Lack of organization prompted Hendrix to concentrate mostly on extended jams, and his playing was characteristically excellent. The group assembled on stage with Hendrix was a one-off appearance by an expanded ensemble that Hendrix called Gypsy Sun & Rainbows and featured the likes of Mitch Mitchell on drums, Billy Cox on bass, Larry Lee on rhythm guitar, Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez on percussion and Hendrix leading the way with guitar and vocals.Īnd while their performance was rough around the edges, given the conditions under which they were forced to play, the set was commendably strong. Cold, hungry, and lacking the most basic amenities, those who waited for Hendrix to perform were to become witnesses to one of the pivotal moments of the tumultuous ’60s. By this time, the festival grounds were a wasteland of mud and debris. It would be some ten hours after he was originally slated to play that Hendrix would finally perform on a soggy Monday morning before a crowd that had dwindled from a weekend high estimated at 400,000 to a comparative paucity of 30,000. Originally booked to close the festival the previous night, schedules had, by this time, gone the way of the fences that once enclosed Max Yasgur’s farm. When Hendrix and his band took the stage at Woodstock on August 18, 1969, circumstance had altered the nature of the intended performance. Galvanized by conflicting struggles between the powers sanctioning (among other things) the war in Vietnam and those advocating alternative ways of being, “SSB” can, in a sense, be seen as the culmination of Hendrix’s artistic vision, as well as one of the high points of his unsurpassed technical achievement. “Jimi Hendrix’s performance of ‘Star Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock was a turning point in the history of the counter-culture movement.” ~ Wayne Pernu As a summing up of one of the most volatile eras in the nation’s history, his adaptation of our national anthem has entered our cultural lexicon as perhaps the most powerful musical touchstone of the era, a zeitgeist of expressiveness. Jimi Hendrix’s performance of “Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock was a turning point in the history of the counter-culture movement.

STAR SPANGLED BANNER – Jimi Hendrix At Woodstock: The Anthem of a Generation

Words of the star spangled banner song