A new Jimi Hendrix Experience live archival recording, Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969, is due out on November 18, just ahead of what would have been Jimi’s 80th birthday, via Experience Hendrix L.L.C./Legacy Recordings. The live record announcement arrives along with a preview track, “I Don’t Live Today,” originally appearing on the Jim Hendrix Experience’s 1967 debut, Are You Experienced.
Captured at the iconic L.A. arena — which had just opened two years prior — Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 features the original Experience lineup: guitarist Jimi Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding. Recorded in 1969 by Wally Heider and Bill Halverson, longtime Hendrix producer/engineer Eddie Kramer recently remixed the live record, which is arriving in its entirety for the first time. The package also contains liner notes from LA Times staff writer/critic Randy Lewis and a preface by ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, who attended the show and had recently opened for Jimi in his pre-Top band, Moving Sidewalks.
The Hendrix show at the Forum in ‘69 saw support from Chicago Transit Authority (later renamed Chicago) and Cat Mother & The All Night Newsboys. When the Jimi Hendrix Experience took the stage the audience was already riled up and remained raucous throughout. Jimi and company opened with “Tax Free,” an instrumental they’d leaned from Swedish duo Hansson & Karlsson while in Stockholm. The set also included classics like “Foxey Lady,” “Red House,” “Purple Haze” and an early reimagining of “The Star Spangled Banner,” which Hendrix would immortalize at Woodstock four months later. Jimi and company closed out with a 17-minute excursion on “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” encompassing Cream’s “Sunshine Of Your Love.”
Preview Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 with “I Don’t Live Today” below:
Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 Tracklist:
- Intro
- Tax Free
- Foxey Lady
- Red House
- Spanish Castle Magic
- Star Spangled Banner
- Purple Haze
- I Don’t Live Today
- Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
- Sunshine of Your Love
- Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
