Bo Hansson - Music Inspired By Lord Of The Rings (1972) - Lp

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Bo Hansson (April 10, 1943 – April 23, 2010) was a Swedish musician best known for his four instrumental albums released in the 1970s.

Hansson spent his early life in a remote village in the pine forests of northern Sweden, but a change in his parents' fortunes forced a move to Stockholm and they were forced to leave the young Hansson behind, in the care of family friends. As a teenager he joined his parents in Stockholm, where he soon became interested in the burgeoning rock and roll scene and taught himself to play the guitar, before joining the band Rock-Olga.

After the rock and roll craze gave way to jazz and blues in the late fifties, he joined 'Slim' Notini's Blues Gang as a guitarist. Hansson was able to move on and form his own blues group The Merrymen, who supported The Rolling Stones on an early Scandinavian tour.

In 1966, Hansson saw American jazz organist Jack McDuff perform at Stockholm's Gyllene Cirkeln Club, and was so captivated by the performance that he decided to leave The Merrymen to expand his musical horizons. Encouraged by fellow Merryman Bill Öhrström, he eventually acquired his own Hammond organ. Öhrström became an A&R man and producer at Polydor Sweden, and introduced Hansson to other musicians, one of whom was drummer Janne Carlsson. Hansson and Carlsson immediately hit it off and were signed by Polydor under the band name Hansson & Karlsson, playing up-tempo Hammond organ based music and releasing three albums between 1967 and 1969. They became immensely popular in their home country and some parts of Europe, and even reached the ear of Jimi Hendrix, who took time out from his tour to jam with the duo, along with George Clemons on drums and Georg Wadenius on guitar, at the Klub Filips in Stockholm in late 1967. Hendrix went on to record a Hansson song, "Tax Free".

By 1969, Janne Carlsson had become a successful comedian and TV host, and Hansson decide to break up the partnership. Entranced by a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which he had purloined from his girlfriend, he moved into a friend's vacant apartment and started writing. When the unfortunate friend returned, he found that he had been evicted from his apartment after numerous complaints about the noise Hansson was creating.

Hansson retreated to a remote cottage on an island off Stockholm where he, drummer Rune Carlsson and engineer Anders Lind, who had worked previously with Hansson & Karlsson, spent the winter of 1969 recording what was to become Hansson's debut solo album on a borrowed four track recorder.
The resourceful Lind was even able to gain use of the only eight track recorder in Sweden at that time at the Swedish National Radio station, on the pretext that he was interested in buying one himself and wanted to test it. Once there, he persuaded session musicians Gunnar Bergsten and Sten Bergman to flesh out the recordings.



 Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings is an instrumental progressive rock album. As its title suggests, it is a concept album based on author J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings. The album was originally issued in Sweden in late 1970, under the Swedish title of Sagan om ringen, and was subsequently re-released internationally as Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings in September 1972. The album reached the Top 40 of the UK Album Chart and was eventually certified gold in the UK and Australia. It was also moderately successful in America, where it reached number 154 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart. Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings remains the only release by Hansson to have reached the UK and US charts and as a result, it is by far his best known and most successful album.


Side A
A1. Leaving Shire  (3:28)
       (Första vandringen)  
A2. The Old Forest & Tom Bombadil  (3:43)
       (Den gamla skogen / Tom Bombadil)  
A3. Fog on the Barrow-Downs  (2:29)
       (I Skuggornas rike)  
A4. The Black Riders & Flight to the Ford  (4:07)
       (De svarta ryttarna / Flykten till vadstället)  
A5. At the House of Elrond & The Ring Goes South  (4:40)
       (I Elronds hus / Ringen vandrar söderut)  

Side B
B1. A Journey in the Dark  (1:10)
       (En vandring i mörker)
B2. Lothlórien  (4:01)
B3. Shadowfax  (0:51)
       (Skuggfaxe) 
B4. The Horns of Rohan & The Battle of the Pelennor Fields  (3:57)
       (Rohans horn / Slaget på Pelennors slätter)  
B5. Dreams in the House of Healing  (1:56)
       (Drömmar i Läkandets hus)  
B6. Homeward Bound & The Scouring of the Shire  (2:54)
       (Hemfärden / Fylke rensas)  
B7. The Grey Havens  (4:57)
       (De grå hamnarna)  

All tracks composed by Bo Hansson, original song titles in parenthesis.


Personnel
Notes
Released: 1972
Recorded: Late 1969 – early 1970, Studio Bo Hansson's summer house on Älgö in the Stockholm archipelago and Studio Decibel in Stockholm 
Genre: Progressive rock, space rock, psychedelic rock 
Length: 38:13 
Label: Charisma Records
Catalog# CAS 1059

Vinyl:  Good
Cover:  Good

€ 10,00

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