The history of Renaissance is essentially the history of two separate groups, rather similar to the two phases of the Moody Blues or the Drifters. The original group was founded in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds members Keith Relf and Jim McCarty as a sort of progressive folk-rock band, who recorded two albums (of which only the first, self-titled LP came out in America, on Elektra Records) but never quite made it, despite some success on England's campus circuit.
The band went through several membership changes, with Relf and his sister Jane (who later fronted the very Renaissance-like Illusion) exiting and McCarty all but gone after 1971. The new lineup formed around the core of bassist Jon Camp, keyboard player John Tout, and Terry Sullivan on drums, with Annie Haslam, an aspiring singer with operatic training and a three-octave range.
The original group's debut album was a then-groundbreaking meld of progressive rock with classical and jazz influences. Vocalist Jane Relf had a striking individual style, and the classical influence was unique for its time.
by Bruce Eder
Tracks
1. Kings And Queens (Keith Relf, Jim McCarty) - 10:59
2. Innocence (Keith Relf, Jim McCarty) - 7:10
3. Island (Keith Relf, Jim McCarty) - 6:01
4. Wanderer (John Hawken, Jim McCarty) - 4:05
5. Bullet (Keith Relf, Jim McCarty) - 11:27
6. The Sea (Keith Relf, Jim McCarty) - 3:06
7. Island (Single Version) (Keith Relf, Jim McCarty) - 3:37
Bonus Tracks 6-7
In 1975 Keith Relf, the singer and former colleague of mine in the Yardbirds, called me up for a 'get-together' with his sister Jane, and Louis Cennamo. We had all been in Renaissance a few years earlier and were still getting royalty payments. Since the Renaissance days, Keith had been successful as a producer and had been in a band with Louis, Armageddon, who had made an album for A&M Records. I had made an album of my own songs on EMI under the band name Shoot, and Jane had sung on various TV advertisements.
The remaining member of Renaissance, John Hawken, the keyboard player, was invited to join us and we spoke about reforming the old band as none of us were involved with any other projects at the time, and the fact that we were still getting royalties meant the music was still popular. John was a versatile pianist, having played with more rocky bands such as Spooky Tooth and Vinegar Joe, and he was responsible for the dominance of the keyboards in the band's sound. We organised some rehearsals at my house in Molesey and things seemed to go well. Having played together before, it didn't take long to recreate our old distinctive sound. We decided to give it a go again, and after recording some demo tapes tried to get record company interest. We were still seeking this when Keith was tragically electrocuted in his flat in Whitton in May 1976.
Rather than making us abandon the idea, this event seemed to spur us on, and we decided to take on two more people: John Knightsbridge on guitar, and Eddie McNeil on drums, which left me free to sing lead vocal along with Jane. More songs came quickly and in July we recorded half a dozen more demos, including "Isadora" and "Solo Flight". Someone had once told me to take demo tapes to companies for whom you were earning money, so I contacted Island Records who were still selling the original Renaissance recordings. After a live audition we were promptly signed up, and recorded the album "Out Of The Mist" at Island Studios in Hammersmith. We needed a new name at that time as Renaissance had been transformed into a band of new members (Annie Haslam, Mick Dunford, etc.) We finally settled on Illusion, the title of our second Renaissance album, and went off on tour supporting Bryan Ferry in the UK and Europe.
We were received well, though sales were only moderate. After another nationwide tour, supporting Dory Previn, we were pressed by the record company to start another album which was to 'break' us as a band. The first album had charted in the States, and it was generally thought that the production could be improved upon, so for the second album Paul Samwell-Smith, another former Yardbird, was brought in as producer. Paul was highly thought of by Island as he had produced a succession of Cat Stevens albums and of course the first Renaissance album. The consequent album ("Illusion") was fun to make, collaborating with Paul again, but due to the pressure of time and touring the material was not as strong as on the first album, in my opinion, although it did contain the classic track "Madonna Blue" which brought out the very best of everyone in the band.
