What happened just before Jimi Hendrix hit it big? A new live album aims to answer that. Legacy Recordings is set to release Jimi Hendrix Experience: Hollywood Bowl August 18, 1967 on November 10 on vinyl, CD, and digital platforms.
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The concert performance was captured five days before the U.S. release of Are You Experienced, the debut album of the group led by the iconic guitarist and vocalist. According to an album description, the 1967 concert marked “one of the last times the band performed in front of an audience as relative unknowns.”
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The Jimi Hendrix Experience — a trio rounded out by Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums — were on the bill that night at the Hollywood Bowl alongside headliners The Mamas & The Papas. The new set includes a two-track live recording that has never been released through official channels or elsewhere.
Ahead of the album’s release the first track, “Killing Floor” has been made available to stream/purchase.
A new mini documentary titled Monterey Pop to the Hollywood Bowl chronicles Hendrix’s hectic journey upon his return to the U.S. from Europe in June 1967. It features new interviews from The Mamas & The Papas vocalist Michelle Phillips, Paul McCartney’s longtime guitarist Brian Ray, and others.
In the press release, Michelle Phillips, the only surviving member of The Mamas & The Papas, said she first saw the Experience perform at The Monterey Pop Festival. “We had never heard of him. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. And when I saw him perform I was mortified,” she said. “I had never seen anything like this, I’d never seen anybody treat their instruments like this. He was pouring lighter fluid over his guitar and then setting it on fire and — I really was shocked. I had no experience with this kind of rock and roll theatre. And that was the first time I had ever seen it.”
Photo by Doug McKenzie/Getty Images
