ATM-251/252 San Antonio 1970 - master Jimi Hendrix HemisFair Arena San Antonio, Texas, USA Sunday 10 May 1970 support act: Country Funk digital copy of the master cassettes taper: Gerard Daily Disc 1 tape 1 (C-120) side 2 COUNTRY FUNK 101 Want 102 Got to be gone 103 A way to settle down 104 A part of me 105 Poor boy 106 When I'm without you JIMI HENDRIX 107 Intro 108 Fire 109 Foxy lady 110 Machine gun 111 Freedom 112 Red house Disc 2 tape 2 (C-60) side 1 201 Message to love 202 Getting my heart back together 203 Ezy ryder 204 Room full of mirrors 205 Star spangled banner 206 Purple haze tape 2 (C-60) side 2 207 Voodoo child (slight return) Jimi Hendrix - vocals & guitar Billy Cox - bass Mitch Mitchell - drums Background This recording was taped by Gerard Daily, a resident of San Antonio. He recorded many concert tapes in the San Antonio area from 1969 through the summer of 1970. That autumn he moved to Fort Worth to attend TCU; he didn't have a car at school and was stuck on campus, so his concert taping stopped. The best heritage of this recording previously circulating to collectors seems to have been 2nd generation (used for ATM-0127), although that lineage is uncertain. Adding to the uncertainty, other copies with undocumented lineage seem to have better sound. The master sounds substantially better than any of those - partly because of the generation difference, but also because many previous copies seem to have been processed in some way, resulting in a loss of sound quality. This 88-minute recording also captures the opening act, Country Funk. They seem to be appreciated even today, although they never achieved much fame during the group's lifetime. They released one self-titled album in 1970 and recorded tracks for a second album that wasn't released until 40 years later. The group's name is a bit misleading; their music and sound are reminiscent of Buffalo Springfield. Though Billy Cox had replaced Noel Redding on bass the band was still most of the time being officially billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience (hence Gerard's writing on the cassette label). Hendrix himself however doesn't seem to have called the band the Experience so apart from his comment about calling the tour the Cry of Love it's not really known what he himself thought the name of the band was. Some may prefer calling it the Jimi Hendrix Experience, some the Cry of Love band, for this set just "Jimi Hendrix" was used. Confusion has been generated over the years regarding the name of the venue. The Hendrix concert flyers advertised it as being held at the "Hemisphere Arena" (a spelling mistake still common to this day) while some tickets had "San Antonio Convention Center" printed on them. The correct location and spelling is "HemisFair Arena". Transfer In the Spring of 2011, Gerard was kind enough to send his master cassettes for digital transfer. The concert was recorded on two cassette tapes with a Toshiba portable cassette desk with an external microphone. The first was a 120-minute tape, with a San Antonio 7 March 1970 recording of the Jefferson Airplane on Side 1 (also in circulation). The recording of Country Funk and the first part of the Hendrix show (through "Red House") were on Side 2 of this tape. The second cassette, a C-60, captured the portion of the concert from "Message to Love" through "Purple Haze" on Side 1, with the last song "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" on Side 2. Although this is an upgrade over previous copies, there are still some difficulties with the audio, including bits of distortion during loud passages on the C-120 tape (probably caused by the much thinner tape), but these are on the master. "Message to Love," which begins the recording on the second cassette, is noticeably muddier than the rest of the recording; the microphone may have been obscured for some reason during this song. But overall, the clarity is much better than previous copies, making the recording much more listenable. Two transfers of the tape were made using different equipment and these were compared to each other so any problems with the transfer process were ruled out, all drop-outs or noises are on the master itself. No eq or denoise was applied. Art Cover art is available in two versions: art for a 2 cdr set with the support act Country Funk included and another version for a single disc of just the Hendrix segment of the tape. Those who wish to burn a 2cdr set should put the disc split between tracks 112 and 201, for burning just one cdr of the Hendrix segment choose tracks 107-112 and 201-207. Gerard kept clippings related to the concert, scans of color photocopies of these are also included.