The album was released in the UK and Europe, but not in the States, for some unknown reason, and this was a big blow to us. The new wave of punk music was becoming more and more popular, and the overall trend at the time (the late 70's) was far away from what we were doing. Our only hope had lain in the States, but after the non-release of the second album we were dropped by Island in 1979.
by Jim McCarty, February 1994
On Illusion the band had grown music wise. Also the help of old pal Paul Samwell-Smith, who had played with Jim McCarty in the Yardbirds, provided for a better production and a better sound. Highlights on their second release are the opening tune Madonna Blue and the final piece The Revolutionary. Especially on these tracks you hear the same kind of music Renaissance would record later on with vocalist Annie Haslam and keyboard player John Tout. The interaction between Jane Relf and Jim McCarty and the harmony vocals are much better than on Out Of The Mist.
The music on both albums very much resembles the music of the first two Renaissance-albums mainly due to the fact that the key members of both Illusion and Renaissance were the same. That also applied for the compositions mainly written by McCarty and Hawken. Unfortunately both releases lack some additional tracks. Maybe they could have used some of the recorded demos for the upcoming third album, but they didn't. These songs later on appeared on the album Enchanted Caress (1990). Illusion disbanded in 1979. Punk rock and new wave regrettably pushed aside many great progressive bands at the end of the seventies. Who knows how many more fantastic albums Illusion would have recorded..?
by Henri Strik
Tracks
1. Madonna Blue (Jim McCarty) - 6:47
2. Never Be The Same (Jim McCarty) - 3:17
3. Louis' Theme (Louis Cennamo) - 7:42
4. Wings Across The Sea (Jim McCarty) - 4:50
5. Cruising Nowhere (Jim McCarty) - 4:59
6. Man Of Miracles (Keith Relf, Jim McCarty, John Hawken) - 3:28
7. The Revolutionary (John Hawken, Jim McCarty) - 6:16
Illusion were a British band formed in 1977. They released two albums Out Of The Mist and Illusion both on Island Records. Their music was classically-inspired, sophisticated and polished. The band undertook a number of tour dates, but found their style of music out of fashion with the rise of punk rock. They didn't get a new recording contract from the record company. Since other companies weren't interested either at the time, they finally disbanded.
Illusion were intended to be a reunion of the original line-up of Renaissance, but singer and guitarist Keith Relf died before the project had been realized. He got electrocuted while playing his electric guitar. In a way his death turned out to be positive for the other musicians because when Relf was still alive family issues kept him from working on his new band named after the second album of Renaissance. They couldn't use the name Renaissance because this band continued with a different line-up after their first two releases. After the death of Relf some line-up changes took place before they could record their music.
Jim McCarty moved from the drum stool to the acoustic guitar and shared vocals with Jane Relf, while Eddie McNeill replaced him on drums. John Knightsbridge took Keith Relf's place as guitarist. The other core members who performed on most songs on Renaissance and Illusion completed the line-up. This meant that John Hawken played the keyboards and Louis Cennamo the bass guitar. The two albums they recorded under the name of Illusion got a proper CD-reissue in 2011. These re-releases are way better than all the other previous re-releases. This time the liner notes include many pictures, all the lyrics and a retrospective by Jim McCarty, but most important: this remastered version sounds as all reissues should!
by Henri Strik
Tracks
1. Isadora (Jim McCarty) - 6:58
2. Roads To Freedom (Jim McCarty, John Hawken) - 3:54
3. Beautiful Country (Jim McCarty, John Hawken) - 4:23
4. Solo Flight (Jim McCarty, John Hawken) - 4:23
5. Everywhere You Go (Jim McCarty) - 3:19
6. Face Of Yesterday (Jim McCarty) - 5:46
7. Candles Are Burning (Jim McCarty) - 7:11
Nils Lofgren raised in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Garrett Park, Maryland, he began playing music at an early age, picking up the accordion at the age of five, spending time studying classical and jazz, then getting seduced by rock & roll as a teenager. Lofgren picked up guitar and piano at the age of 15, forming the band Grin with drummer Bob Berberich and bassist George Daly soon afterward. As the group played the local circuit, Lofgren happened to meet Neil Young. Impressed with Nils, Young invited the teenage guitarist to head out to California and Lofgren accepted the invitation, taking Grin with him. The band set up in a Laurel Canyon home rented by Young and began rehearsing while Lofgren played guitar and piano on Neil's 1970 LP After the Gold Rush. Lofgren was just 17.
