It’s been nearly 40 years since the most revolutionary guitarist of all time, Jimi Hendrix, passed away. With three landmark studio albums to his name, plus gems of unreleased material left behind, making a proper posthumous studio album with the latter has always been a tough and controversial task.
No one will ever know for sure how Hendrix himself would have sequenced, fine-tuned and what he would’ve named the follow-up to his third and final album in his lifetime, 1968’s seminal double LP Electric Ladyland. We do know however, it was meant to be a big project - a double or triple LP – that the guitarist had been working on for over two years before his death in September of 1970 at age 27.
The first few attempts at posthumous releases, The Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge from 1971 and War Heroes from 1972 were revealing but felt incomplete. It wasn’t until 1997, when Hendrix’s trusted recording engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell used his last handwritten notes and remastered/resequenced his last tracks on the 17-track-long First Rays of the New Rising Sun that one got a true and mostly satisfying picture of the guitarist’s ever changing musical vision at the time, which struck a more serious tone lyrically and incorporated newer sounds to his repertoire.
13 years later, the newest versions of First Rays, an mp3/digital edition available via online stores such as ScatterTunes, plus a CD+DVD edition out this spring do not exactly enhance the actual sound – not that it’s needed with all the previous remastering over the years. But the former is more convenient for the current digital music age, while the latter contains a viewing experience that does enhance and make you appreciate the audio portion a little more via a new companion 20-minute DVD documentary of the making of this “concept compilation.”
Starring Mr. Kramer (and also former Hendrix bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell), the DVD gives you the fullest sense yet of how Jimi’s ideas for songs turned from sole guitar tracks and hotel room recordings to full blown full band masterpieces. It also gives insight into the changing dynamics between Jimi, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell in recording sessions. For example, they developed a sort of funky rhythmic chemistry and style for songs like “Night Bird Flying.”
The highlights come when Kramer uses his mammoth recording mixer to reveal what Jimi’s individual guitar tracks sounded like in their earliest stages. One song in particular, “Angel,” had Jimi recording all the song’s guitar, bass and drum parts back in 1967, with Kramer giving viewers a clip of what that early recording sounded like as he explained its progression from that demo to full band classic recorded at the guitarist’s then soon to be legendary Electric Lady Studios in NYC.
Article comments
1 - James
Great post...
Billy Cox and Hendrix were old friends, and served in the army together if memory serves... If Cox, is involved, then you know that it will represent Hendrix the way Hendrix wanted it...
Great Post! Thanks!
2 - Charlie Doherty
Didn't know that about Billy. Thanks for the info and comment. Glad you liked my review (feel free to check out my other work as well).