First Rays of the New Rising Sun
| First Rays of the New Rising Sun | ||||
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| Compilation album by Jimi Hendrix | ||||
| Released | April 22, 1997 | |||
| Recorded | March 1968 – August 1970 | |||
| Length | 69:25 | |||
| Label | Experience Hendrix, L.L.C.; MCA | |||
| Producer | Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Kramer, Mitch Mitchell, John Jansen | |||
| Jimi Hendrix chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Blender | |
| Down Beat | |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | |
| Los Angeles Times | |
| PopMatters | 9/10 |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
First Rays of the New Rising Sun is a compilation album by American rock musician Jimi Hendrix, released in 1997 by MCA Records. It featured songs Hendrix had recorded for an unfinished double album before his death in 1970. Most of them were first released on the posthumous 1971 albums The Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge, along with subsequent compilations in edited form, before they were compiled by audio engineer Eddie Kramer in 1997. Kramer selected and sequenced the songs in their original form to realize Hendrix's planned album to the best of his abilities, based on the latter's notes and the level of each track's completion.
First Rays of the New Rising Sun was an attempt to produce the fourth studio album of the same name Hendrix was working on before his death in September 1970. Recorded between March 1968 and August 1970, most of the songs compiled on this compilation had previously been released on the posthumous 1971 albums The Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge, which were themselves compiled by recording engineer Eddie Kramer and drummer Mitch Mitchell. During the 1970s through the 1990s, the songs also appeared on other posthumous compilations supervised by producer Alan Douglas, who overdubbed other instruments into the recordings. For the 1997 compilation, Kramer instead used the original master recordings and sequenced the songs to realize Hendrix's plans to the best of his abilities. He selected tracks based on their original level of completion and Hendrix's personal notes.
When First Rays of the New Rising Sun was released in 1997, it charted at number 49 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, and at number 37 on the UK Albums Charts in Britain. In 2010, the album was remastered and re-released by Sony Legacy, on March 8 in the UK and March 9 in the US.
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