Popular Music as Concert Art

All of the concerts we have examined so far have been relatively formal affairs. They have taken place in concert halls, and the audience members have been expected to sit quietly and give all of their attention to the music. This final aspect is the hallmark of concerts: They are primarily for listening—especially in the world of art music, wherein composers and performers generally expect to have the undivided attention of the audience. 

There is a long history of concert presentation in popular music traditions as well. We will focus on those of the United States. In the mid-19th century, for example, the Hutchinson Family Singers became famous for their concerts of songs promoting abolition and women’s rights. Their music was aimed at an educated, middle-class audience; those who wanted more lively entertainment would attend theatrical productions. Although most concerts featured singers, one could also hear brass band concerts in local parks—or, by the end of the 19th century, even attend one of the lavish concerts put on by the showman John Philip Sousa (see Chapter 12). 

For the most part, however, American popular music has historically been found outside of the concert hall. In the early 20th century, one expected to hear the latest hit songs not in concert but as part of musical theater productions, variety shows, and motion picture programs. Likewise, the music played by ragtime pianists and jazz bands was mostly heard in drinking establishments and dance halls. This is one of the reasons that Paul Whiteman’s An Experiment in Modern Music was such a noteworthy event: He expected his audience to sit and listen critically to music that had been consumed primarily in the context of social dancing. Whiteman also sought to blur the lines between popular and art music during a time when the two were considered to be fundamentally different. 

Over the subsequent decades, however, this paradigm began to dissolve. Improvements in recording and broadcasting technology increased the flow of popular music into homes across the nation, and a powerful recording industry soon emerged. In the 1950s, a craze for rock ‘n’ roll swept the youth market. Television played an important role in building enthusiasm for the new musical style, but young people also wanted to see their favorite bands in person. At first, rock ‘n’ roll was primarily dance music. In the 1960s, however, the songs released by popular music labels became increasingly complex and sophisticated. (See, for example, the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, addressed in Chapter 7.) This music—termed rock—was, like classical music, meant primarily for listening. 

Rock concerts grew in size and frequency during the 1960s for several reasons. One was technological. A symphony orchestra can be made louder by adding more instruments; that’s how Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner overwhelmed audiences in the 19th century. A rock band, however, gets louder by using amplification equipment that can produce sound at a higher wattage. The early 1960s saw significant developments in amplification technology that allowed bands to player louder than ever before. This in turn made it possible for rock bands to perform in larger venues, including stadiums and outdoor amphitheaters. 

Americans also turned increasingly to popular music as they sought to understand and cope with the turbulent times in which they lived. The 1960s saw domestic upheaval on a level unprecedented since the Civil War of the 1860s. A series of high-profile political figures were assassinated, one after another: President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and, in 1968, both Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Vietnam War provoked increasingly violent protests, which were to culminate in the Kent State massacre of 1970. The Stonewall riots of 1969 marked the start of the LGBTQ rights movement, while the decade also brought the women’s liberation movement to the forefront of America’s conscious. The civil rights movement saw victories, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but black Americans continued to face discrimination and hate.

The “classical” music establishment of the 1960s was not well equipped to provide solace or emotional relief to listeners. After World War II, most serious composers abandoned audience-friendly styles in favor of experimental music. They did so for a variety of reasons: the fear that beautiful music could be turned to evil purposes (see, for example, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in Chapter 10), the conviction that human beings were inherently corrupt and should not use music to express their emotions at all, an intense desire to break completely with the past after the horrors of the war, and sheer fascination with the mathematical and acoustic potentialities of sound. Some composers continued to write beautiful and expressive music that helped listeners to grapple with feelings of loss and disillusionment: Benjamin Britten’s 1962 War Requiem is an excellent example. For the most part, however, listeners embraced popular performers whose music captured their hopes and frustrations. 

As a result of all this, rock artists gained prestige and influence, and the rock concert became a mainstream cultural activity. Economically, 1960s rock concerts served the same purpose as Beethoven’s 1808 concert: They made money for the band and its agents while winning new fans and developing interest in the music. People also attended for the same reasons (love of music and affirmation of social status), even if they behaved a bit differently. Near the end of the 1960s, concert promoters began to see the possibility of turning even bigger profits by organizing not just concerts but music festivals—multi-day celebrations that would bring together popular bands and attract tens of thousands of patrons. 