Although Nils was so thoroughly within Young's orbit that he appeared on the 1971 album by Crazy Horse -- he played throughout and sang lead on his original composition "Beggar's Day" -- he remained devoted to his D.C. band. Grin landed a record contract with A&M Records in 1971. By this point, Daly had left the band and was replaced by Bob Gordon. Produced by Young's right-hand man David Briggs, Grin's eponymous debut arrived in 1971 and, soon enough, the group was earning more critical attention than sales.
by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Tracks
1. Like Rain - 3:38
2. See What A Love Can Do - 5:02
3. Everybody's Missin' The Sun - 2:44
4. 18 Faced Lover - 3:26
5. Outlaw - 4:02
6. We All Sung Together - 3:44
7. If I Were A Song - 3:10
8. Take You To The Movies Tonight - 1:45
9. Direction - 4:14
10.Pioneer Mary - 3:45
11.Open Wide - 3:02
12.I Had Too Much (Miss Dazi) - 3:23
13.Nobody - 2:57
14.Sing For Happiness - 3:15
All songs written by Nils Lofgren
This might well be the best of the early Family recordings. A combination of hard rock (bordering on metal) and wistful folk-rock (it sounds as if Chapman and Whitney were listening to a lot of Incredible String Band), A Song for Me veers toward early progressive rock, but isn't as nakedly indulgent as some early prog-rock recordings (e.g., they didn't try to sound like a jazz band, they wanted to sound like a rock band screwing around with jazz).
Perhaps their most experimental record, it seems as though the credo in making this disc was that anything went. And on tracks like "Drowned in Wine," it works quite well. Again, Chapman offers more proof of his vocal greatness, and again the record sells large quantities in England and nearly nothing in America.
by John Dougan
Tracks
1. Drowned In Wine - 4:09
2. Some Poor Soul - 2:44
3. Love Is A Sleeper - 4:01
4. Stop For The Traffic - Through The Heart Of Me - 2:12
5. Wheels (John "Charlie" Whitney, Rick Grech, Roger Chapman) - 4:37
6. Song For Sinking Lovers - 4:06
7. Hey - Let It Rock - 0:59
8. The Cat And The Rat - 2:30
9. 93's OK J (John "Charlie" Whitney, John Weider) - 3:58
10.A Song For Me (John "Charlie" Whitney, John Weider, Rob Townsend, Roger Chapman) - 9:22
11.No Mule's Fool - 3:12
12.Good Friend Of Mine - 3:31
13.Drowned In Wine - 4:10
14.The Cat And The Rat - 2:48
15.Wheels (John "Charlie" Whitney, Rick Grech, Roger Chapman) - 6:46
16.A Song For Me (John "Charlie" Whitney, John Weider, Rob Townsend, Roger Chapman) - 8:01
All songs written by John "Charlie" Whitney, Roger Chapman, except where noted
Bonus Tracks 11-15
Family
*Roger Chapman - Vocals, Percussion
*Charlie Whitney - Electric, Acoustic Guitars, Bass
*John Weider - Acoustic Guitar, Bass,
*Poli Palmer - Percussion, Keyboards,, Vibes
*Rob Townsend - Drums, Percussion With
*George Bruno - Organ
*Jim King - Saxophone
Communication is the 3rd album from Hookfoot, recorded in 1972 and relased early 1973. With a new bass player Fred Gandy who replaced Mick Grabham.
Not much different musical directions, classic four piece rock, a little bit more progressive, some more mellow, but still Caleb Quaye's guitar play is spellbiding. This release comes with five extra tracks.
