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List Price: $11.98 | | Label: Mca
Salesrank: 1013286
Released: April 22, 1997 |
| Our Price: $29.99 |
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| Media: Audio Cassette |
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First Rays of the New Rising Sun Track Listing:
1. Freedom
2. Izabella
3. Night Bird Flying
4. Angel
5. Room Full of Mirrors
6. Dolly Dagger
7. Ezy Ryder
8. Drifting
9. Beginnings
10. Stepping Stone
11. My Friend
12. Straight Ahead
13. Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)
14. Earth Blues
15. Astro Man
16. In from the Storm
17. Belly Button Window
Editorial Review:
The guy was damn ingenious with a guitar, but not half as industrious as the folks who've packaged and repackaged his posthumous material. First Rays of the New Rising Sun, however, is an attractive assortment of "spiritual, very earthy" late recordings that surfaced in the '70s via The Cry of Love, Crash Landing, Rainbow Bridge, and War Heroes. Hendrix appeared to be in transition between flamboyant showman and serious musician personas at the time (meaning his work, had he lived, might have been twice as meritorious and half as fun), and that makes many of these tracks all the more interesting. --Steven Stolder
First Rays of the New Rising Sun Reviews:
Posthumous reconstruction 
2008-06-30 - Posthumous reconstructions of unfinished works are inherently dangerous, principally because even the most capable scholar or producer can only make, at best, an educated guess as to how the work in question would have been completed. Indeed, in dealing with some such pieces, you're sometimes lucky to get the work of the artist claimed (the Mozart Symphony No. 37 is a case in point -- it doesn't exist; the piece once labeled Symphony No. 37 and attributed to Mozart is now known to have been authored by Michael Haydn); and while there's no question that the songs on this CD were recorded by Jimi Hendrix, even the people who worked on the sides with him can't say which songs would have ended up on the finished version of First Rays of the New Rising Sun (assuming that he even ended up using that title for the album), or what embellishments he would have added to any of them in the course of completing them, or even if he might not have totally reconsidered such matters as tempo and approach to any of them. In the end, First Rays of the New Rising Sun is a little like any of the various "performing editions" of Gustav Mahler's never-completed Symphony No. 10, in that what's here is impressive, but may have little to do with what would finally have been heard by the public, had the artist lived to finish it -- we don't know if Mahler would have scored a particular passage for horns or strings, or Hendrix would have put another, different lead guitar part, or a second (or third) guitar part on to any of these songs, or added choruses, or re-thought his vocal performance? Hendrix had gone so long between albums, seemingly adrift stylistically at various times, that there's no telling exactly what direction he was finally going to end up working toward. All of that said, this is a superb album, and a worthy if very different, earthier successor to Electric Ladyland's psychedelic excursions -- the later tracks, ironically enough, cut at that album's long promised and long-delayed studio namesake -- and also show him working in some genuinely new directions. For starters, Hendrix's voice emerges here as a genuinely powerful instrument in its own right -- his voice was never as exposed in the mix of his songs as it is here; partly this is because Hendrix and engineer Eddie Kramer never finished embellishing the songs, or completed the final mixes. But whatever the reasons, the change is refreshing -- Hendrix's voice is not only powerful and expressive throughout, but a more melodic instrument than it seemed on his earlier releases; indeed, hearing these sides is a bit like listening to those middle-years Muddy Waters recordings when Chess Records had the Chicago blues legend abandon his guitar playing in favor of concentrating on his singing; the results might not be what all fans expected, but it sure sounds good, because it turns out that Hendrix had an expressive voice and was also moving his music into new areas that were stimulating him. A lot of the material here shows Hendrix, for the first time, moving his songs specifically into a black music idiom, embracing R&B and funk elements in his singing, playing, and overall sound; some of it could qualify as Hendrix's extension of his years playing with the Isley Brothers. Songs here such as "Freedom," "Izabella," "Angel," and "Dolly Dagger" show him finally acknowledging that musical world that he had largely by-passed, and the closer, "Belly Button Window," is one of his most successful traditional bluesy outings. The psychedelic workouts are more jam-like and experimental, and the ballads are prettier and even more dreamlike in their background soundscapes. "Astro Man" also captures a light moment for the artist, as he opens the guitar workout with a quote from the Mighty Mouse theme song, sotto voce beneath the guitar. And speaking of the guitar, despite the prominence of Hendrix's vocals on a lot of this album, the guitar playing is pretty much up to the standard that one would expect, if not necessarily the final versions of some of the songs. Most of the material on First Rays of the New Rising Sun surfaced among the various posthumous Hendrix LPs issued from the 1970s through the early 1990s, but a lot of it was tampered with, mostly in the form of posthumous overdubbed embellishments supervised by producer Alan Douglas -- all of that has been stripped off and the multi-track masters retrieved and restored. What he would have eventually come up with and released as his next musical statement is anyone's guess, but this gets you as close to that answer -- and that vision -- as you're ever likely to get. It is the best representation of where the songs were at the point that he died, and it's fully competitive, in terms of merits and surprises, with his trio of completed studio albums.