The first major music festival was the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival in Monterey, CA. This three-day event attracted 50,000 people and was immediately regarded as one of the great cultural landmarks of the decade. Its success inspired a slew of imitations. In 1968, the Newport Pop Festival and the Miami Pop Festival each attracted around 100,000 people, while the next year the Atlanta Pop Festival and the Atlantic City Pop Festival brought in closer to 110,000. However, all of these paled in comparison with the music festival that would go down in history as a watershed not only in the history of popular music but in the history of American culture: the 1969 Aquarian Exposition, better known as Woodstock. 

The Festival

Woodstock began as a promotional idea for a new music recording business. Early in 1969, Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld contacted New York City entrepreneurs Joel Rosenman and John P. Roberts for help financing a small recording studio in the town of Woodstock, NY. Rosenmann and Roberts were skeptical about the studio’s potential for success, but their attention was captured by a passage in the business plan that sketched out a small-scale music festival intended to celebrate the studio opening. They encouraged Lang and Kornfeld to abandon their idea for a studio and instead focus on putting together a festival to take place in Woodstock. The four young men agreed that the idea was good, and they founded a company, Woodstock Ventures, to facilitate the project. Lang already had some experience with the business end of music festivals, having co-organized the Miami Pop Festival in 1968. The Miami Pop Festival was small, attracting about 25,000, but it prepared Lang to anticipate the many logistical concerns that the team would face. And the festival at Woodstock wasn’t supposed to be that much larger: The organizers hoped to attract 50,000 people at the most. 

Things went wrong from the start. First, the organizers needed to find a location. It was important to them that the setting for the festival be attractive and bucolic, far away from the noise and pollution of the city. They wanted to sell the idea of an escape to nature, where participants could enjoy “3 days of peace & music.” Lang and Kornfeld initially planned to hold the festival in Wallkill, NY, but local residents balked at the idea of a hippie invasion and were able to prevent them from securing the site. Next, they tried to book a venue in Saugerties, NY, but again the deal fell through, 

Rosenman and Roberts, growing impatient with the other pair’s failure to confirm a location, leased a 300-acre industrial park in Wallkill for the festival. The town’s residents, however, launched a fierce attack against the project, and in July the Town Board passed a law requiring a permit for gatherings of more than 5,000. Later in the month, the Wallkill Zoning Board of Appeals banned the concert altogether on the grounds of sanitation concerns.

Finally, Rosenman and Roberts were introduced to dairy farmer Max Yasgur, who agreed to lease his 600-acre farm outside of Bethel, NY. Again, however, the organizers were met with local resistance, and they were unable to secure building permits from the Town Board until August 2—less than two weeks before the advertised start of the festival. 

This left the organizers in a very difficult situation, for they simply did not have time to erect all of the infrastructure that is necessary for a large outdoor festival. However, people were coming: The conflict between the festival organizers and the authorities in Wallkill had been widely reported, with the result that far more people knew about the festival than might have otherwise. About 186,000 advance tickets had already been sold, and the organizers had reason to believe that a far greater number of people were planning to attend. 

The organizers decided to focus their resources on the most important piece of infrastructure, the stage—for what is a music festival, after all, without a stage for the performers. This meant that fencing (to keep out unticketed patrons) and ticket booths (to sell those tickets) were left unbuilt, and Woodstock became, practically speaking, a free festival. (Woodstock Ventures did eventually turn a profit, but most of this came from a documentary made at the festival and released in 1970.) 

Although the organizers expected crowds, nobody could have imagined that people would flock to the festival in the numbers that they did. The morning of Friday, August 15, saw traffic jams that extended all the way back to New York City. Many people abandoned their cars and walked the final miles to the festival site, while the performers and sound crew had to be brought in by helicopter. Eventually, a state of emergency was declared in Sullivan County to deal with the unprecedented influx of people. The Governor of New York even threatened to call in the National Guard, but Roberts convinced him not to. All told, nearly 500,000 people attended the festival: ten times more than the organizers had anticipated. 

It is on these half a million people that we will now focus. Why did they come? And why did so many of them come? It is certain that visitors to Woodstock made the pilgrimage for many different reasons. Some were attracted by the rural setting (previous festivals had mostly been in cities). Some were intrigued by rumors about the legal wranglings that had kept the festival out of Wallkill. Some were excited by the lineup of star performers. Whatever their individual reasons for attending, however, almost all of the visitors to Woodstock were seeking some kind of relief in the midst of growing social unrest. Many were disillusioned by President Richard Nixon’s foreign policy, which had so far failed to bring the violence in Vietnam to an end. Others still grieved for Kennedy and King, whose murders came as a devastating blow to the civil rights movement. Woodstock, however, was not about politics—it was about music and community. 

