Thirty years before Howard Shore composed the musical score for Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy of movies, Bo Hansson had been there, done that and bought the T-shirt.
In the mid 70's I'd moved to New Zealand and was living in a house (almost a squat, but surprisingly legal) with many rooms and many people. At one point, 2 Swedish guys drifted through. Sitting at the kitchen table together having breakfast I noticed one of them was reading the Swedish language version of 'Lord of the Rings' - 'Sagan Om Ringen' - literally 'The Saga of the Ring'. I was reading the English version at the time so it piqued my interest.
I asked to look at his copy, turned to the chapter containing the songs of Tom Bombadil and even though the words were Swedish they still seemed to rhyme. Odd. My new friend then told me of a Swedish musician named Bo Hansson who had done a prog rock album based on his interpretation of the book(s). Being an avid collector of not only mainstream music but also the odd and obscure I had to find it. Fortunately after it's release the album was most popular in England and Australasia, so it had been marketed locally in NZ. Originally the Swedish version was titled the same as the book but when it was put out by Charisma, Tolkein and his publishers jumped in with a few conditions. They insisted the title be "inspired" by LOTR and they also squashed the idea of Hansson using voices on some tracks, forcing the whole album to be instrumental.
The bottom line is that this is Prog Rock with a loose theme. If you can find any relationship between the music and the story you have better insight than I do, but as an album of the genre it fits right in. Bo played multiple instruments on the recording including organ, guitar, bass and Moog synthesizer. I suppose he may have set the scene for later works by people like Mike Oldfield, Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson although some have said his music has a more 'jazz' feel to it, whereas others have likened it to Pink Floyds early stuff.
The nearest thing to a single release from the album was a promo that Charisma issued of 'The Black Riders & Flight to the Ford'.
If you're used to the light whimsical strains of Howard Shore's music about 'The Shire' and 'Bag End' or the pageantry and almost Gregorian chants of 'Khazad-dûm' be warned - this is nothing like that !
No comments:
Post a Comment