First Rays of the New Rising Sun

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First Rays of the New Rising Sun
Studio album by Jimi Hendrix
Released	April 22, 1997
Recorded	March 13, 1968 November 17, 1969–August 26, 1970 October 19, 1970 November 20, 1970
Genre	Rock, Psychedelic rock, Blues-rock, Hard rock
Length	69:25
Label	MCA
Producer	Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Kramer, Mitch Mitchell, John Jansen
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link
Jimi Hendrix chronology
Jimi By Himself: The Home Recordings (1995) First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) South Saturn Delta (1997)

First Rays of the New Rising Sun is an approximation of Jimi Hendrix's projected next album, based on recordings in the last months of his life, mostly in 1970. It was only in 1997 that Hendrix's family regained control of Jimi's recorded works and constructed this album. After release in 1997, First Rays of the New Rising Sun reached #49 in the US and #37 in the UK.

The name of the album, would more likely have been Strate Ahead [sic] as that was the last documented title Jimi used in his notes that actually had a track list.^[1] But this older title has a bearing on at least two songs intended for Strate Ahead - "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" and "Izabella". The New Rising Sun concept according to some sources, is related to Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction novel The Sands of Mars (1951) in which Mars's moon, Phobos, is turned into a new sun in order to heat planet Mars. Lyrics in the song Hey Baby are written about a person coming from the "land of the new rising sun". The song also mentions words "Jupiter sun". Also, "Izabella" refers to "new rising sun". Hendrix had maintained science fiction inspired material in all of his previous studio albums.

[edit] Album reconstruction

Recording engineer Eddie Kramer, who had recorded most of Hendrix's material, including his last songs, helped to compile First Rays of the New Rising Sun according to what he felt were the best choice of songs that could approximate Hendrix's wishes at the time. Much of the material had been recorded over the summer of 1970 at Jimi's just-completed Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Intended as a double-album, as his preceding studio album Electric Ladyland was, the album was mostly missing finishing touches before Hendrix went off to England to play the Isle of Wight festival, followed by a brief European tour. Hendrix never returned to finish the work required, drowning in red wine^[2] after taking an overdose of sleeping pills in London on September 18 at the age of 27.

No one can ever fully ascertain what the finished product would have sounded like had Jimi lived (with a presumed late 1970/early 1971 release date). This reconstruction of First Rays of the New Rising Sun, however, is as good a representation of what Jimi had fully realised up to that point as we are likely to get. The songs that were recorded and mixed during the summer of 1970 and have been left out of this compilation had not yet reached a stage where they wouldn't detract severely from the whole and we would still be no nearer to an understanding (see below at "Constructing the album"). During mid-summer 1970, Jimi even came up with the idea to release a triple-LP, titled "People, Hell And Angels" because he had so many new songs available for his next album. In the beginning of summer 1970, the time when most songs for the new album were recorded, "Straight Ahead" was the working title for Hendrix's next album. "First Rays Of The New Rising Sun" came as a concept-title when it became clear that all the new songs would not fit on a single LP. Jimi's manager, Michael Jeffery, however, wanted the next album to be a single LP, but Jimi thought a double, or maybe even a triple-LP, would be a better idea.

During the recording of his next album Jimi had written a few conceptual tracklistings. This tracklist written on a 3M tape box has no title and is not in Jimi's hand:^[3]

[edit] Side A

1. Dolly Dagger
2. Night Bird Flying
3. Room Full Of Mirrors
4. Belly Button Window
5. Freedom

[edit] Side B

1. Ezy Rider
2. Astro Man
3. Drifting
4. Straight Ahead
5. Freedom

[edit] Side C

1. Night Bird Flying
2. (Drifter's Escape)
3. (Come Down On Me)
4. Beginnings [scored out]
5. Cherokee Mist [scored out]
6. (Angel)

[edit] Side D

This section was blank.

On the tracklisting mentioned above, "Freedom" is both on side A and B, and "Night Bird Flying" is both on side A and C. Also, on the handwritten tracklisting, two songs on side C have lines through them, which obviously means that this was not a definite and final tracklisting. It is remarkable that Jimi did not include many other songs which he had been working on during the summer of 1970, including "Izabella", "Lover Man", "Stepping Stone", "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)", "Earth Blues", "In From The Storm", "Bleeding Heart", "Burning Desire", "Heaven Has No Sorrow", "Hear My Train A'Comin'", "Midnight Lightning" and "Send My Love To Linda".

The last Tracklisting we have is for an LP titled Strate Ahead [sic] this IS written in Jimi's hand.^[4] It is unknown what the crosses, ticks and dashes signify:

Songs for L.P.

->Strate Ahead-> x

1. Ezy Ryder x
2. Room full of Mirrors x-
3. Earth Blues - Today √
4. Valleys of Neptune -
5. Have you heard - √
6. Cherokee Mist - instr.
7. Freedom x √
8. Steppin Stone √
9. IZABella √
10. Astroman x -
    • Page 2/3
11. Drifters Escape
12. Angel
13. Burning Desire
14. Nightbird Flying
15. Electric Lady - Slow.
16. Getting My Heart Back Together Again
17. Lover Man
18. Midnight Lightning
19. Heaven Has No Tomorrow - slow
20. Sending My Love - slow to medium
21. This Little Boy
22. Locomotion
23. Dolly Dagger
24. The New Rising Sun (Hey Baby)