Naturally enough, the festival organizers and local government officials were worried about what might happen when nearly 500,000 people came together on a mere 600 acres. Similar gatherings had been marred by violence, and festivals were likely to attract troublemakers. Astonishingly, there were no violent outbreaks of any kind. This is even more remarkable when one considers the fact that the festival’s troubles did not end with traffic. Because of the rush to construct the stage, other facilities were inadequate or non-existent. Camping was crowded, and few visitors were well-prepared. At first there was no food available on site at all; later, festivalgoers waited in line for hours to buy hot dogs. 

In addition, it rained. Wind and rain on Sunday afternoon brought the festival to a halt for several hours. Stage hands rushed to cover expensive sound equipment, while audience members huddled under plastic sheets. The fields turned to mud. All of this could easily have led to discontent and rioting—but instead, the visitors peacefully waited out the storm until the musicians could return to the stage. 

The Sunday storm also had a significant impact on Woodstock’s musical legacy. The festival headliner, Jimi Hendrix, was supposed to close out the program on Sunday night. Because of storm delays, however, he did not take to the stage until 9 am on Monday morning. His set is remembered as the highlight of the festival. In particular, his rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” has become an iconic cultural artifact representing not only Woodstock but the entire 1960s. However, by Monday morning, only about 30,000 people remained in the audience—everyone else had gone home. 

We will consider Hendrix and his performance in detail, but first it is necessary to survey the musical program in general. The first band to sign a contract was Creedence Clearwater Revival, whose fame quickly attracted other major artists to the festival. Other big names included Santana, Janice Joplin, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Also on the program was the North Indian musician Ravi Shankar (discussed in Chapter 6), who had also played for enthusiastic crowds at the Monterey Pop Festival. 

Just as interesting is the list of musicians who did not appear at Woodstock— especially those who are discussed in this book. Bob Dylan actually lived in Woodstock, but had planned a trip overseas to perform at the Isle of Wight Festival. Simon and Garfunkel were working on a new album. And The Beatles had already given up live performance for good. 

Jimi Hendrix's Set: "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Purple Haze"

Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) was the most accomplished and influential guitar player of the 1960s. He entranced audiences with his virtuosic feats and inspired a new generation of performers to treat their instruments as tools not only for the production of melodies and harmonies but for the sculpting of sound. His influence was particularly strong on Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page, all of whom responded to his unique ability to combine incredible musicianship with an innovative use of amplifier distortion and other effects to create sounds hitherto unheard. He experimented with a range of timbres that often crossed over into the world of pure noise, but which defined his playing and enlivened his studio albums—all five of which reached the Top 10 in the Billboard charts. 

Hendrix was born in Seattle, WA, where he began playing the guitar at the age of 15. He was particularly influenced by Elvis Presley and blues musicians such as Muddy Waters, and he spent his spare time learning their tunes by ear. Hendrix had a difficult childhood. His father was serving in the US Army at the time of his birth. Following his discharge at the conclusion of World War II, the family struggled financially and both parents took to abusing alcohol, resulting in Hendrix’s mother’s death at the age of 33. Hendrix himself joined the Army after getting into trouble with the law as a teenager. He trained as a paratrooper, but his unprofessional behavior (he played guitar constantly, slept at his post, and failed to report for inspections) led to an honorable discharge on June 29, 1962, just over a year after he had enlisted. 

Freed from his military obligations, Hendrix took to music as a full-time pursuit. He first moved to Clarksville and then to Nashville, TN, where he had access to a variety of performance opportunities. Hendrix found work playing with bands that toured the Chitlin’ Circuit, which was a collection of Southern and Midwestern music venues that were friendly to African American performers during the Jim Crow era. 

All the same, Hendrix found his career opportunities limited by his race. In addition to the fact that he faced discrimination at performance venues, he also found that mainstream ideas about black musicians prevented him from playing the music he really loved. In Tennessee, Hendrix mostly played rhythm ‘n’ blues, the most prominent genre of popular music associated with the black community. However, he felt an affinity for rock music and considered himself to be a rock guitarist. It was therefore difficult for him to fit into the American music scene. 

