Jimi Hendrix Experience 1968 Atlanta, Georgia Jumbo Day-Glo Concert Poster....

Description

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN (TO ELECTRIC POSTERLAND)

Jimi Hendrix Experience 1968 Atlanta, Georgia Jumbo Day-Glo Concert Poster. A spectacular florescent psychedelic cardboard concert poster for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Vanilla Fudge, the Amboy Dukes and the Soft Machine at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium on Saturday, August 17, 1968.

This window card advertised two performances, basically day & night shows at 3:00 and 8:00 PM. It was a magical time for Hendrix... one month later his cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" would be released as a single, taking Jimi's career to a whole new level with a lead guitar solo that astonished everyone. And a month after that, Jimi's epic Electric Ladyland album came out, which cemented his status as the world's biggest touring rock star in 1968. He was simply untouchable.

Among the songs Jimi was known to have played in Atlanta were "Purple Haze," "Red House," "Wild Thing" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." We know, because this poster originated with a gentleman who attended one of the shows as a teenager, and then pulled down and hung onto his prized possession for all these 50+ years.

Graphic artist Dail Beeghly has emerged in recent times as one of the most popular and sought-after of the late-60's concert poster artists, with wildly popular (and rare) posters for shows by Hendrix, the Doors and Janis Joplin. He used maroon-red and Day-Glo peach to knock out a breathtaking design for this poster, which more than one elite collector has called the best Jimi Hendrix concert poster of the 1960's. The way Jimi's name extends all the way across the board, with "Experience" downplayed underneath it and all three faces appearing above it, thrills onlookers visually. Beeghly just had a magic touch with florescent colors and with drawing his main subjects instead of using photographs.

This one's as rare as they come, a masterpiece almost never sold publicly because the waiting list of private collectors desperate for it is long. Promoter Durwood Settles has said that he generally made only 100 of these classy jumbo window cards, and naturally most of them were thrown away after the shows. The few that did survive are usually beat-up, torn and weather-damaged.

So needless to say, this is the very first time Heritage has ever been able to offer one in our sales. We did find another auction result from a couple of years ago that brought over $27,000 for this poster, in the same condition.

Measures 22" x 28" and grades to Very Good condition. COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: The British group Eire Apparent frequently toured with the Experience in the 60's, and indeed they joined this particular tour beginning on... this very date, August 17 in Atlanta, Georgia. Thus, they were not part of Beeghly's poster design which, of course, was done weeks ahead of time. Also, Vanilla Fudge didn't make the 3:00 PM show, instead just playing the nighttime show.

Dail Beeghly designed posters for concert promoter Durwood Settles mostly in the Washington D.C. area, and his posters are now highly coveted in the collecting community... and very tough to find, in any condition. Simply put, everybody loves them. His work covers a short span in the late-60's / early 70's would often carry little emblems such as "Creative" (as this Hendrix poster does, lower right corner), "Creative Signs," "Creative Posters" or his stylized initials "DWB" laid out symmetrically.

Beeghly also had a career designing blacklight "head shop" posters in the same era, which were sold commercially through record stores, magazine ads, head shops, department stores and the like. His work can be seen in florescent posters depicting symbols of the times such as peace signs and flowers, and also merchandising posters for acts like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and others.

One final touch: Beeghly had fun with a subtle design element on this Hendrix concert poster that most people might not notice. There's a plus sign between the "E" in "Experience" and "V" in "Vanilla," indicating the Fudge was next (second-billed). Then there's an arrow leaving the Fudge and pointing to the Dukes. And then Soft Machine has their own peach ‘plus sign' at the start of their name. Pecking order established... cool!

Condition details: Poster has been lightly repaired by a world-class poster restoration expert. It didn't need much: the top two corners had small tear-aways which are now fixed, the bottom left corner had a small hole larger than a normal tack hole, and there were a couple of areas in the red with scrapes or gouges that were gingerly repaired, such as on Vanilla Fudge's jackets.

As it remains, surface creases lightly break color to the right of "Shows" and left of "Fudge"; tack holes in top & bottom center margins; three sets of staple holes in the red across the top and another below "R" in "Experience, and likewise in the bottom white margin. Also about five random tiny holes in the margins where perhaps pins were used. Standard amount of surface creasing and handling for a poster this old, especially through the "X" in "Hendrix" and the "B" in "Amboy" which are mostly seen only when the poster is tilted. Has the tiniest surface "nibble-aways" in the left and right white margins at the midway points. And on the verso, there are some of those as well as tape remnants and lifts.