Jimi Plays Berkeley

Joan Churchill, Peter Pilafian, Eric Saarinen, Baird Bryant, United States, 1971

Edited and released shortly after Hendrix’s untimely death, Jimi Plays Berkeley was filmed at two concerts held at the Berkeley Community Theater in May 1970. Interviews with fans and footage of anti–Vietnam War protesters and their pool-hall detractors are interspersed with great performances of Hendrix classics “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” “Purple Haze,” “Machine Gun,” and others, with bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell.