Gallery
Posters created by Fantasy Unlimited (by Byrd) for Bill Graham. The poster for the Jimi Hendrix Experience was voted #8 in the Top 25 Rock Posters by Billboard Magazine. [4]
1968 No.7
Jimi Hendrix Experience
Fantasy Unlimited was a multimedia artists collective in New York.
The collective was founded by Peter Nevard in 1967. One of the co-founders was David Edward Byrd, whom Peter knew from art school. The collective lived and worked on a 110-acre (0.45 km2) farm on the bank of the Neversink River in Port Jervis, NY. [1] Peter Nevard was the leader and had most of the equipment and financial know-how.
The collective consisted of seven artists and did about one major commercial light show a month. These were, at that time, called Press Shows - a new product was presented with strobe lights, liquid projections, slide projections, film, smoke, bubbles, and modern dancers in flesh body suits. David Edward Byrd created projections, art slides, and glass paintings and ran special effects during the various shows.
Notable work:
but also work for:
among others.
In early 1968, work was started for Bill Graham for venues of major stars in the new Fillmore East Ballroom in Manhattan’s East Village.
Fantasy Unlimited created posters and other art work for, among others, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jefferson Airplane and Traffic.
Although the collective only existed for a few years, and may not have been a force culturally, it made some notable contributions (especially the work of David Edward Byrd).
Clairol's catchphrase: "Does She... Or Doesn't She?" was coined by Shirley Polykoff
Posters created by Fantasy Unlimited (by Byrd) for Bill Graham. The poster for the Jimi Hendrix Experience was voted #8 in the Top 25 Rock Posters by Billboard Magazine. [4]
Grushkin, Paul D.; The Art of Rock: Posters from Presley to Punk; Abbeville Press; First Edition 1987; 516 pp; ISBN 0-89659-584-6
O'Hagan, Helen, Kathleen Rowold; Bill Blass: An American Designer; Harry N. Abrams Inc. ; 272pp; ISBN 0-8109-3280-6
Shrimpton, Jean; Jean Shrimpton: An Autobiography; Time Warner Paperbacks; 1991; 254 pp; ISBN 0-7474-0962-5
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music".
John Graham "Mitch" Mitchell was an English drummer and child actor, who was best known for his work in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2009.
Electric Ladyland is the third and final studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the final studio album released in Hendrix's lifetime before his death in 1970. Released by Reprise Records in North America on October 16, 1968, and by Track Records in the UK nine days later, the double album was the only record from the band produced by Hendrix. By mid-November, it had charted at number one in the US, where it spent two weeks at the top spot. Electric Ladyland was the Experience's most commercially successful release and their only number one album. It peaked at number six in the UK, where it spent 12 weeks on the chart.
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Who and Ravi Shankar, the first large-scale public performance of Janis Joplin and the introduction of Otis Redding to a mass American audience.
The Fillmore is a historic music venue in San Francisco, California.
Are You Experienced is the debut studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Released in 1967, the LP was an immediate critical and commercial success, and it is widely regarded as one of the greatest debuts in the history of rock music. The album features Jimi Hendrix's innovative approach to songwriting and electric guitar playing which soon established a new direction in psychedelic and hard rock music.
Edwin H. Kramer is a South African-English recording producer and engineer. He has collaborated with several artists now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, including the Beatles, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, the Kinks, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, John Mellencamp, and Carlos Santana.
Axis: Bold as Love is the second studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Track Records first released it in the United Kingdom in December 1, 1967, only seven months after the release of the group's highly successful debut, Are You Experienced. In the United States, Reprise Records delayed the release until the following month. The album reached the top ten in the album charts in both countries.
"Foxy Lady" is a song by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It first appeared on their 1967 debut album Are You Experienced and was later issued as their third single in the U.S. with the alternate spelling. It is one of Hendrix's best-known songs and was frequently performed in concerts throughout his career. Rolling Stone magazine placed the song at number 153 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
"Hey Joe" is an American song from the 1960s that has become a rock standard and has been performed in many musical styles by hundreds of different artists. The lyrics tell of a man who is on the run and planning to head to Mexico after shooting his unfaithful wife. In 1962, Billy Roberts registered "Hey Joe" for copyright in the United States.
The second Atlanta International Pop Festival was a rock festival held in a soybean field adjacent to the Middle Georgia Raceway in Byron, Georgia, from July 3–5, 1970, although it did not finish until after dawn on the 6th. It was the only successor to the first Atlanta Pop Festival, which had been held the previous summer near Hampton, Georgia. The event was promoted by Alex Cooley, who had helped organize the '69 Atlanta festival as well as the '69 Texas International Pop Festival, and two years later would promote the Mar Y Sol Pop Festival in Puerto Rico from April 1–3, 1972.
"Third Stone from the Sun" is a mostly instrumental composition by American musician Jimi Hendrix. It incorporates several musical approaches, including jazz and psychedelic rock, with brief spoken passages. The title reflects Hendrix's interest in science fiction and is a reference to Earth in its position as the third planet away from the sun in the solar system.
The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival was an event held June 10 and 11, 1967 at the 4,000-seat Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre high on the south face of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. Although 20,000 tickets were reported to have been sold for the event, as many as 40,000 people may have actually attended the two-day concert, which was the first of a series of San Francisco–area cultural events known as the Summer of Love. The Fantasy Fair was influenced by the popular Renaissance Pleasure Faire and became a prototype for large scale multi-act outdoor rock music events now known as rock festivals.
Alan Douglas Rubenstein was an American record producer from Boston, who worked with Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Lenny Bruce and the Last Poets. He ran his own record label, Douglas Records.
Liquid light shows are a form of light art that surfaced in the early 1960s as accompaniment to electronic music and avant-garde theatre performances. They were later adapted for performances of rock or psychedelic music.
Karl Ferris is an English music photographer/designer. He worked on album covers for Eric Clapton, Cream, Donovan, The Hollies and Jimi Hendrix.
The Newport Pop Festival, held in Costa Mesa, California, on August 3–4, 1968, was the first music concert ever to have more than 100,000 paid attendees. Its sequel, billed as Newport 69, was held in Northridge, California, on June 20–22, 1969, and had a total attendance estimated at 200,000.
I'm in a Rock 'n' Roll Band! is a documentary television series broadcast on BBC Two, narrated by Mark Radcliffe and first broadcast from 1 May to 5 June 2010. The series charts the history of rock music, with the first five episodes focusing on different members of a typical band, such as the singer or the guitarist. The final episode is special live episode, featuring "industry experts discuss their favourite musicians before creating the ultimate fantasy band." This will also feature the result of a public vote, which will ask viewers who they think are the greatest rock bands and band members.
David Edward Byrd is an American graphic artist, designer, illustrator and painter known primarily for his poster designs.
Ron Raffaelli was an American photographer known for his documenting rock music icons in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Jimi Hendrix, for whom Raffaelli acted as official photographer in 1968. Raffaelli is known also for his fine art and erotic photography. His work has appeared in hundreds of magazine layouts, 50 album covers, over 40 posters, in six books and in public exhibitions.