First Rays of the New Rising Sun

First Rays of the New Rising Sun is an approximation of Jimi Hendrix's projected last album, recorded in the last months of his life, mostly in 1970. In 1997, after Hendrix's family had regained control of Jimi's recorded works - and in the process mercifully wiped out the dozens of bogus "posthumous" albums that had littered his catalog - his intended "next" album was carefully reconstructed.

Recording engineer Eddie Kramer, who had recorded most of Hendrix's material, including his last songs, helped to complile First Rays of the New Rising Sun, according to Hendrix's specifications 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, suffering a sleeping pill overdose in London on September 18th at the age of 27.

Although 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 is most likely the best representation of what Jimi would have intended.

Many critics of the album have pointed out that Hendrix was trying to redefine who he was as an artist and clearly was using First Rays of the Rising Sun as the dawn of a new era, hence the 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 two most comprehensive previous attempts to release the music of the unfinished Hendrix album were The Cry of Love (1971) and Voodoo Soup (1995). The problem with Cry of Love album was that many of the important tracks were not yet available to use at the time of its release (according to Kramer). Thus Cry of Love has only ten tracks, omitting "Izabella", "Room Full of Mirrors", "Dolly Dagger", "Beginnings", "Stepping Stone", "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" and "Earth Blues". The problem with Voodoo Soup was that it, again, missed a couple of important tracks and in addition its tracks were post-edited. For example some instrument tracks had been removed and some new drum overdubs had been inserted. This post-editing caused negative reactions among Hendrix fans.

Most of songs appearing on the album were almost finished when Hendrix passed away. Many songs only needed a final mix that was made posthumously. However, "Belly Button Window" is merely a demo tape featuring Hendrix alone. Also "Beginnings" and "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" are both in the very early stage of production featuring just simple basic track 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 had 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" is 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 his unfinished album.

The name of the album may be related to Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction novel The Sands of Mars (1951) in which Jupiter's moon, Phobos, is turned into a new sun in order to heat planet Mars. Lyrics in a song "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" are written about a person coming from the "land of the new rising sun". The song also mentions words "Jupiter sun". Also a song "Izabella" refers to "new rising sun". Hendrix has actually maintained science fiction inspired material on all his studio albums.

While released in 1997, First Rays of the New Rising Sun reached #49 in the US and #37 in the UK.

Track listing

All songs by Jimi Hendrix.

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

Personnel

Buddy Miles - drums (on tracks 2, 5 & 7), Backing Vocals
Jack Adams - Engineer
Albert Allen - Backing Vocals
Arthur Allen - Backing Vocals
Billy Armstrong - Percussion
Tony Bongiovi - Engineer
Paul Caruso - Harmonica on "My Friend"
Bob Cotto - Engineer
Billy Cox - bass guitar, Backing Vocals
Jimi Hendrix - Bass, Guitar, Piano, Vocals, Backing Vocals, Producer, Mixing
Bob Hughes - Engineer
John Jansen - Producer, Mixing
Eddie Kramer - Producer, Engineer, Mixing, Photography, Remastering
Buzzy Linhart - Vibraphone
Emmeretta Marks - Backing Vocals
James Mayes - Drums on "My Friend"
John McDermott - Liner Notes, Remastering Supervisor
Mitch Mitchell - Drums, Producer, Mixing
The Ronettes - Backing Vocals
Stephen Stills - Piano on "My Friend"
Juma Sultan - Percussion
Steve Winwood - Backing Vocals
Chris Wood - Background Vocals