Hendrix- Cry of Love 2014 vs First Rays 1997*

I made my own version of War Heroes and added 51st Anniversary, The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice, Gloria and the acoustic version of Hear My Train A Comin' from the movie soundtrack. I might have also added Drifter's Escape and Come Down Hard On Me and deleted Peter Gunn/Catastrophe and Three Little Bears. I'd have to try to find the cdr.

 

First Rays IMO suffers from subpar song selection & poor mastering...

I can live with the 2014 COL & RB but really prefer my original records to any digital music

 

Not really sure how it is subpar song selection. It is basically the Cry Of Love lp + bonus tracks. They included all of the tracks from the Cry of Love lp and then tried to pick other tracks they thought were part of the intended First Rays lp. I suppose you could argue about whether or not certain tracks from the Cry of Love were part of the project but they insisted on including all of the tracks from the Cry Of Love. I assume they did not want to make a 2 cd set out of it to include other tracks that might have been part of Jimi's vision for the First Rays a lp.

From Wikipedia

Several additional songs that appeared on Hendrix's proposed track listings for his fourth studio album were later released by Experience Hendrix: "Valleys of Neptune", "Cherokee Mist", "Bleeding Heart","Hear My Train A Comin'" (also known as "Getting My Heart Back Together Again"), "Lover Man", "Midnight Lightning" (demo), and "Send My Love to Linda". Another three, "Come Down Hard on Me Baby", "The Drifter's Escape", and "Burning Desire", were issued on Loose Ends.

 

Yes, I am not understanding the love for Cry Of Love and Rainbow Bridge over First Rays. Apparently the First Rays 2014 vinyl is very good.
Is it just nostalgia, because some folks originally heard these tracks presented on Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge? To me COL and RB seem haphazardly put together, with random live tracks etc. It appears to me that the First Rays set seems to make more sense.

Am hoping that somebody can help me understand why Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge are preferred by many. Seems like nostalgia.

 

I have an old copy of CoL on vinyl that sounds pretty good to me.

Also have the ‘97 First Rays CD, which kind of wins if only for the vastly more complete material on it. I think I prefer the CoL record sound-wise however.

 

First Rays too compressed but IMO 2014 COL & RB are excellent regarding digital Jimi

 

I was there in real time & for me COL highlights Jimi's songwriting genius while RB highlights his guitar prowess...

& the records are Jimi's most satisfying posthumous albums

 

The rubbish sound of the 1997 first rays cd aside I never liked the track order.

COL feels like an album & even RB just gels nice

WH not so much but still some great songs.

 

Iam a big, big fan of Cry Of Love & a fan of Rainbow Bridge as a whole. I was not there in real time either!

I was there in real time for First Ray's and so badly wanted it to mean something deeply to me but it didn't.
A nice compilation, a bit haphazard in order & at 17 tracks the proverbial kitchen sink was thrown in but didn't quite fit the bathroom.
Beginnings & Stepping Stone were unremarkable & I don't agree all the Rainbow Bridge tracks are at their strongest as released either.

Cry Of Love cuts to the chase, if the track New Rising Sun was added and My Friend swapped out it would be near perfect!

 

Well, the original tentative track listing for Cry of Love included Dolly Dagger and Room Full of Mirrors instead of My Friend and Straight Ahead. That would be a bit closer to the original listing by removing My Friend.

 

Yes but iam stating my preference only. Also I alluded to not my favoured versions released on RB which includes the heavy handed Roomfull Of Mirrors whilst I far prefer the stop start groove and message of Straight Ahead to the more Static Dolly Dagger.

 

However, most think Dolly Dagger and Room Full of Mirrors were closer to being finished tracks than either New Rising Sun or Straight Ahead.

 

Sure but New Rising Sun for me has so much depth and fits in with the strident emotions and lyrical awareness shown throughout The Cry Of Love.
The OP is asking if the fans of COL & RB like them out of nostalgia, iam trying to answer him personally and from that (my) perspective set the record straight. Striving for literal correctness does not serve my response though it may well yours which I would as usual love to read.

 

Like others have said, the sound on the original CD isn't good and I'm not a fan of the arrangement of tracks at all. At 17 songs, it's too short and too long at the same time. They could've done a 16 track FR and a 16 track SSD, but they were somewhat wedded to the idea of putting out all of the CoL tracks on FR, hence My Friend. They also could've added another song (Bleeding Heart, Look Over Yonder, etc.) for a more balanced 18 track version. That's not even getting into the track listing which has no flow whatsoever.

I think the current appreciation of the original albums stems a lot from the stellar reissues from 2014. I know I certainly reassessed them. When you listen to them on their own, they work as both stand alone albums and as compliments to each other. There is a flow to the sides, almost despite their patchwork origins.

 

I disagree. All of the Experience era tracks should have been on War Heroes and the later period tracks on the Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge.

 

I guess Im one of the few that actually likes First Rays at least on vinyl. The only thing I would have done different on First Rays would have been to swap Stepping Stone with Pali Gap. The CDs of First Rays are horrid and I can see why they turned many off.

