Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival is a live album recorded at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967. A split artist release, it documents performances by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on side one and Otis Redding on side two.
Critical reception
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [2] |
| Christgau’s Record Guide | A–[7] |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [8] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [9] |
In a contemporary review of the album, Jeffrey Drucker of Rolling Stone magazine said “memories are made of sets like this”, and “even if you weren’t [there], you’ll find some very satisfying music by two of our most gifted artists.”[10]
In Christgau’s Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), music critic Robert Christgau called the album “as evocative a distillation of the hippie moment in all its hope and contradiction as you’ll ever hear.” He described Redding and Hendrix as “two radically different black artists showboating at the nativity of the new white rock audience”, who had both “performed more subtly and more brilliantly” elsewhere, and were “equally audacious and equally wonderful” at the festival.[7]
In a lukewarm review, AllMusic’s Bruce Eder regarded Historic Performances as a significant album when it was released, but it has become “purely of historic interest as an artifact of the time.”[2]
