As live, late-1970s Sun Ra albums go, Somewhere Over the Rainbow is a cut above. It's similar to and contemporaneous with The Soul Vibrations of Man and Taking a Chance on Chances, two live sets also issued on Saturn in 1977 (and available in our digitally remastered download catalog). Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Saturn 7877) was also known as We Live to Be: the titles of track one on side A were often handwritten on labels and/or generic sleeves, a common practice in Saturn's DIY packaging process.
Before he sang lead for the Alan Parsons Project, Chris Rainbow had embarked on a solo career in 1974. For six years, he recorded in the U.K. for EMI Records and Polydor Records, and he also acted as producer and wrote his own material..
Straight Between the Eyes undoubtedly has one of the worst album covers in rock history, but the record is an unexpected return to form from the journeyman hard rockers. Just a record before, Rainbow sounded as if they were verging on Billy Squier territory, but here, they reverse course and deliver a solid, no-frills hard rock record…