Tracks
1. Crazy Day Running Around (Ian Duck) - 5:31
2. They'll Never Find Us Up There (Ian Duck) - 4:34
3. To Stay Would Bring Me Down (Caleb Quaye, Ian Duck) - 3:37
4. Forty Winks (Caleb Quaye) - 2:27
5. Oh Joanna (Caleb Quaye) - 5:28
6. Here I Come (Caleb Quaye) - 4:51
7. And Nothing Changes (Caleb Quaye) - 4:41
8. Cruisin' (Ian Duck, Fred Gandy, Roger Pope, Caleb Quaye) - 5:27
9. The Love That You Saved (Caleb Quaye) - 2:19
10.Just A Little Communication (Caleb Quaye) - 5:28
11.Flying In The U.S.A. (Caleb Quaye) - 4:20
12.Is Anyones There (Ian Duck, Fred Gandy, Roger Pope, Caleb Quaye) - 4:08
13.Slick's Blues For Jumbo (Caleb Quaye, Ian Duck) - 1:45
14.Look To Your Churches (Caleb Quaye, Ian Duck) - 2:39
15.Good Times A' Comin' (Ian Duck, Fred Gandy, Roger Pope, Caleb Quaye) - 6:18
Bonus Tracks 11-15
The Hookfoot
Caleb Quaye - Electric, Acoustic Guitars, Keyboards, Pianos, Organ, Percussion, Tambourine, Vocals
Ian Duck - Electric, Acoustic Guitars, Harp, Percussion, Tambourine, Vocals
Roger Pope - Drums, Percussions, Tambourine, Cow-Bell
Fred Gandy - Bass, Percussion With
Dave Glover - Bass Guitar (Tracks 11-15)
In February 1971, when the Underdogs, whom at that time consisted of Harvey Mann, Glen Absolum and Neil Edwards, released their "Wasting My Time" album, and it failed to sell in great numbers, Neil Edwards decided to leave the group and join Human Instinct. Harvey and Glen added a new bass guitarist, Billy Williams, and to beef up the sound, Bob Gillett was added on saxophone. Also required was a new name, so they became the Australasian Rock Squad.Bob Gillett had been playing with Breeze prior to joining. Billy Williams came from Classic Affair. In September 1971, Bob Gillett decided to become a part-time member of the group, so they rechristened themselves Space Farm.
Space Farm's self-titled 1972 debut, released on Zodiac Records, is the groups only offering, and a scarce piece to find. With bluesy, extended guitar jams, Arabic-inspired and half-howled vocals, it's a glorious platter of Kiwi psychedelia. The vivid, Yellow Submarine-esque album art, along with a story on the back explaining that they changed the bands name from the Underdogs to Space Farm due to personnel and stylistic changes, make this a complete Psych experience.
The album was largely ignored by the public, but Space Farm continued to pull crowds and they remained at the forefront of the underground movement until their demise in 1973. Towards the end of the band, there had been drastic changes within. Harvey began to forego drugs and alcohol and these changes were reflected in his song writing and performances. After the group ended, Harvey took a sabbatical and when he returned to the scene it was as a member of the Krishna faith. He later joined Living Force with Glen. Billy Williams joined Ticket and Blerta before heading to Australia and great success in a number of Australian groups.
Tracks
1. Space Farm - 3:14
2. Homeward Bound (Glen Absolum, Harvey Mann) - 3:56
3. Infinity Way (Billy Williams, Glen Absolum, Harvey Mann) - 3:24
4. Walking Dream - 3:40
5. On The Loose - 3:14
6. Flying - 4:23
7. Gypsy Queen (Billy Williams, Glen Absolum, Harvey Mann) - 6:23
8. Wheel - 4:14
9. Lover Not A Dancer - 3:36
All songs by Harvey Mann unless as else stated
Space Farm
*Glen Absolum - Drums
*Harvey Mann - Guitar, Vocals
*Billy Williams - Bass with
*Bob Gillette - Saxophone
John Covert (keyboards/vocal) established Crystal Image band and Crystal Image Music BMI in 1968. Covert has Opened shows for War, Tower of Power, Sons of Champlin, Chad and Jeremy, Dobie Gray, The Coasters, The Chiffons, Simon & Garfunkel, Gary U.S. Bonds, Lady Bo (Bo Diddley's protege) and performed with members of John Lee Hooker's and Albert King's blues bands, Sly and the Family Stone, Pam Tillis and Tommy Castro's band.