In 1966, Hendrix solved this problem by moving to London. There, he put together a rock trio with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. They called themselves the Jimi Hendrix Experience and immediately made a splash on stage and in the recording studio. We have already seen how 1960s music was dominated by British bands in what has been termed the British Invasion. In a way, Hendrix himself became a British Invasion artist. His fame in the UK allowed Hendrix to remake his image and return to the United States under his own terms. 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience made their US debut at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, where Hendrix astonished music fans and performers alike with his ability as a guitarist (and his stage antics: he set his guitar on fire). He was therefore a natural choice for Woodstock, where he was paid the top fee of $18,000. Hendrix came to the festival with his new band, Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, although they were famously mis-introduced by the announcer as the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The band included several of Hendrix’s associates from Tennessee, including bassist Billy Cox and second guitarist Larry Lee. Additional percussion was provided by Juma Sultan and Gerardo “Jerry” Velez. 

However, Hendrix almost didn’t go on stage. He was upset by media reports suggesting that the festival was in shambles, and discouraged by the number of attendees: Hendrix didn’t like playing for large crowds. As of Saturday afternoon, he was still refusing to perform, but his manager finally talked him into fulfilling his contract. It took the band hours to make their way to the festival by car, where they found that no dressing rooms had been constructed. The newly-formed band was also under-rehearsed. According to Sultan, “We did not have a plan, we didn’t know what he was gonna play.” Although the set was recorded, two of Hendrix’s numbers from Woodstock have never been released—his estate has declared that they do not meet the required performance standard and has persistently refused to allow publication. 

Despite shortcomings, the two-hour performance has been described in transcendent terms by those who were there. Sultan provides the perspective of a band member: “It felt like three minutes, I walked out there, the sun was coming up and there was a sea of people, all this good energy, they were coming with the sun and light, it was overpowering. We could have played for hours more. . .” We will consider an eight-minute segment from near the end of Hendrix’s set containing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Purple Haze.” 

"The Star-Spangled Banner"

Hendrix’s performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” has been remembered as the culmination of Woodstock—a seemingly improvised expression conjured in the moment to express the hopes and fears of the crowds that had gathered there. In reality, Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner” was neither an improvisation—a rendition created in the act of performance—nor was it original to the festival. In fact, he had performed the national anthem more than thirty-five times in the month prior Woodstock, and would continue to include it in his concert appearances for the remainder of his career, making for a total of over sixty performances. What the audience heard was his carefully-considered arrangement of the national anthem for solo electric guitar.

Before we can address his arrangement, however, we need to consider the equipment that Hendrix used to create his sounds. At Woodstock, Hendrix played a white 1968 Fender Stratocaster (serial no. 240981) that collectors call the “White One,” owing to its Olympic White finish. Though he ate and wrote right-handed, Hendrix usually played guitar left-handed, strumming with his left hand. As seen in the documentary Woodstock, he played the “White One” (and most of his other guitars) upside down, restrung with light-gauge Fender “Rock ’n’ Roll” strings for left-handed playing. Hendrix’s Woodstock amplifier was a UK-built, 100-watt Marshall Super Lead, model 1959, known as the “Plexi” amp, which drove four 4-12 Marshall speaker cabinets that had been specially constructed for the festival. 

Between his guitar and amplifier, Hendrix used a series of three effects devices. First came a Vox wah-wah pedal, his use of which is particularly audible in the “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” introduction. The “small Fasel inductor coils in the Italian-made original were an important part of Jimi’s distinctive tone,” explains Paul Balmer. Next, there was a red Arbiter Fuzz Face, 

a primitive but effective mini amp, acting as a preamp stage [to overload the Marshall’s front end,] generating a rich harmonic distortion. [Its] germanium transistors were either two NKT275s or [two] AC128s. This detail was important, as was the matching of these wayward early transistors: a good, well-matched pair sounded terrific, but if poorly matched, they sounded like a mistake. . . . 

The other [effect] on the Woodstock stage [was] a Uni-Vibe (an early four stage phaser effect first developed in Japan by the Shin-Ei company): the second “volume pedal”-like device seen in the film footage at Woodstock is part of this Uni-Vibe rig. 

