LUULOSAIRAS / HENRY'S HIGHWAY CODE

"Luulosairas" is Jukka Gustavson's piano driven composition, and very similar to his other works on the band's first album ("Pidän Sinusta", "En Aio Paeta" etc.). These are slightly naive but still very sympathetic preachy songs, which are quite basic keyboard dominated soulful blues rock tunes, resembling Procol Harum on their sound. This song has also very peculiar high pitched bass sound on it. The B-side of the single is the third part of Jim Pembroke's long "Henry's"-epic from the "Hard n' Horny" album. I like to listen this as a part of the whole suite, but agree it is a wise choice as a single cut. The acoustic driven minor blues rock tune is quite catchy, and one of my friend who hadn't heard Wigwam, but liked Jimi Hendrix very much, got very excited about this song, and in my opinion "Henry's Highway Code" could have been the A-side of the single, and not vice versa. In addition of this single, "Luulosairas" has been re-released on the compilations "Reunion" (1970), and both of the tracks are on "Highlights" (1990) compilation and "Fresh Garbage" (2000) double CD.

WIGWAM had released one Jim Pembroke penned, psych-pop single before the keyboardist, vocalist and composer Jukka Gustavson joined the band. This single came out around the same time as the album Hard N'Horny, which is divided into the sides entirely composed by Gustavson and Pembroke respectively.

The latter wrote a side-long suite 'Henry's...' which was probably to some degree influenced by the second side of The Beatles' Abbey Road, released just few months earlier. 'Henry's...' is a wonderful, musically eclectic proto-prog suite that maintains its focus and coherence pretty well. 'Henry's Highway Code', the third movement of the suite, is a very good choice for a single, one of the many fine examples of Jim Pembroke's gift for melodies.

Jukka Gustavson's 'Luulosairas' (= Hypochondriac) is a non-album song, and an important classic of early Finnish-language rock music. One of his idols was Traffic's Steve Winwood, and I think in this song the influence can be easily heard. There's also a powerful electric guitar solo from Vladimir "Nikke" Nikamo, whose contribution on the album was fairly thin. Gustavson's lyrics and vocals are rather preachy here, and actually that feature makes the song more fitting into a single than into an album. Strong four stars for this vintage classic.

PS. Last spring I was on a gig of Wigwam Revisited featuring Jukka Gustavson. 'Luulosairas' was requested from the audience but the maestro declined.