A Grand prize winner in the Nashville Music City Song Festival and multi-finalist in the American song festival, Covert’s Songs have been featured on the abc tv show “General Hospital“, The Nashville Network’s (TNN) "Nashville Now!", VH1 TV shows “The fabulous life of country superstars” and “Driven” (which also featured Grammy winner, Usher!) an episode of "The Sopranos" (A&E network), in Hollywood movies (featuring actors Terence Knox "tour of duty", “St. elsewhere” and Miguel Ferrer "Crossing Jordan"), Country Song Roundup magazine, Billboard charts and USA Gospel News magazine. His co written song "Smile if you love Jesus" charted #1 on the 1999 Country Gospel Music Guild charts.
Covert’s 1960's folk rock songs are also featured on a rare European collector's cd, "California Love In” (also featured is legendary rock band, Steppenwolf).
The album presented here, Crystal Image II, also known as the Rainbow Album, was released in 1975 on Dream records.
Tracks
1. If You Think You Know Me - 03:30
2. Magic Touch - 02:13
3. Missing You - 02:59
4. If I Hadn't Seen - 02:22
5. My Own Personal Roadie - 02:20
6. Would You Believe - 02:16
7. Baby - 03:51
8. Why Can't People Stop... - 03:08
9. Drunk Music Critic - 02:15
10.Rock And Roll Star - 03:19
11.Wolf Pack - 03:39
12.Red Badge - 03:07
13.Not That Kinda Boy - 03:18
14.Nag - 02:51
All songs written by John Covert except track #3 written by Dusty Rhoads
Bonus Tracks 10-14
Amongst the more revered of 1970s Canterbury bands—including Egg, Soft Machine, Caravan, Gilgamesh and Gong—Hatfield and the North has always occupied a special place in the hearts of fans of this distinctly British amalgam of complex progressive music, singular lyricism and self-directed humor. A band that was seemingly over before it began, Hatfield and the North represented a major step forward for all its members; a group that seamlessly blended jazz-like improvisational abandon with detailed composition, occasional pop tendencies and a sense of humor that eliminated any potential for excess and self-indulgence...unless the group did so intentionally and with complete self-effacement.
Keyboardist Dave Stewart had already established a name for himself with Egg and Khan, though in the former the compositional duties were largely assumed by the vastly undervalued Mont Campbell, and the latter was more of a vehicle for guitarist Steve Hillage, who'd previously intersected with Stewart and Campbell in the more psychedelic, pre-Egg group Uriel (whose long out-of-print album, along with an archival disc of Egg oddities, was finally released on CD in 2007 through UK's Burning Shed). By the time Stewart was recruited for Hatfield and the North, replacing original keyboardist, Caravan's Dave Sinclair, he'd gone—seemingly overnight—from a talented, post-Keith Emerson keyboardist to one with a decidedly greater jazz bent, albeit one with a harmonic language strangely distanced from the American tradition.
Guitarist Phil Miller and drummer Pip Pyle went back to the mid-1960s and the group Delivery, though both made greater names for themselves in other places. Miller was the guitarist in ex-Soft Machine drummer/singer Robert Wyatt's Matching Mole (a clever pun on the French translation for Soft Machine, Machine Molle), which released two studio albums and, in recent years, has seen some fine archival performances issued, including On the Radio (Hux, 2007). A curious musician who, as Wyatt once wrote, "would rather play a wrong note than a note that somebody else had ever played," Miller's rapid evolution from Matching Mole's quirky but oftentimes sloppy guitarist into one with a richer vernacular and lither but still idiosyncratic approach to melody, remains one of the more under-appreciated stories in modern jazz; one that continues to this day with his group In Cahoots, and releases including All That (Cuneiform, 2003) and the more ambitious Conspiracy Theories (MoonJune, 2007).