Hendrix positioned “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the climax of his set. He began the anthem’s four minute and thirty-eight second-long performance in a relatively subdued manner, with minimal ornamentation of the melody in the course of its first two phrases (that is, through the word “gleaming”). The first instance of what could be described as text painting occurs at the end of phrase 3, on the word “fight,” at which point the undulating melodic motion in his descending run can be heard as a Vietnam-era representation of the conflict that Francis Scott Key had witnessed more than 150 years earlier. From this point, the performance intensifies, and Key’s text provides ample opportunity for Hendrix to dazzle the crowd. At the beginning of phrase 5 (on the word “rockets”), he employs the wah-wah pedal for the first time, launching into a programmatic depiction of a fierce battle. Here, too, he first uses the Strat’s whammy bar, to great effect. (This “tremolo arm” is attached to the guitar’s bridge, allowing the player to produce vibrato. Because he typically played a right-handed guitar upside down, Hendrix, as clearly shown in Woodstock, developed a unique technique.) As the battle rages on, an even longer programmatic passage can be heard at the end of the fifth phrase, following the words “bombs bursting in air.” By the end of the sixth phrase (with the words “flag was still there”), the battle has drawn to a close, and the time has come to bury the dead. 

At this point, Hendrix interpolates the first half of “Taps.” “Taps” is a solo bugle call that, in its official version, is performed by members of the US military at military funerals and on a few other occasions. For older audience members, this quotation might also have been reminiscent of the first two lines in the refrain of the well-known patriotic song “Over There,”11 by George M. Cohan (1878–1942). Cohen wrote “Over There” in 1917 to inspire military enlistment after the US entered the First World War. (The song enjoyed renewed popularity in the early 1940s, with the country’s entrance into WWII.) Quoted below are Cohan’s original lyrics for the refrain: 

Over there, over there, 

Send the word, send the word over there 

That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming 

The drums rum-tumming ev’rywhere. 

So prepare, say a prayer, 

Send the word, send the word to beware 

We’ll be over, we’re coming over, 

And we won’t come back till it’s over over there. 

Paired with their arpeggio-laden melody, the first two lines of this refrain comprise an obvious example of word painting: Cohan’s melody resembles a military bugle or trumpet call. 

Following Taps, Hendrix concluded his rendition of the national anthem with a rousing performance of its refrain. (Textually, as shown in Chapter 9, the final two lines of each of its four stanzas are very similar.) Here, in a vivid example of text painting on the word “wave,” he uses the guitar’s whammy bar to produce a steadily widening vibrato that clearly depicts a flag waving in the breeze. 

Almost immediately, Hendrix’s performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was widely criticized. Negative commentators focused on its non-traditional aspects, and some accused the guitarist of disrespecting our national anthem. In late August 1969, less than two weeks after Woodstock, Hendrix addressed the issue during a press conference promoting his upcoming benefit concert for the United Block Association (UBA) of Harlem (New York). Having been asked why he had chosen to perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the festival, Hendrix responded, comparing his interpretation to earlier, more traditional ones: 

Oh, because we’re all Americans. We’re all Americans, aren’t we? It was written and played in a very beautiful, what they call a beautiful state. Nice, inspiring, your heart throbs, and you say, “Great. I’m American.” But nowadays when we play it, we don’t play it to take away all this greatness that America is supposed to have. We play it the way the air is in America today. The air is slightly static, isn’t it? 

This response is consistent with his others to similar questions about his decision, and taken together, they tend to reveal his iconic performance to be less about partisan politics and more about a longing for peace, a desire that all Americans can embrace. In his September 1969 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Hendrix denied that the rendition was “unorthodox,” adding, “I thought it was beautiful.” Looking back twenty years later, Hendrix scholar Charles Shaar Murray praised the performance as “probably the most complex and powerful work of American art to deal with the Vietnam War and its corrupting, distorting effect on successive generations of the American psyche.” 

"Purple Haze"

After finishing his rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock, Hendrix transitioned directly into one of his biggest hits, “Purple Haze.”13 This song will serve as a good example of the psychedelic rock sound developed by Hendrix and his UK bandmates. It will also allow us glimpses of Hendrix the songwriter, the recording artist, and the live performer.

Like many popular songs, “Purple Haze” emerged out of a collaborative experimental process. In late 1966, Hendrix was still seeking to develop his signature sound. The Jimi Hendrix Experience had landed their first hit on the UK charts in December, but Hendrix didn’t think that the song, “Hey Joe,” accurately reflected the band’s character, and he promised fans that the next single would be something special. “Purple Haze” began as a guitar riff—a brief melodic fragment that eventually came to be repeated throughout the final song. Hendrix’s producer, Chas Chandler, thought that the riff had potential and encouraged Hendrix to develop it into a song. According to Chandler, Hendrix finished writing “Purple Haze” in a backstage dressing room on December 26. 

