Are you ready to get Experienced, once again? 45 years ago, The Jimi Hendrix Experience played to the largest American audience of its career on the stage of the Atlanta Pop Festival, alongside other artists including The Allman Brothers Band, Mott the Hoople, Procol Harum, Rare Earth, and even a company of Hair! The now-legendary performance of Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox on July 4, 1970 will be chronicled this fall with a new documentary film and live album. Legacy Recordings previewed the upcoming release Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival earlier this year with the Record Store Day-exclusive vinyl single of "Purple Haze" b/w "Freedom." On August 28, the rest of Freedom will arrive on 2 CDs or 2 vinyl LPs. The first 5,000 copies of the vinyl release will be individually numbered.
The 16-song live recording includes familiar Hendrix favorites like "Foxy Lady," "Hey Joe," "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," and of course, a rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" befitting the July 4 date. Freedom will be accompanied this fall by the documentary Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church, set for airing on Showtime on September 4. DVD/BD releases follow on October 30 with additional content not included in the television broadcast. This new film features interviews with Hendrix's bandmates Cox and the late Mitchell as well as Steve Winwood, Paul McCartney, Atlanta Pop organizer Alex Cooley and others.
Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival arrives on August 28 from Legacy Recordings and can be pre-ordered at the links below!
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival 1970 (Experience Hendrix/Legacy, 2015)
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
CD/LP 1
- Fire
- Lover Man
- Spanish Castle Magic
- Red House
- Room Full of Mirrors
- Hear My Train A-Comin'
- Message to Love
CD/LP 2
- All Along the Watchtower
- Freedom
- Foxy Lady
- Purple Haze
- Hey Joe
- Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
- Stone Free
- The Star-Spangled Banner
- Straight Ahead
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Release Round-Up: Week of November 10
Joe thanks for the heads up the Atlanta Pop Festival was that the same live album that was released last year?
Or would this be a different album completely?
Hendrix's Miami Pop performance was released by Legacy/Experience Hendrix in 2013; this Atlanta Pop performance is a new, first-time release.
Any justification given for omitting the final song, Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)?
To answer your question, while Jimi could normally be very skillful at re-tuning his guitar "on the fly" mid-song, in this instance, Jimi's guitar got so drastically out of tune, that even he could not re-tune it. Jimi never started the vocal for "Hey Baby(New Rising Sun)", and simply found a way to quickly bring the song to an end. The tuning issue is so drastic that no modern technology could fix it. The omission of this track is merciful....to the fans and to Jimi's reputation.
The fourth disc of the Stages box set included 11 songs from this concert, so most of it is not unreleased. Hopefully this will be better as it's more complete and presumably in the correct sequence.
I should also note, that while the video program (to be released in October) adds some new documentary features and interviews, only 10 of the songs from Hendrix's Atlanta performance were filmed. No new Hendrix footage(beyond what was included in the UK/Japan video release of the early 1990's) will be included.
Red House, Message To Love, Watchtower, Freedom, and Hey Joe are all new with this edition. Can't imagine why Watchtower at least wouldn't have been on the Stages release, but glad to see it here and looking forward to hearing this whole set in less than a month.
Now I wonder if there's anything left off the San Diego '69 Stages disc from that performance, and hoping Legacy/Experience Hendrix might produce an upgrade for that show, rather than leave it chopped up among various compilations as it is right now.
It's amazing that for a long time the only well-recorded live Hendrix readily available was Band of Gypsys and the Monterey and Woodstock excerpts. Even more amazing that the abundance of live releases now each continually manage to thrill despite the redundancy inherent in set lists limited to essentially the same two dozen songs.
The release of the San Diego 1969 show on the deleted Reprise 4-CD box "Stages" omitted one song. It is 'Foxy Lady".
Thanks for that info. I should have guessed as much. San Diego 1969 is my favorite of the original JHE's released performances. Since the Atlanta 1970 disc from Stages is apparently both sorely incomplete and resequenced, I was hoping the same might be true of the San Diego set, especially compared to the longer concert of similar time frame but reduced recording quality Oakland set direct from Experience Hendrix.
I'm expecting (since "all Along The Watchtower" opens "Disc 2"), that the song will fade up(as it has on any previous audio or video release). The explanation that I've heard is that Hendrix accidentally started the song in the wrong key, then changed to the correct key before starting the vocal.
Phil thanks for heads up looks like it's still available second hand at a place called discogs market place, looks as though there are 4 still available and i would imagine they're second hand,
Experience Hendrix is running out of options for future releases. The legal stalemate over the Royal Albert Hall film and soundtrack has gone on for 45 years, and is unlikely to be resolved during the lifetimes of original fans such as myself. EH stated that "People Hell & Angels" will be the final studio albums. EH could release more instrumental jams through their mail order label "Dagger", but Sony seems to oppose the mail order releases (though they permit previous "Dagger" titles to remain in print).
The only remaining possible live CD releases will be:
1. A complete "Band of Gypsies" concert boxed set
2. A complete San Diego 1969 release.
3. A reissue of Los Angeles Forum 1969.
4. The first Berkeley 1970 show
5. A complete New York Pop Festival(AKA Randall's Island) CD
6.More remixed/recompiled Curtis Knight & The Squires discs.
The well is indeed running dry.
I REALLY hope we see your number 1 - complete Band of Gypsys box set. We've had bonus tracks and edited expansions, but nothing close to complete so far. Yes, some of it is meandering. Yes, some of it is repetitive. But it would really be good to hear that material in solid quality. Phil, thanks for your detailed answers and comments - it's refreshing!
You'll note that the Fillmore East 2-CD set is the only Hendrix album released by MCA that was not reissued when the Hendrix catalogue moved to Sony Music. Since the release of the MCA set, EH has obtained superior source tapes for the four Band of Gypsies concerts....the actual multitrack tapes.
Concerning other possible future releases. Experience Hendrix has the multi-track audio tapes for both of the Maui, Hawaii performance of July 30, 1970. Supposedly they also have more unreleased video of the performances which had appeared in the film Rainbow Bridge. In the past they have mentioned the future release of both a more complete film and separate audio CD. One other item they are sitting on is the Black Gold home recordings. Any info as to whether either will see the light of day?
One of my favorite shows from the Stages boxed set. Looking forward to hearing the full show.
All Along The Watchtower does not fade in, however the beginning is from the film crews audio recording because the multi track master started late. Jimi does start the song in the wrong key. My unofficial DVD shows the same. I'm glad they left it in.It happened and it's real. Thanks EH for being honest in the music at least in this song.