Reprise Records put this album out in 1970 -- nearly three years after Redding tragically died in a plane crash and about a month before Hendrix died from a drug overdose -- memorializing what I consider the two most important performances at the Monterey Pop Festival and arguably two of the most important live performances of the '60s. This album is so good, I listened to it four times today.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience performed a nine-song set on the last night of the festival, Sunday June 18, 1967. They were followed by The Mamas & The Papas, then Scott McKenzie (for one song -- his timely hit for the Summer of Love, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)"), and then a finale with McKenzie and The Mamas & The Papas covering "Dancing in the Street." But for all intents and purposes, Monterey was over as soon as The Jimi Hendrix Experience's set ended. As the back of the album sleeve accurately states, "When Jimi Hendrix left the stage, he had graduated from rumor to legend."
This was the first time the Jimi Hendrix Experience played to a live audience in the U.S. There's the great rock and roll legend that Hendrix and The Who sparred over which one would go one after the other, both wanting to one-up each other (and neither wanting to be one-upped by the other). Hendrix apparently won a coin flip and went on after The Who (with the Grateful Dead playing in between). The Who's performance was also the stuff of legend, with Pete Townshend smashing his guitar on the stage and against the amps, smoke bombs exploding, and Keith Moon kicking over his drum set as the band exited the stage.
During their nine-song set -- five of which are featured on this album -- The Jimi Hendrix Experience took it to another level, cranking through covers of Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor," Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," B.B. King's "Rock Me, Baby," and The Troggs' "Wild Thing," along with their own classics "Foxey Lady," "Hey Joe," "Can You See Me," "The Wind Cries Mary," and "Purple Haze." The whole set is fantastic, and my only complaint is that "Killing Floor" isn't included on the album.
But alas, the most important song is on the album -- their cover of "Wild Thing." It was during this song that Hendrix outdid The Who and established himself in the pantheon of rock gods, placing his Fender Stratocaster face up on the stage, taking out a bottle of lighter fluid, and setting fire to his guitar, while kneeling next to it and making kind of a snake charmer summoning motion as he sacrificed his guitar in front of tens of thousands of onlookers. He then smashed the guitar on the stage and threw its remains into the audience.
Just as Monterey took Hendrix from rumor to legend, it brought Redding from someone who was well-known in soul and R&B circles to a wider, more mainstream rock audience. He closed out the festival on Saturday night, a time slot usually reserved at music festivals for the biggest acts, and it probably seemed like an odd choice for festival attendees, especially when bigger names of the day, like Jefferson Airplane and The Byrds, performed earlier Saturday evening.
But once Otis took the stage, it was immediately clear that he was the show stopper. Redding's set was only five songs, but that's all he needed. Backed by Booker T. & The MGs and the MarKeys -- who performed three songs on their own before Redding came out -- Otis's set was both blistering and soulful, grabbing the audience and whipping them into a frenzy with a cover of Sam Cooke's "Shake," a frenetic version of "Respect" (a Redding original that, of course, became Aretha Franklin's signature song), a great cover of The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," and two other originals, "I've Been Loving You Too Long" and a version of "Try a Little Tenderness" for the ages (you fellow '80s children will recognize the latter as the song Jon Cryer's character Duckie famously lip syncs and dances wildly to in the record store in Pretty in Pink). Redding showed a largely white audience what black audiences already knew -- Otis Redding was a generational talent. For the first time that weekend, the audience members were rushing the stage, participating and dancing en masse, while Redding blew the doors off the place -- if there had been doors. He was an amazing performer, and sadly, he didn't get to enjoy the fruits of his crossover success.
My kids were listening to the album with me this morning, as I worked and they did school work. They were bopping their heads along and loving it almost as much as their dad. The exact album is not on Spotify, but someone made a playlist with all of the songs on this album, as well as some bonus songs from The Experience and Booker T. & The MGs.
Favorite song from Side 1: "Like a Rolling Stone" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The first track on the album is actually the third in the Experience's set -- their magnificent cover of "Like a Rolling Stone," the original being considered one of the greatest songs in rock history. Hendrix's cover is soulful and electric. He had a way of taking other artists' songs and adding his own signature. The band crushes it. Drummer Mitch Mitchell's delicious fills shouldn't go unnoticed, even if Hendrix's guitar work is the centerpiece.
Favorite song from Side 2: "Shake" by Otis Redding
Sam Cooke and Otis Redding are my two favorite soul singers of all-time. Cooke's live shows were supposedly frenzied performances where he brought the audience into hysterics, so it's fitting that Redding opened up his set with a cover of Cooke's 1964 hit "Shake." Redding, The MGs, and the MarKeys gave the song a Memphis soul update, speeding up the tempo and emphasizing those horns. The song makes you want to shake, right up until the orgasmic climax at the end of the song.
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