Pyle played in the early incarnation of Gong responsible for its nascent classic Camembert Electrique (Charly, 1971) before returning to England in 1972 to reunite with Miller, his brother Steve (keyboards) and bassist/vocalist Richard Sinclair—the latter two having left Caravan, of which Sinclair was a founding member— for a new version of Delivery. An early glimpse of this group, which was the germinal Hatfield, can be heard in the bonus tracks of Cuneiform's wonderful 2007 collection of Steve Miller and saxophonist Lol Coxhill's Miller/Coxhill Coxhill/Miller / "The Story So Far..." ..."Oh Really?". Pyle—who sadly passed away in 2006 at a time when Hatfield had reformed (with keyboardist Alex Maguire replacing Stewart) for some live dates and the promise of new material—was a drummer who, more than many, combined the energy and backbeat-driven approach of rock with jazz's looser interpretive aesthetic, and whose group Equip' Out demonstrated an even more fervent realignment to the jazz world in later years on albums like Instants (Hux, 2004).
Richard Sinclair had already established himself as a talented bassist, composer and singer with Caravan, especially on its early milestone, In the Land of Grey and Pink (Decca, 1971). With a curiously deadpan delivery, his mellifluous voice was one that never aimed for excess melisma, yet was immediately recognizable. As a bassist, while his playing with Caravan was nothing short of superb, it was with Hatfield that he had the opportunity to really stretch out and prove himself a more sophisticated player, both as a member of the ensemble and as a distinctive soloist.
But in typical Canterbury fashion—the scene so deeply incestuous and, from an archivist's point of view, so interwoven as to make documenting the period an almost insurmountable challenge (though Aymeric Leroy, through his Calyx: The Canterbury Webite and numerous CD liner notes, has become its undisputed expert)—there were some changes in store before the final, classic line-up was cemented into place. Steve Miller left Delivery, to be replaced by Richard Sinclair's cousin Dave (also from Caravan) and a subsequent renaming of the group to Hatfield and the North (taken from road signs out of London, pointing to the A1 motorway). Within months Dave Sinclair left the band for the same reason he'd left Matching Mole—too much emphasis on improvisation— returning to Caravan for a series of classics including For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night (Decca, 1973) and Caravan and the New Symphonia (Decca, 1974).
Dave Sinclair's ultimate replacement by Stewart was, however, the final piece in the puzzle that would make Hatfield and the North a group which may never have received the appreciation or commercial attention it deserved, but to which time has been extraordinarily kind. With a distinctive complexion that blended stunning solos with compositions from everyone in the group—often joined together to create lengthy, side-long suites that were invariably far greater wholes than the sum of their parts— Hatfield and the North's music remains both of its time and thoroughly timeless. It was and is music that reflected the musical fearlessness and unfettered stylistic cross- pollination of its time, and a cultural personality that kept its distance from the fusion efforts of its American counterparts. Unmistakably British, Hatfield and the North is a group that would have sounded completely different had it emerged a few years earlier or later, and with the same careful treatment from Esoteric's Mark Powell as he applied to other Canterbury releases including the two National Health albums from 1978 that would find Stewart, Miller and Pyle back together again, Esoteric's reissues of both Hatfield and the North and The Rotters Club are unequivocally definitive.
With clearly improved sonics, albeit often more in the nuances and less in- your-face, Esoteric has also collected all the bits and bobs from samplers and singles as bonus tracks on both reissues, including material from the 1975 Virgin label sampler V, the 1976 Chrysalis compilation of live performances from a number of groups at North London's heralded The Rainbow Theatre, Over the Rainbow and Hatfield's posthumous collection, Afters (Virgin, 1980). New liner notes by Sid Smith shed further light onto the group's history. When combined with two recent archival collections of live and radio performances, released by the group through Burning Shed—Hatwise Choice: Archive Recordings 1973-1975, Volume 1 (2005) and Hattitude: Archive Recordings 1973- 1975, Volume 2 (2006)—the full story of Hatfield and the North is now available, in the best possible form.
