Woodstock is considered the first music festival to take place on the East Coast. Guess what? It wasn’t! More than a year before one million people gathered in upstate New York in 1969, we beat ’em to the punch. It’s time for the Miami Pop Festival to take its place in history.
Jimi Hendrix sings: “You got to be all mine — all mine. Woo, foxy lady.”
The Jimi Hendrix Experience headlined the Miami Pop Festival 50 years ago this month.
A new exhibit at HistoryMiami Museum is shining a light on it.
Jorge Zamanillo, executive director of History Miami Museum: “This exhibit was important to put up, because I didn’t know what the Miami Pop Festival was, sadly. I knew a pop festival took place here. I didn’t know it was 50 years ago, and I did not know Jimi Hendrix played here.”
The exhibit is more than just old photos.
Jorge Zamanillo: “’68. Everything that’s happening in Vietnam, civil rights, Coconut Grove and the counterculture, people picking up what happened on the West Coast and Monterey, joining the whole hippie movement and protesting — and that was happening here at the same time.”
The photographer whose work lines the walls remembers the reason he made it to the festival.
Ken Davidoff, photographer: “I was home, and I heard on the radio that Jimi Hendrix was going to be playing in Miami, and that’s all I needed to know.”
Truth be told, the festival actually took place at the Gulfstream Park racetrack in Hallandale Beach.
Even though it went down 15 months before Woodstock, the two events have something — make that someone — in common.
Ken Davidoff: “The promoter is the same promoter that promoted Woodstock: Michael Lang.”
All the great shots of Hendrix and other acts on the bill, like Frank Zappa and blues legend John Lee Hooker, came this close to never being seen.
Ken Davidoff: “The film falls out of my camera bag, and somebody actually comes up to me and goes, ‘I think you dropped this, man, here.’ There’s even two pictures where you can see the film at Jimi’s feet.”
There was a big party at HistoryMiami for the exhibit’s opening night.
Jimi’s younger brother, Leon Hendrix, was on hand to play some of his sibling’s most famous songs.
He hopes the exhibit will continue Jimi’s influence on future musicians.
Leon Hendrix: “That’s gonna only increase, as young people rise up and learn. When the music spirit comes up there and these young people — they’re coming, they’re gonna grab it and they’re gonna make good music.”
FOR MORE INFO:
HistoryMiami Museum
101 W Flagler St.
Miami, FL 33130
(305) 375-1492
http://www.historymiami.org/
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