RAINBOW BAND

This is the debut album from Danish rock/ fusion/ psych band Rainbow Band. The album was released in 1970. Rainbow band was formed in the spring of 1970 by Lars Bisgaard ( vocals) and Bent Hesseklmann ( Reeds) from The Maxwells. Per Frost Hohansson ( guitars) from Young Flowers, Carsten Smedegaard ( Drums) from The Beefeaters and Niels Brønsted ( Piano) and Bo Stief ( Bass) from the jazz scene around the Montmartre Jazzclub in Copenhagen. After the release of this album Lars Bisgaard would leave the band to be replaced by new vocalist Allan Mortensen. This was not the only major change to occur to the band in 1971 as they had to change their name from Rainbow Band to Midnight Sun to get a worldwide deal with MCA Records. Midnight Sun re-recorded and re-mixed most of the Rainbow Band album and replaced Lars Bisgaard´s vocal parts with Allen Mortensen´s ditto. That´s why there are basically two versions of this album around.

The music on Rainbow Band is influences from both blues, jazz/ Fusion and a bit of psychadelic music. The songs are actually pretty diverse. The songs with most wind playing from Bent Hasselmann reminds me a bit of the early albums from the english band Audience, while other songs like King of the Sun starts out more sixties rocking and then while the guitar plays solo the song almost shifts to fusion territory. There is a strong soul influence here too, which is mostly due to Lars Bisgaard´s soul/ rock vocals. Lars Bisgaard has a very similar voice to Allan Mortensen.

The musicianship is excellent and while the production is a bit darker than on the Midnight Sun version of the album it´s still great.

If you enjoyed the Midnight Sun album you´ll like this one too as there are no major differences. I suggest that you get the CD re-issue from 2003 where both the Rainbow Band and the Midnight Sun version are featured on one CD. This is a 3 star rating from me.