Jimi Hendrix 6: Rainbow Bridge

Moreso than The Cry Of Love, the second posthumous Hendrix album was born out of greed. Tied to a mess of a film that Jimi wanted no part of, the cover of Rainbow Bridge pushes it as the official movie soundtrack, with a photo suggesting that it includes music from the concert featured in the film. It doesn’t. It’s still a decent collection of leftovers, providing two further sides of music that may or may not have been part of whatever his next studio album was supposed to be.

“Dolly Dagger” is a cool funky opener, and while “Earth Blues” is in the same tempo, the backing vocals make it seem less of a carbon copy than some of the tracks on Cry Of Love. A nice surprise is “Pali Gap”, a five-minute jam that develops from nothing into a tastefully played instrumental full of mood and meaning. If you can handle congas and slide guitar effects skidding around the stereo spectrum, “Room Full Of Mirrors” is another hidden gem. The trebly bass is very high in the mix, stopping only when he goes into the inspired chorus (“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”). Less exciting for non-gearheads is the studio take of “The Star Spangled Banner”, recorded a full five months before its famous appearance at Woodstock, here more of a sound picture than performance art.

Jimi’s “old” sound returns on “Look Over Yonder”, a late-1968 studio recording by the original Experience. It’s played mostly straight, with some overdubs but not too many. That sits nicely next to an epic 11-minute version of “Hear My Train A-Comin’” recorded at Berkeley. Just as with “Red House”, his other original blues trademark, this song was rarely played the same way twice, and this one is as mesmerizing as any—the power trio, with Jimi wailing on top of Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox. Finally, “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)” begins with a complicated structure for about a minute, roughly switching gears into a more simple theme with a descending bass line (think “All Along The Watchtower” crossed with the end of “Stairway To Heaven” with a D major thrown in). After a minute of that, complete with sleigh bell percussion, he asks if the microphone is on and begins singing a verse. There’s even a chorus of sorts, and something of a resolved ending.

As an album, Rainbow Bridge holds together very, very well, making it even preferable to Cry Of Love. Unlike that album, however, it wasn’t reissued on CD until 2014, and until then couldn’t be as easily replicated at your local CD emporium. Half of the songs would surface on First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, while the rest were spread between two compilations and a pricey box set. It’s moot now, while the quest for authenticity required that the bonehead decision to put the tiny dialogue transcription in orange on a busy background is even more maddening in the jewel case format.

Jimi Hendrix Original Motion Picture Sound Track From Rainbow Bridge (1971)—3½