by Joe Viglione
What happens when you take elements from two of Spanky & Our Gang's hits -- &Sunday Morning& and &Sunday Will Never Be the Same& -- create a sequel, and let veteran producer Paul Leka oversee the concept? You get a brilliant Top 35 hit from April of 1969, &Will You Be Staying After Sunday,& by this little-known group out of Baltimore, the Peppermint Rainbow. Sisters Pat Lamdin and Bonnie Lamdin, singing in unison, sound like Elaine &Spanky& McFarlane, and the song has the same soaring melodic style that made &Sunday Will Never Be the Same& so precious two years prior to this. Leka would hit again in November of 1969 with Steam's &Na Na, Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye,& and has an impressive résumé ranging from Gloria Gaynor to songwriter Tim Moore's Behind the Eyes, and he hits a 90 percent with this album, which has a number of potential hits, from &Walking in Different Circles& to &I Found out I Was a Woman.& The Lamdin sisters have a wonderful style, dipping into a Mamas & the Papas mode for &And I'll Be There& (Spanky McFarlane, after all, replaced Mama Cass in a latter-day Mamas & the Papas). There are more references to &Sunday& here, as well as on &If We Can Make It to Monday,& a sequel to &Will You Be Staying After Sunday,& written by the same songwriters. Paul Leka composed &Green Tambourine& for the Lemon Pipers, and it appears here as well, though in not as refined a form as the 1967 hit, this version a bit more folky. &Run Like the Devil& is the one turkey on here, one of the guys in the band not being able to hold his own on vocals, but with material by Barry Manilow/American Breed songwriter Scott English and superb production by Leka, the Peppermint Rainbow deliver a truly smart and entertaining pop album.