by John Kelman
Tracks
1. Let's Eat (Real Soon) (Richard Sinclair, Pip Pyle) - 3:14
2. Fitter Stoke Has A Bath (Pip Pyle) - 4:33
3. Mumps (Edited) (Dave Stewart) - 8:15
4. Share It (Richard Sinclair, Pip Pyle) - 3:05
5. Lounging There Trying (Phil Miller) - 3:14
6. The Stubbs Effect (Pip Pyle) - 0:25
7. Big Jobs (Poo Poo Extract) (Richard Sinclair) - 0:36
8. Going Up To People And Tinkling (Dave Stewart) - 2:25
9. Calyx (Phil Miller) - 2:45
10.(Big) John Wayne Socks Psychology On The Jaw (Dave Stewart) - 0:43
11.Chaos At The Greasy Spoon (Richard Sinclair, Pip Pyle) - 0:23
12.Halfway Between Heaven And Earth (Richard Sinclair) - 6:06
13.Oh, Len's Nature! (Aka Nan True's Hole) (Phil Miller) - 2:02
14.Lything And Gracing (Phil Miller) - 3:56
15.Prenut (Dave Stewart) - 3:59
16.Your Majesty Is Like A Cream Donut (Loud) (Dave Stewart) - 1:35
Tracks 1,2 were released as the A- and B-sides respectively of a 1974 single.
Tracks 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 15 and 16 are songs from The Rotters' Club.
Tracks 6-9 inclusive are from Hatfield and the North.
Track 12 recorded live at Rainbow Theater London, on March 16 1975
Track 13 recorded live in Lyon and Toulouse, France on February 8 and 11 1975
Track 14 recorded live in Lill, France on June 9 1974
Hatfield And The North
*Phil Miller - Guitar
*Pip Pyle - Drums, Noise
*Richard Sinclair - Bass, Vocals
*Dave Stewart - Keyboards Additional Musicians
*Mont Campbell - French Horn
*Lindsay Cooper - Oboe, Bassoon
*Barbara Gaskin - Backing Vocals
*Jimmy Hastings - Flutes, Saxes
*Tim Hodgkinson - Clarinet
*Amanda Parsons - Backing Vocals
*Ann Rosenthal - Backing Vocals
*Robert Wyatt - Voice
Among the most legendary names of the British folk rock movement, this Bristol-based band were formed in 1969 by Andy Creswell-Davis and James Warren as Stackridge Lemon, soon to be named simply Stackridge. 1970 finds the band having an intense live activity, playing at the first Glastonbury Festival and, a year later, supporting Wishbone Ash on their UK tour and signing with the MCA Records.
“Stackridge” is actually a mixed bag of short Beatles-esque pop tunes and longer arrangements played in some sort of symphonic/folk style. Even the short accesible tunes are well-played with rich instrumentation and good multi-vocals, blended nicely with folsky violins, tracks which even The Beatles would be proud of creating. But it is these long arrangements which make this album so special like the great “The Three Legged Table”, starting off like Phillips-era Genesis, pastoral acoustic-driven musicianship later to become a catchy brass/violin-rock heaven with perfect vocal lines. “Essence of Porphyry” is another instrumental highlight with complex instrumentation featuring violin and cello in a medieval style and excellent acoustic passages with fantastic flute work, always under a classical nature, like a cross between Genesis and Gentle Giant…or the 14-minute long “Slark”, which closes the album, a beautiful composition split between folk ballad, medieval music and symphonic rock with again some superb vocals. A real treasure.
Stackridge’s debut is more than simply a great album. Even the easy-listening side of the band contains unbelievable professionalism and unmet personality, marking this effort as one of the most significant and impressive debut’s in UK’s prog history.
Tracks
1. Grande Piano (Andrew Davis, James Warren) - 3:20
2. Percy The Penguin (Andrew Davis, James Warren) - 3:41
3. The Three Legged Table (James Warren) - 6:49
4. Dora The Female Explorer (Andrew Davis, James WarrenMichael Evans, Michael Slater, Billy Bent) - 3:46
5. Essence Of Porphyry (James Warren) - 8:07
6. Marigold Connection (James Warren) - 5:00
7. 32 West Mall (Andrew Davis, James Warren) - 2:27
8. Marzo Plod (James Warren) - 3:07
9. Slark (Jim Walter, Andrew Davis) - 14:10
