The Danish rock sensation was otherwise well on its way to conquering the USA with its innovative mix of pop, jazz, classical music and psychedelic rock - with a touch of the dramatic added. And on top of it all - that voice. Annisette Hansen was just 18 when she joined the newly-started Savage Rose band in 1967, attracting major attention from the very word go.
Calm yet stormy
Annisette lent in fact a totally unique character to the Koppel brothers' playful, varied, easy yet at the same time challenging compositions. With her big, controlled voice, she was able to alternate with ease between the tranquil and the turbulent, transforming the otherwise textually daunting hit single "A Girl I Knew" into a pop, funky song of great beauty:
"She couldn't see what happened /'Cause she wasn't there/They only felt her/And they weren't fair/To her and to her/lifeless body/And I lost a girl I knew," sung by Annisette in impressive style.
The themes of the début numbers are love and marriage, while the musical inspiration of those ever-questioning composers was found in the late Beatles records, Bob Dylan and Jefferson Airplane.
Immediate success
The group was originally conceived as an album band, but already well before their début album came out in 1968, expectations were seriously on the ascendant. Savage Rose gave a début concert on the Open Air Stage in Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, becoming an immediate stage success, performing music that brimmed over with love, youth rebellion and a spirit of solidarity.
USA lay wide open just ahead, but like a wild, ungovernable rose on the heath, Savage Rose has never allowed its growth or direction to be dictated to it from outside. Savage Rose chose to remain faithful to its political stance and activities in preference to living life as pop stars.
Peter Elsnab is a music journalist and Jesper Nykjaer Knudsen a culture journalist.
Annisette from Savage Rose. Drawing by Rasmus Meisler/Spild af Tid.