Something of a mystery. All I know about the Rainbow Record Company is what can be gleaned from the label: that it operated out of Charnwood House, Bottisham, Cambridge, and that it was active in the early 1970s. It seems to have issued just one record, consisting of a pair of narrations by Derrick Matthew Illsley, 'The Fishermen' and 'The Crucifixion', which were delivered to the accompaniment of either acoustic guitar or organ. They were given the heading 'Hymns For The New Generation', but while 'The Fishermen' has rhymes in it 'The Crucifixion' sounds more like a re-telling of the gospel story than a hymn, and neither are sung. The catalogue number of the single was RPC-2971, and it came out in 1971 - it may be that the '2' and the '9' of the number refer to the day and month of recording or of issue. The 'RPC' may perhaps stand for Rainbow Publishing Company; if it does, the company's main interest may have been in Christian literature rather than in records, but sadly there's nothing online to support that theory. Manufacture was done by C. H. Rumble (q.v.); the matrix numbers in the run-offs, which were taken from a series used by that firm, were WO-PR-2100 and WO-PR-2086. The labels were laminated, as was usual for C. H. Rumble's products.
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