‘Jimi Plays Monterey’ Captures The Moment Hendrix Changed Guitar Playing Forever 

The electric guitar has become such a fixture in popular culture we now take it for granted. Despite groundbreaking modern guitar slingers like Saint Vincent, H.E.R. and Tosin Abasi, traditional rock lead guitar playing is considered passé, casually dismissed as “boomer bends.” The New York Times published a think-piece last week titled, “Why We Can’t Quit the Guitar Solo,” as if it’s something we need to put behind us, like smoking cigarettes or sexting with an ex. It wasn’t always like this. The distorted sounds of 1960s rock drew a line in the sand, making everything that came before sound old-fashioned. While many pioneers helped lay the foundation for the rock to come, Jimi Hendrix was a force of one. His combination of technique, musicality, and sonic adventurousness remain unparalleled. 

In June 1967, few knew of Hendrix outside the United Kingdom. Though he cut his teeth on the black “Chitlin’ Circuit” and the clubs of Greenwich Village, he launched his professional career overseas with his power trio, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which also included drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding. At the urging of the Beatles’ Paul McCartney, the Experience made their U.S. live debut that month at the Monterey International Pop Festival, and would emerge as one of its most important and exciting performers. 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s set that night was filmed by famed documentarian D.A. Pennebaker. He included their pyrotechnic take on the Troggs’ “Wild Thing” in his seminal concert film Monterey Pop. Several songs were later featured on the 1970 live album, Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival, paired with selections by legendary soul singer Otis Redding, another of the festival’s breakout stars. The full performance wouldn’t see the light of day until 1986, with the release of the concert film Jimi Plays Monterey, which is currently available for streaming on HBO Max. 

The film begins with the recollections of John Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas, who helped organize the festival and says he first saw Hendrix play in the Village when he was known as Jimmy James. Hendrix’s arrival in London in late 1966 put the British guitar aristocracy on notice. While they had long emulated their American blues heroes and raised the voltage via cutting edge British tube amp technology, Jimi was both more authentic and more adventurous. Before his set at Monterey, he’s seen in the audience watching the Electric Flag featuring guitarist Mike Mike Bloomfield, then the rising star of stateside blues rock. He eyes Bloomfield like a lion studying the movements of the gazelle he plans to eat later that afternoon. 

The Monterey Pop Festival was the unofficial start of 1967’s “Summer of Love” and a coming out party for the late ‘60s hippie rock counterculture. Backstage, Hendrix and The Who’s Pete Townshend famously fought over who played when, neither wanting to follow the other. Jimi lost the coin toss determining who played last and, according to Phillips, jumped on a chair and said “if he was going to follow The Who he was going to pull out all the stops and blow everyone away.”

After being introduced by Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, the Experience opens with Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor,” now considered a blues standard but probably unknown by most of the crowd at the time. A flurry of hyperactive rhythm guitar introduces the song before Jimi turns up the volume knob on his Stratocaster and rips open the time-space continuum, exposing the cataclysmic future. He swings through the guitar solo, bending and sustaining notes unpredictably between flourishes of expert blues licks. The song ends with a few whammy bar pulses and the guitar feedback perfectly in pitch. Throughout the concert people respond with amazement, amusement and slack-jawed shock.

While much of the musical technology Hendrix used had been around for the better part of the decade, no one had ever combined the components with such musical fearlessness. The fuzz pedal had been heard as the buzzy hook on the Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” a couple years earlier, but when coupled with the 100 watt Marshall stacks Hendrix brought over from England, they could sound like a power plant about to explode or an elephant in heat. He plays the incidental noises they make, their hum and hiss, as much as the fretted notes on his guitar. It was probably the first time anyone in the U.S. had seen amplifiers that big or heard anything that loud. 

The rest of the concert pairs songs off Are You Experienced, the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut album, with irreverent covers. He turns Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” into a master class of R&B rhythm guitar styles. Hendrix gives the crowd plenty to look at too. Bedecked in psychedelic finery, he plays the guitar in between his legs, behind his head, and with his teeth. Mitchell matches his every guitar fill with frenetic drum rolls while Redding supplies the melodic foundation with basslines that are confident and understated at the same time. 

The Experience’s set that night famously ended with Hendrix ritualistically setting his guitar on fire before smashing it to bits. Afterwards, some in the crowd cheer while others seem unable to process what they’ve just seen and heard. While Jimi Plays Monterey suffers from after-the-fact editing, the reordering the original song order, the concert is left intact for the most part and is a wonder to behold. Superlatives like “first,” “best” and “historic” are overused but entirely accurate in describing the performance. From that point forward, electric guitar playing would never be the same.   

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter: @BHSmithNYC.