Midnight Sun Stephany Meyer

Sara Watkins throws a bone to her old Nickel Creek fans by opening up Sun Midnight Sun with "The Foothills," one of the album's two instrumental numbers. It's a zippy bluegrass tune, driven forward by Watkins' furious fiddle playing, and it's the closest she ever comes to the rustic sound of her former band. Watkins doesn't completely forsake the farm for the city on this solo release, but she does stretch her arms quite a bit, pulling in everything from quirky indie pop to West Coast folk-rock to harmony-drenched Americana. .

Danish 70's (1971-1974 ) progrock band, a second incarnation of Rainbow Band as it is essentially the same band that had to change their name in July 1971 as a Canadian band had already registered the name and the band was about to release ind the US and UK. As Rainbow Band, a "Supergroup" of danish rock and jazz artists, they releases their selftitled debut album in 1970. The album was re-recorded with new vocalist Allan Mortensen in 1971 and re-released again in the second version under the new band name, Midnight Sun. As Midnight Sun the band released two albums and two singles. Bent Hesselmann went on as a solo artist, releasing the now rare album "Bøsse". Peer Frost left the band to join Savage Rose. Allan Mortensen also persued a solo career.

Black Midnight Sun is the first release on the Dreyfus label by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Lucky Peterson, joined here by producer Bill Laswell on bass and former Parliament/Funkadelic drummer Jerome "Bigfoot" Braily. While the disc features a few Peterson originals, the majority of the album relies on cover versions. Luckily, Peterson picked several that he's well suited to tackle, including "Herbert Harper's Free Press" (Muddy Waters), "Lucky in Love" (Mick Jagger), "Is It Because I'm Black" (Syl Johnson), "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" (Johnnie Taylor), "Talkin' Loud and Saying Nothing" (James Brown), and "Thank You for Talkin' to Me Africa" (Sly Stone). Black Midnight Sun is a combination of electric blues, rock, soul, and funk that, for the most part, works just fine.