Jimi Hendrix “Live In Maui” Features Documentary and Rare Performance
The Jimi Hendrix Estate has released another live performance from the vault called Live in Maui, which combines a new feature-length documentary called Music, Money, Madness… with two full sets from July 30, 1970. Playing from the dormant crater of the Haleakala volcano, the guitar legend’s Experience trio was in its lineup of drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox. The group was in Maui for a vacation before heading out on a European vacation before they were “ ensnared with the ill-fated Rainbow Bridge movie produced by their controversial manager Michael Jeffery.” Live in Maui’s included documentary covers the haphazard making of the film.
“Directed by John McDermott and produced by Janie Hendrix, George Scott, and McDermott, Music, Money, Madness . . . Jimi Hendrix In Maui incorporates never-before-released original footage and new interviews with firsthand participants and key players such as Billy Cox, Eddie Kramer, Warner Bros. executives, and several Rainbow Bridge cast members, as well as its director Chuck Wein,” the Hendrix website explains. “Their fascinating account tells the definitive story about one of the most controversial independent films ever made.”
The concert portion of the release has been restored and mixed by longtime Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer. The Experience performed crowd favorites like “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” and “Purple Haze” as well as the then-unreleased songs “Freedom” and “Dolly Dagger”. In a recent interview with Kramer and Alice Cooper, Billy Cox explained how he and Hendrix wrote the latter.
“There was one morning I was sitting out on the balcony [in New York] with our instruments. The only time we brought them in was if it was raining,” he said. “I got up early one morning with a bowl of Corn Flakes and started turning up and playing around. All of the sudden [I started playing] ‘Big Ben’. The window goes upstairs and Jimi said, ‘Keep playing that!’ [We played it again] and I said, ‘Ok, where do we go from there.’ That was the beginning of ‘Dolly Dagger’.”
Check out Cox, Hendrix, and Mitchell laying it down on “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”:
Live in Maui is available now on CD, vinyl and as a digital download (iTunes and Amazon MP3).
Live in Maui Track List:
Disc 1:
- Chuck Wein Introduction
- Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)
- In From The Storm
- Foxey Lady
- Hear My Train A-Comin’
- Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
- Fire
- Purple Haze
- Spanish Castle Magic
- Lover Man
- Message to Love
Disc 2:
- Dolly Dagger
- Villanova Junction
- Ezy Ryder
- Red House
- Freedom
- Jam Back at the House
- Straight Ahead
- Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)/Midnight Lightning
- Stone Free
