Freedom: Jimi Hendrix Experience Atlanta Pop Festival

From July 3-5, 1970, over 30 musical acts performed at the Second Atlanta International Pop Festival, including rock icon Jimi Hendrix playing to the largest American audience of this career. The audio release Freedom: Jimi Hendrix Experience Atlanta Pop Festival is available as a 2CD set and also as a 200-gram 2LP vinyl set. The first 5,000 vinyl units will be individually numbered.

His performance at the Second Atlanta International Pop Festival was not only significant on a musical level, but also in terms of socio-political dynamics. The organizers were keen to push back against the cultural divide that was very much in evidence in the Deep South. It was assumed that rural audiences would not take kindly to “long-hair” bands, and that black and white artists could not comfortably exist on the same bill; Atlanta Pop set out to challenge those beliefs. Hendrix’s music and message of universal love made him the ideal artist to represent that pushback, and, appropriately, was the first act booked for the festival.