[edit] Constructing the album

As can be seen by the above list several new songs were underway. Some can be heard now on various releases, mainly in the very early stages of development, but some are hard to indentify i.e. "Sending My Love", is this the same as "Sending My Love to Linda"? "Burning Desire" only exists in live rehearsal/concert versions, "Locomotion" appears to only exist as some early lyrics on paper and what is "Electric Lady-slow"? "This Little Boy" appears to have no references and has dissappeared without trace. Most of the rest of the songs were almost finished when Hendrix died. Many songs only needed a final mix that was made posthumously. However, "Belly Button Window" was possibly intended to have more overdubs. Also "Beginnings" and "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" are both in early stages of production featuring just simple basic tracks which might have been recorded again. Some tracks, like "Straight Ahead", feature a preliminary vocal track that Hendrix had intended to record again. A vibraphone track was added to "Drifting" like Hendrix had planned - though he also had an idea of using another guitar track instead of vibraphones and it cannot be known what he would have chosen if he had directed the completion of the track himself. Mitchell and Kramer have claimed that only those changes, that they had talked with Hendrix, have been made for unfinished tracks. The song My Friend was recorded much earlier than the rest of the material, during Electric Ladyland sessions in 1968. Some people have raised doubts if Hendrix had ever intended to use that song on a future unfinished album. We will never know for sure, as by looking at these lists it can be seen that Jimi was still chopping and changing what tracks to use and still recording new songs. These released tracks, and the above lists have really only given us a rough idea.

Of the song's listed and being worked on at the time The Hendrix Estate decided to leave out "Drifter's Escape" (which was later to be found on 1997's compilation South Saturn Delta), "Come Down Hard On Me" and "Cherokee Mist" (both later released on the 2000s four-CD box-set The Jimi Hendrix Experience) all three of these are unfinished and would have detracted severely from the album. "Valleys of Neptune" and "Heaven Has No Tomorrow" are in too early a stage of development to be considered for a mainstream release. Deciding to add My Friend maybe was a bit off, but it is a classic . It is generally understood that Hendrix was trying to redefine who he was as an artist and clearly was using Strate Ahead, First Rays of the Rising Sun or whatever his next project would have eventually been entitled, as the dawn of a new era, hence the original title he gave the project. Whatever changes Jimi had in mind, his songwriting skills were still intact in his final months. There are many Hendrix favorites to be found here, not least of all "Angel", "Freedom", "Ezy Rider", "Drifting" and "In From The Storm". The song "Ezy Ryder" was not used in the movie of the same name but was inspired after Hendrix watched it.

[edit] Previous attempts

The only previous attempts to release the music of the unfinished Hendrix album were The Cry of Love (1971) with the Rainbow Bridge LP (also 1971, but seven months later) both produced by Eddie Kramer and Mitch Mitchell. These two LPs coupled are essentially the same as the First Rays Of The New Rising Sun CD, but missing only three songs, and the three songs missing from these were all on the next and last posthumous LP produced by Kramer War Heroes. The reason for the bulk of these tracks being split between two LPs was Hendrix & Jeffery's contract to provide a soundtrack LP for Rainbow Bridge. First Rays is more or less just Eddie putting these two LPs back together and with the three tracks he was obliged to put on War Heroes. The three tracks used for War Heroes were replaced on Rainbow Bridge by "Look Over Yonder", the 'live' "Hear My Train A Comin'" (for which there is a listing, albeit probably for a new studio version) and "Pali Gap", a multi-tracked solo "Star Spangled Banner" was also added. These tracks were used to give it a "soundtrack" appearance.

And then came Voodoo Soup 24 years later (1995) produced by Allan Douglas. This collection misses out several important tracks, replaced by songs that have no connection and in addition, its tracks were post-edited. For example, some instrument tracks had been removed and some new drum overdubs by Bruce Gary, who had never played with Hendrix had been inserted. The unfamiliar new mixes were deemed unpleasant and pointless. This post-editing caused negative reactions among Hendrix fans^[5] and sounded the end for Douglas' administration of the Hendrix catalog.

[edit] Track listing

All songs were written by Jimi Hendrix.

1. "Freedom" – 3:27
2. "Izabella – 2:50
3. "Night Bird Flying" – 3:50
4. "Angel" – 4:22
5. "Room Full of Mirrors" – 3:20
6. "Dolly Dagger" – 4:44
7. "Ezy Ryder" – 4:09
8. "Drifting" – 3:48
9. "Beginnings" – 4:13
10. "Stepping Stone" – 4:12
11. "My Friend" – 4:36
12. "Straight Ahead" – 4:42
13. "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" – 6:04
14. "Earth Blues" – 4:21
15. "Astro Man" – 3:34
16. "In From the Storm" – 3:41
17. "Belly Button Window" – 3:36

"Straight Ahead" used the music from the earlier "Pass It On" but had completely new lyrics.

[edit] Personnel

• Jimi Hendrix – guitar, vocals, backing vocals, bass, piano, producer, mixing
• Billy Cox – bass guitar, backing vocals
• Mitch Mitchell – drums, producer, mixing
• Juma Sultan – percussion

• Buddy Miles – drums (on tracks 5, 7 & 14), backing vocals
• Albert Allen – backing vocals (The Ghetto Fighters)
• Arthur Allen – backing vocals (The Ghetto Fighters)
• Billy Armstrong – percussion on Ezy Rider
• Buzzy Linhart – vibraphone on Drifting
• Emmeretta Marks – backing vocals
• The Ronettes – backing vocals
• Steve Winwood (Traffic)– backing vocals on Ezy Rider
• Chris Wood (Traffic) – backging vocals on Ezy Rider
• Kenny Pine (The Fugs) – 12 string on "My Friend"
• Stephen Stills – piano on "My Friend"
• Paul Caruso – harmonica on "My Friend"
• Jimmy Mayes – drums on "My Friend"

• Eddie Kramer – producer, engineer, mixing, photography, remastering
• Tony Bongiovi – engineer
• Jack Adams – engineer
• Bob Cotts – engineer
• Bob Hughes – engineer
• John Jansen – engineer

• John McDermott – liner notes, remastering supervisor

[edit] References