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.
Release and charts
Reprise Records released Historic Performances in the United States on August 26, 1970,[1] less than a month before Hendrix died. It reached number 16 on the Billboard 200 albums chart[4] and number 15 on the magazine’s Top R&B Albums chart.[5] The Recording Industry Association of America certified it as a “Gold” album, signifying sales over 500,000 copies.[6] The album was not released in the United Kingdom.
Critical reception
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Christgau’s Record Guide | A–[7] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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]
Track listing
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | “Like a Rolling Stone” | Bob Dylan | 6:22 |
2. | “Rock Me Baby” | B.B. King, Joe Josea | 3:00 |
3. | “Can You See Me” | Jimi Hendrix | 2:30 |
4. | “Wild Thing” | Chip Taylor | 7:30 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | “Shake” | Sam Cooke | 2:37 |
2. | “Respect” | Otis Redding | 3:22 |
3. | “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” | Otis Redding, Jerry Butler | 3:32 |
4. | “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” | Mick Jagger, Keith Richards | 3:21 |
5. | “Try a Little Tenderness” | Harry M. Woods, Jimmy Campbell, Reginald Connelly | 4:40 |
Personnel
Side one
- Jimi Hendrix – guitar, vocals
- Noel Redding – Bass guitar
- Mitch Mitchell – drums
Side two
- Otis Redding – vocals
- Booker T. Jones – keyboards, piano, organ
- Steve Cropper – guitar
- Donald “Duck” Dunn – bass guitar
- Al Jackson Jr. – drums
- Wayne Jackson – trumpet
- Andrew Love – tenor saxophone
Production
- Producers: Lou Adler, John Phillips
- Engineers: Wally Heider, Eric Weinberg
- Photography: Jim Marshall
- Cover Layout: Ed Thrasher
See also
- Progressive soul
- Psychedelic soul
Bibliography
- DeCurtis, Anthony; Henke, James; George-Warren, Holly (1992). The Rolling Stone Album Guide (3rd ed.). Random House. ISBN 0679737294.
- Larkin, Colin (2006). Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Vol. 4 (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195313739.
- Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival at Discogs (list of releases)