Jimi Hendrix Electric Church

Yes, a couple of the interviews could have been pruned. I'm sure a lot of viewers would probably want to skip to the second half of the movie that is just music. But the townspeople speaking about the event, and the archival footage, show imagery of the 60s era that many young people today probably know nothing about. It also shows the two sides of the South, both the racism of the government and the goodwill of ordinary people. The most amazing thing is that almost half a million people gathered with no law enforcement to speak of and no one got hurt. This would be unheard of today.

A balance of interviews, appreciations and the actual 1970 Hendrix concert performance before hundreds of thousands of festival goers in a small town near Atlanta make this a quality viewing experience.

I recognized Steve Rash, the successful movie director, as a participant in shooting the Hendrix stage performance in the first place, retrieved after four decades as undeveloped film gathering dust in storage.

Many of the star's peers comment on the impact of Jimi on the music world at the time, plus lots of interviews with local people and officials regarding the commotion caused in their little nearby hamlet invaded by such a large-scale post-Woodstock event. The weekend concerts are cited as the end of an era, and certainly much of the innocence of the hippie and drug culture was lost thereafter.

Director John McDermott has delivered an entertaining and informative package but I was a bit dismayed by some of the gee-whiz content. At one point a fellow musician who attended goes off into pure hyperbole, even giving Hendrix those nostalgia-driven superlatives (virtually dismissing John Coltrane as another legend he had caught live and belittling the comparison in favor of Hendrix) that myths are made of. Having been a fan in the '60s of both Trane and Hendrix, I was offended by this segment, typically unnecessary and misleading. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I continue to object to so-called documentaries in which points-of-view are spewed out to a gullible or ignorant public and given the stamp of authority by their inclusion. That's why I feel the entire "documentary" genre category is suspect, merely constituting highly selective and subjective filmmaking that usually does away with actors & the like to supposedly make it different from "fiction", or so they contend.

So that leads me to conclude that perhaps Miles Davis was correct, in his well-documented disdain for criticism and analysis, wishing that the music (and his own, in particular) be left to speak for itself. Around 1966 he famously forced his record label (Columbia) to stop (at least temporarily) printing liner notes on the back of his LPs, as part of this philosophy -unheard of at the time (since liner notes were used in all genres to try and sell records with varying degrees of hype).

That means this Hendrix performance should have been issued as a real musical document, without interviews, hazy memories or any other embellishments beyond the actual Hendrix footage.

As producer of the Electric Collage Visual Music light show I was there for the entire event. A 3 day music festival with many well know headliner bands. Over 500,000 people in attendance. Georgia summper heat of near 100 degrees. Fun, music, peace and love.

The first half of the dvd is interviews and commentary about the era. The last half is the Jimi Hendrix performance at Atlanta Pop Festival 2 July 1970.

The first half sets the stage of the era for the concert. A historical event indeed. At that time Jimi described his set as "Electric Church" hence the name of the DVD.

It is also July 4th. To top it off he does a rendition if "The Start Spangled Banner" at midnight complete with fireworks. This version is without the insertion of the military "Taps" song (Woodstock version) as he plays the song straight through as only Jimi can do.

This was the one time Jimi worked with visual music artists. The Electric Collage visual music, unique to this pop festival, can be seen occasionally in Jimi's set. In the DVD the film clip of Jimi 1969 in Atlanta was from the Electric Collage film library.

It's a piece of history you don't want to miss.