Ten months later, Jimi Hendrix (sorry, "Gypsy Sun and Rainbows") gave America what she truly needed.

Well, at least the 180,000 or so that didn't leave Woodstock early.

Replete with hammer-ons, pull-offs and copious amounts of whammy bar, sure, Hendrix's particularly noisy cover is standard issue patriotism now.

But for the huddled masses gathered at Max Yasgur's dairy farm it was their own counter-cultural anthem.

Meredith Hunter's death at Altamont Speedway Free Festival a few months later might have snuffed out the spirit of the '60s, but for a brief time on a sleepy Monday morning in Sullivan County, New York, it shone in the glory of Hendrix's lysergic genius.

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