On January 11, 1967, Hendrix taught the song to his bandmates and they made the initial recording in just three takes. The process, however, was far from finished. Chandler and Hendrix continued to discuss the track over the coming month, returning to the studio to record additional elements whenever they had an idea. Chandler then applied various effects to the recording. The final song, therefore, was the product of an extended period of studio experimentation, not a single recording session. This method of creating music had only recently become available with the advent of multitrack recording, which allows sounds recorded at different times to be combined. 

Although the process by which “Purple Haze” came into the world is complicated, at least it can be explained. The same is not true of the song’s lyrics. When asked what “Purple Haze” was about, Hendrix never gave the same answer twice. Once he said that the song was inspired by “a dream I had that I was walking under the sea.” Another time he claimed that it captured a mythical scene, perhaps “the history of the wars on Neptune.” Yet another time he said that it was a love song. Some have connected it with an episode from Hendrix’s life, who claimed to have been the victim of a voodoo spell cast by a girl he met while living in New York City. Music scholar Harry Shapiro has argued that the song was inspired by a book Hendrix was reading at the time, Frank Waters’ Book of the Hopi (1963), which describes Hopi rituals and legends. Finally, listeners have usually assumed that the song describes the experience of taking hallucinogenic drugs—something that Hendrix and other musicians certainly did, but which they could not explicitly reference in songs for fear of being banned from the airwaves. 

To further complicate matters, Hendrix once claimed that “Purple Haze” originally had “a thousand” words, but that Chandler had forced him to reduce the length of the song by cutting verses. (Chandler did in fact help Hendrix to trim his lengthy tracks so that they would be suitable for radio play—a process that they both agreed made the songs better.) However, no additional verses to the song have ever surfaced. 

The meaning of the lyrics probably doesn’t matter all that much. Hendrix, after all, was a guitarist, and his songs were primarily vehicles for his virtuosic playing. It is certainly the guitar part that made this song a hit. The guitar introduction to “Purple Haze” features a sequence of dissonant harmonies (better heard on the studio recording than in our performance) followed by an angular melody that rises and falls. Next, Hendrix lays out the harmonic progression that will be heard under the verses—the first chord of which has in fact come to be known as the “Hendrix chord,” due to its scarcity in the playing of others. The guitar is heavily distorted throughout, and Hendrix uses feedback as a musical device. 

For reasons of video quality, we will consider Hendrix’s performance of “Purple Haze” not at Woodstock but at the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival. In some respects, a live performance of “Purple Haze” might be considered inferior to the studio recording: The overdubbed vocals are lost, as are the various post-production effects. What we gain, however, is Hendrix’s extraordinary showmanship. To begin with, he doesn’t play the guitar like other people. In addition to holding the instrument backwards, he employs a variety of unorthodox techniques, including playing passages without the use of his left hand. Even more striking is Hendrix’s sexualized handling of the instrument, which he regularly positions between his legs. 

The context of a stage performance also gives Hendrix the opportunity to improvise a long, unaccompanied guitar solo at the end of the song. The studio recording likewise ends with a guitar solo, but it is accompanied by drums and bass throughout and characterized by the use of an Octavia effects unit, which produces high, ringing overtones. In this performance, Hendrix appears to have relied on his guitar’s inbuilt sound production capabilities. Although limited in his access to effects, Hendrix was no longer confined to the limited time frame of a pop single. He takes exactly the same amount of time—two minutes and ten seconds—in both the studio recording and stage performance to get through the scripted parts of the song: introductory riff, verse 1, guitar interlude, verse 2, guitar solo, verse 3. We can assume, however, that Hendrix conceived of the remainder of the song as a space for improvisatory exploration. In the Atlanta performance, he takes another minute and forty seconds to wow the audience with his bombastic playing. 

His appearance at the Atlanta Pop Festival turned out to be one of Hendrix’s final live performances. Just over two months later, he was found unresponsive in a London apartment. His death was attributed to asphyxiation following an overdose on barbiturates. The loss of Hendrix at the age of 27 is considered one of the greatest tragedies in the history of rock music. He was still at the beginning of what promised to be a dazzling career. In fact, he had just opened Electric Lady Studio in New York City and was looking forward to having greater creative autonomy as a recording artist. Hendrix, of course, was not the only victim of the drug-fueled popular music scene. His death reminds us that fame and success do not make life easy.