KALEVALA was formed in 1969 by Juha Salonen (bass), Remu Aaltonen (drums/vocals) and Albert Järvinen (guitar). Their first name was VIETNAM, but they had to change it in order to get concerts. This first line-up played straightforward rock'n'roll, and they were a popular live act in Finland. There were no studio recordings from this line-up, but the Finnish broadcasting company recorded their performance from 1970 "Ruisrock" festival. After this the line-up changed. Remu founded HURRIGANES, which Albert also joined later. Now KALEVALA's musical direction was changed to more progressive direction. The new musicians on their second line-up were Markku Luukkanen on drums, Matti Kurkinen on Guitar and Harri Saksala doing singing. They recorded one album, "People No Names" (1972) which was released by Finnlevy. They had some guest musicians helping on doing it: pianist Olli Ahvenlahti, Raimo Wallen playing flute and on acoustic guitar Ile Kallio, who was playing on HURRIGANES during that time. The result was quite unique, you can form your own opinion of it by listening the sample mp3 presented on this page. The band was very unstable, as they had again changes in their line-up. Now they had Zape "Limousine" Leppänen on vocals, who has worked with many respected Finnish artists. The band recorded an album "Boogie Jungle" (1975), which is again more basic rock music. They had Jim Pembroke doing their lyrics plus backing vocals, and Jukka Gustavson playing keyboards on one track. Shortly after this band faced a sudden catastrophy, as Matti Kurkinen got in to a fatal car accident. Their name was defined as KALEVALA ORCHESTRA for their next album "Abraham's Blue Refrain" (1977). After this they toured Europe with ANGE, but they faced financial problems, and the musicians disbanded KALEVALA went to different directions.Some members of the band rejoined in studio 1995, but they couldn't get a record deal. These new tracks are available on "Anthology" (2004), which has some live recordings and before unreleased material on it.
: : : Eetu Pellonpää, FINLAND : : :
