On March 22nd, Polydor will issue a 2CD deluxe edition of Rainbow's second album Rising (1976). Rising is phenomenal album but, unfortunately, this deluxe edition adds little to its legacy.

I've got a friend who is a huge Beatles fan and he was ecstatic after finding a bootleg at a street fair with 30+ takes of "Strawberry Fields". I listened to the disc once with him and, for the most part, the takes all sounded very similar yet my friend "studied" this disc and could tell you which take had an extra second of guitar solo, where there was an extra drum beat and where Ringo was passing gas (only kidding on this last one). I feel like the Deluxe Edition of Rising offers similar fare as you have three complete takes of the Rising album and they all sound similar.

Disc One contains the "New York mix" and the "Los Angeles mix" of the album and they sound almost exactly the same. Between the two versions, the tracks differ only a few seconds in length so I couldn't hear any differences when playing each mix through sequentially. In comparing the individual tracks, you can hear that different instruments are brighter in each of the mixes but it still appears to be the same take of the song. As an aside, I've heard for years about the longer keyboard intro in "Tarot Woman" on the UK version of Rising. If all that everyone had been talking about is the ~8 second difference between where the guitars kick on on the "Los Angeles mix" vs. the "New York mix", you are missing little.

Disc Two contains the "Rough Mix" of Rising along with one live rehearsal track. I'm assuming that the "Rough Mix" tracks are the same Cozy Powell tracks that have been floating around as a bootleg for the last few years. There are some notably difference in the "Rough Mix" which include a keyboard into to "Stargazer" and a longer outro to "Run With The Wolf". All-in-all, the total running time is about a minute longer than either of the two mixes on Disc One. The last track is a live rehearsal of "Stargazer". While of bootleg quality (though decent sounding), it would have been nice to have included more tracks from this rehearsal as Disc Two is only 43 minutes. (Note: when the Rising Deluxe Edition was originally announced, a tour rehearsal version of a "A Light in the Black" was planned for inclusion but was obviously dropped from the final release).

Given the large volume of quality bootlegs (both live and tour rehearsals) from this era, I had hoped for better from this Deluxe Edition. Newcomers are better off sticking with the single disc version (which is available new for under $5 on Amazon) and there is no compelling reason for long-time fans to upgrade.



Links:
Ritchie Blackmore