Headed to a new, exciting path (unfortunately did not live long enough). 
2008-04-28 - The tracks display a vibrant Jimmi & band combining Rock, R & B in an exciting new direction. It really doesn't matter some of them were left unfinished - what did surface showed a great but unfulfilled promise.
God only knows what he could've accomplished. Great stuff !
Not the final word on Jimi's last album
2008-04-15 - Ever since Jimi's untimely death in September 1970 people have debated over what exactly his last album would have sounded like had he lived to finish it. Several posthumous releases have attempted to put this issue to rest. The official "First Rays Of The New Rising Sun" is the best attempt to date. However, it could have been a lot more comprehensive and true to Jimi's vision.
As noted by previous reviews, the producers should have considered Jimi's own handwritten notes. He left pretty detailed instructions about the title to use, songs to include, cover art and even the running order. Unfortunately, most of this was disregarded by Experience Hendrix/MCA.
For details on Jimi's wishes for his fourth studio album read the article on Wikipedia on First Rays or the book "Black Gold" by Steven Robey.
If I could take over Experience Hendrix for a day, I'd issue a 2CD set
called "People Hell and Angels" and include the majority of actual
songs (not jams) that Jimi recorded for his planned triple album. Anything from May 1969 to his late sessions in August 1970. I would have used the cover art Jimi drew up in the summer before his
death. Without a doubt, Jimi probably would have changed his mind about what he wanted on his next album. But Jimi's handwritten ideas are better than the guess work that's been going on since 1970.
Here's my version of a 2 disc version of First Rays Of The New Rising
Sun. All of the songs are included on the official First Rays except
where noted. Maybe EH will reissue the album as a deluxe edition and include more of these tracks.
DISC ONE
1. Dolly Dagger
2. Night Bird Flying
3. Room Full Of Mirrors
4. Belly Button Window
5. Freedom
6. Ezy Ryder
7. Astro Man
8. Drifting
9. Straight Ahead
10. Drifter's Escape (from South Saturn Delta)
11. Come Down Hard On Me (from the JHE box set)
12. Beginnings
13. Cherokee Mist (from the JHE box set)
14. Angel
15. Stepping Stone
16. Izabella
17. Hear My Train A Comin' (the outstanding May 1969 Band of Gypsys version. An outtake from the :Blues album)
DISC TWO
1. Bleeding Heart (from South Saturn Delta)
2. Earth Blues Today
3. Country Blues (from the JHE box set)
4. Midnight Lightning (from South Saturn Delta)
5. Burning Desire (edited version of Baggy's Rehearsal studios 1st take)
6. Valleys Of Neptune (Heard on Lifelines but unavailable commercially)
7. Heaven Has No Tomorrow (Heard on Lifelines but unavailable commercially)
8. Sending My Love (Heard on Lifelines but unavailable commercially)
9. Pali Gap (from South Saturn Delta)
10. Hey baby (New Rising Sun)
11. Message To Love (from the JHE box set)
12. Power of Soul (from South Saturn Delta)
13. Once I Had A Woman (from :Blues)
14. Bolero (cool instrumental. Unavailable commercially)
15. In From The Storm
My version would feature 2 1/2 hours of music. If 2Pac can put out a
2CD posthumous studio album so can Jimi! And I'm sure people would buy
it.
Save your money 
2008-03-23 - There is only two songs I thought worth buying. Audio is bad on some cuts. CD does not play reliably in my truck. Hurray for MP3s. This one is already in bottom of my closet. :(
First Rays of the New Rising Sun
2007-09-04 - Great CD. If you like Jimi you must buy this disk. Very good music from a very good artist.
