Since The Jimi Hendrix Experience split up, Jimi had been working on many songs and recorded a lot of demos. However, without wanting to give another studio album to the producer Ed Chaplin, he decided to make a live album of new material with a few new songs so that he could fulfill his contract. But, unfortunately, Jimi died 9/11/1970, leaving all those demos unfinished , still with a great number of amazing songs.
With him dead, a race to release posthumous albums of that material started. The first one to do it, and the most honest, was Eddie Kramer. Together with Mitch Mitchel, Hendrix's drummer, he produced a trilogy of posthumous albums with the most complete demos and some jams too.
"Rainbow Bridge" was the second one of these albums and has a good number of Hendrix classics, including songs that he planned to release in his next studio album.
The album starts with "Dolly Dagger", a track that feels finished and complete; this hard rocking piece shows that Hendrix had already changed a bit his style since his Experience days. The lyrics seem to be talking about a witch and rituals, a thematic that Hendrix had talked about before.
Other highlights include a 11 min long live version of "Hear My Train a Comin'" which shows Hendrix's incredible live performances, and Hey Baby (New Rising Sun), which by the long intro and the fact that he asks "Is the microphone on?" make it feels like it's a early demo, it feels like it could turn out to be the best songs of the ones in this album.
While some of the songs will make you feel sad about what the could've been, Hendrix playing and singing still makes you satisfied with the songs present in this disc.
Recomended tracks:
Dolly Dager
Earth Blues
Room Full of Mirrors
Hear My Train a Comin
Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)