Cry of Love on the other hand may have the unique distinction among Hendrix CD releases to never have had a shoddy sounding CD release. The original non RE-1 reprise is great and so is the 2014 EH. The early Polydor also good. I havent heard the later 847 Polydors or the Re-1 COL that is why I say it may have that distinction not it does. Any have an 847 Polydor or RE-1 Cry of Love that cares to weigh in?

 

Just assessing how these particular albums work as they exist, not whether they were the best ways to present the material. We've gone over that discussion many times. Mike Jeffery did what he did and we got the albums we got. We can now play around with playlists to our hearts content (like I've mentioned I have three or four alternate Cry of Loves, two Rainbow Bridges, three War Heroes and I don't know how many First Rays)

 

Actually, I was curious what the best presentation of the material is. It seems like Cry Of Love is incomplete, and Rainbow Bridge is just a strange compilation, like South Saturn Delta or something.

 

As JF mentioned, Cry of Love originally had Dolly Dagger and Room Full of Mirrors in place of Straight Ahead and My Friend. As a single album distillation of what Jimi was working on, those 10 tracks give a good representation of that era. I think they had also mixed Stepping Stone for possible inclusion on CoL, that might have been in place of Belly Button Window. Now once Jeffrey pulled Dolly and Mirrors and moved them to Rainbow Bridge, then pulled Stepping Stone and Izabella off for what would become War Heroes, things were going to get jumbled. But as it ended up, Cry of Love is still a good sounding and flowing album.

RB is based on what was in the movie and became less about a "completion" of the First Rays material. All of the studio tracks from the film except for Bleeding Heart are on the album. Then Hear My Train was used to represent the "live" part of the film since they couldn't use any of the sound from the actual concert at that point. Imperfect, yeah. but I find it works in spite of its convoluted origins.

Now War Heroes...that one's a hodge podge that doesn't really work. As I noted at the top of the page, I've found adding Laughing Sam's Dice back on (Jeffrey again) in place of Peter Gunn and adding 51st Anniversary in the middle of Side 2 makes it more listenable and has a purpose as a follow up for Cry of Love, Rainbow Bridge and Smash Hits.

If the 1997 First Rays had just been a 20 track compilation of the 1970 songs from Cry of Love, Rainbow Bridge, War Heroes and Loose Ends, I think it would've been a better representation of what the album might have possibly could have (note the qualifiers) sounded like. But since things are as they are, I'll take a BG remastered version of the original War Heroes as a nice cheap CD to fill things out, instead of having some really LOUD songs in my playlist.

 

I tried to look up the First Rays LP on Discogs but I only saw a 2010 edition, not a 2014. Regardless, and this may muddy the waters a bit, did they fix the "static" error on "Freedom" and restore the intro drum roll on "Ezy Rider"? If not, that'd be reason alone to prefer CoL and RB. Otherwise, First Rays was mastered by Kramer and George Marino. In most (but not all cases), I prefer Bernie Grundman's mastering touch to Marino's. For that alone, CoL and RB are in rotation on my end, while First Rays hasn't been since not long after I bought the original CD in 1997.

 

On digital, the Ezy Ryder error was fixed and listening to Freedom now on Amazon, it does sound like they took care of the static (I thought I'd checked it at one point and it was still there, but now I didn't hear anything bad when Billy's bass came in).

 

Thanks John. I was aware of the fix on the digital re-issue, I was just wondering about the most recent LP. Knowing EH, I can see them fixing Ezy Rider but leaving Freedom "as is" .

 

You'd hope if they go through the trouble to making the vinyl reissue sound demonstrably better, they'd fix those.

 

I agree, but...that's why I was asking. The way EH has always dodged explanations for errors (minor or not) has made me a bit skeptical over the years (and I'm not an EH hater, I promise). For example, the Ottawa release on Dagger clearly had errors (ran at the wrong speed, had a second or two of dead air that wasn't on the original source that they failed to edit out), yet they never acknowledged it or fixed it. The only recall I can think of was when the Fehmarn CD came out and it was WAY off speed. They owned up to that one. It reminds me of when George Lucas first put Star Wars out on DVD and the left and right rear channels on the surround track were accidentally swapped. Instead of apologizing and recalling the discs, they issued a statement saying "we meant to do that". Meanwhile, fast forward to when the Blu Rays came out and viola, the channels are swapped back with no fanfare or explanation . I seem to remember First Rays being re-issued with fixes, but that they didn't really advertise those fixes at the time as I recall. I'd love to be found wrong.

 

I'm way out of depth here in terms of Hendrix knowledge (though I do love him), just curious where (if it all) the songs from the supposed Valleys Of Neptune album fit into all this speculation as to what Jimi really "wanted" for his fourth studio album?

Songs such as "Bleeding Heart," "Hear My Train Coming," "Room Full Of Mirrors," "Earth Blues" and the supposed "title track" were all recorded in 1969, but all the songs on FROTNRS were recorded in 197o.

Just curious, is it believed that they were all part of the same batch, i.e. some of the '69 songs would have appeared along the the '70 tunes on whatever album Jimi truly envisioned? And would "My Friend" (an Electric Ladyland outtake, I thought) really have been a part of his "next" album"?

(I realize this is all pure speculation on some level, but clearly a lot of you know a lot more about this stuff than I do...thanks for any insight!)