
Lover Man
3)
Spanish Castle
Magic
4)
Red House
5)
Room Full Of
Mirrors
6)
Hear My Train A
Comin’
7)
Message To Love
Disc 2
1)
All Along The
Watchtower
2)
Freedom
3)
Foxey Lady
4)
Purple Haze
5)
Hey Joe
6)
Voodoo Child
(Slight Return)
7)
Stone Free
8)
Star Spangled
Banner
9)
Straight Ahead
‘Jimi
Hendrix: Electric Church’, the new
documentary film about the music legend’s Atlanta Pop set and the circumstances
surrounding it, will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on 30 October. This will feature bonus content not included in the
broadcast version. The film documents
the massive festival hailed then as the ‘Southern Woodstock’ and recognised now
as the last great US Rock Festival. The
film presents the story of how rock music’s burgeoning festival culture
descended en masse to the tiny rural village of Byron, Georgia and witnessed
Hendrix’s unforgettable performance.
The film details the efforts by Atlanta promoter Alex
Cooley to create the definitive music festival.
Cooley secured such talent as Bob Seger, BB King and the Allman
Brothers, but Hendrix was the critical component he needed to elevate the three
day festival to a major cultural event. Electric Church features interviews with
Hendrix’s Experience band mates Billy Cox and the late Mitch Mitchell as well
as Paul McCartney, Steve Winwood, Rich Robinson, Kirk Hammett, Derek Trucks,
Susan Tedeschi, festival organizer Alex Cooley and many others. The film contains breathtaking, colour 16 mm
footage of Jimi Hendrix’s Independence Day appearance, a mere ten weeks before
his untimely passing. Standout performances
include such Hendrix classics as “Hey Joe,” “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),”
“Purple Haze,” as well as confident, compelling versions of songs such as “Room
Full Of Mirrors,” “Freedom,” and “Straight Ahead” that had not yet been issued
by Jimi on an Experience album, but were intended to be part of the album he
was working on that summer. “The Star Spangled Banner,” played against a
backdrop of exploding fireworks, is another highlight, which Cooley recalls as
having “knocked peoples’ socks off.”
By the beginning of the 1970s, Jimi Hendrix was
unquestionably one of the most exciting rock musicians of his generation,
having captivated the world with his highly stylised approach to blues guitar.
In Electric Church, Paul McCartney
freely admits to worshipping him, adding, “We all played guitar. We all knew a
bit. But he seemed to know more than us.”
Jimi Hendrix put the rock festival concept on the map
with his blistering performance at California’s Monterey Pop Festival in 1967,
headlining 1968’s inaugural Miami Pop Festival, and providing the soundtrack
for the counterculture with a dazzling set at Woodstock in 1969.
His performance at the Second Atlanta International
Pop Festival was not only significant on a musical level, but also in terms of
socio-political dynamics. The organisers were keen to push back against the
cultural divide that was very much in evidence in the Deep South. It was
assumed that rural audiences would not take kindly to “long-hair” bands, and
that black and white artists could not comfortably exist on the same bill;
Atlanta Pop set out to challenge those beliefs. Hendrix’s music and message of
universal love made him the ideal artist to represent that pushback, and,
appropriately, was the first act booked for the festival.
In the sweltering Georgia heat, amongst intimidating
bikers who were hired as security, hundreds of thousands of mostly young music
fans descended upon the festival grounds, eventually knocking over fences and
leaving the organisers with no choice but to declare it a free event. Law
enforcement, not equipped to handle such crowds, adopted a hands-off policy
with regards to crowd control, drug use and nudity. Against incredible odds,
the event proved to be largely peaceful. By the time the Jimi Hendrix
Experience took the stage on the evening of 4 July, the audience swelled to
more than 300,000.
Massive, anarchic music fests in the US, unencumbered
by high ticket prices and corporate sponsors were soon to be extinct, and the
Atlanta Pop Festival was the last of this dying breed. Glenn Phillips (Hampton
Grease Band) says, “This was, certainly in retrospect, sort of the end of an
era, and a great end to an era. It was a powerful moment.”
The Atlanta festival footage in Electric Church was shot by Steve Rash, later known for directing
such Hollywood films as The Buddy Holly
Story and Can’t Buy Me Love. Rash intended for the footage he and his team
were filming to be used for a documentary in the vein of Woodstock. When a deal
couldn’t be secured, virtually all of the film lay undeveloped inside Rash’s
barn for over three decades. The full-colour film stock held up remarkably
well, and makes for a transcendent viewing experience.
Bill Mankin, who worked on the construction and stage
crews for the festival, provides liner notes for the Freedom package, describing his first-hand account. He explains,
“At the center of the vortex was the master magician on guitar: the
personification of a life lived fully and wildly, with no boundaries, no
limitations, and aiming for the stars at light speed.”
Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church DVD/Blu-ray
(release date: 30 October)
Contains performances of three additional songs not
included in the broadcast version of the film, and other never before released
Hendrix bonus content.
Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church – DVD
Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church – Blu-ray
Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival – 2CD
Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival – 2LP VINYL
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