Renaissance Album By Album (& now including Illusion Album By Album Thread) *

A beginning for the Haslam-era Renaissance, but it came as a later addition to my world.

I began working at an FM radio station in Philadelphia (WIOQ) in 1974. At that time the station was pop-oriented and not doing all that well in the ratings. Rock music was taking over the world, and it seemed that this station was headed there too. Among the powers that be at the station, there was a great admiration for the two rock stations on the FM band in town, WMMR and WYSP. Why these powers that be thought the city needed a third such station is beyond me, but that's where they headed. By 1975, they were pretty much full-blown progressive rock.

I'd listened to MOR type music all my life up until that point, but now I was being "educated" in the world of 1970's rock music by virtue of the station being on all the time in the office. And my first exposure to the world of Renaissance came with the song "Ocean Gypsy" on the SCHEHERAZADE AND OTHER STORIES album. It was a wondrous soaring track with that wondrous soaring vocal. And not too raucous to my MOR sensitive ears!

After acquiring that album, and then working backward and picking up ASHES ARE BURNING, I continued backwards to pick up PROLOGUE. The station played its title track for sure, and probably much of the rest of the album. We played a lot of Renaissance at the time. For some reason, the band was very big in the corridor from Philadelphia up to New York, and the radio stations there gave them plenty of airtime.

A decade or more later, I sought out any Renaissance I could find on the new CD format. It was slow in coming and the first thing out was the two releases of TALES OF 1001 NIGHTS which I grabbed the moment I saw them. All of the early stuff on that compilation had to be live tracks from their CARNEGIE HALL release because of the label change from Capitol to Sire. Sire didn't have the rights to the studio Capitol tracks in the US.

Back in the later 70s, Capitol repackaged their PROLOGUE and ASHES ARE BURNING albums into a two-record gatefold set called IN THE BEGINNING, and in the 80s, they packaged these two onto one CD.



The flaw with the CD was that it all didn't quite fit onto the 74-minute limit of CDs of the day. So they had to chop some stuff. They eliminated:

on PROLOGUE:

"Sounds Of The Sea"
- 15 seconds of sea noise edited from the end of the track

"Rajah Khan"
- 2:30 chopped of the beginning

on ASHES:

"At The Harbour"
- 2:00 piano intro missing
- 2:00 piano outro missing

"Ashes Are Burning"
- :20 wind fade-in is missing
- 1:30 long fade out edited

 

Prologue



This one is a monster of a track - we're treated to Annie's first recorded appearance - it's just vocalize. But you can't complain when it's this convincing - a good argument for a voice being a proper instrument maybe. John Tout and Jon Camp lead this mostly, with some bass/piano back and forth near the middle to die for. Both players are fantastic and it would be a common theme in their catalog for sure. This track also gives us the great vocal duality of Annie and Jon, and they sound wonderful together. Incredible title track.

 

This one live.

 

As much as I love this group, they have not aged well. I am purchasing the latest remasters with bonus tracks, and I find it a tough slog at times.

 

Agree 100%. One of my Top 5 favorite Renaissance songs regardless of lineup!

 

The intro and outro of At The Harbour was said to have been chopped due to some wacky copyright problem for this old Debussy song which is quite beautiful on it's own! La Cathédrale engloutie is it's title.

 

Correct. A copyright law was changed which put the Debussy piece under protection.

I don't find "aging" a problem at all. Gorgeous music will always be gorgeous.

 

Kiev



A seriously overlooked song from Renaissance, Jon Camp takes on lead vocals and the imagery pained in the lyrics with the quotation of Mussorgsky really makes this one feel suitably Russian - more than Mother Russia! It's got such a nice bass lead, and this is only the start of amazing bass lines out of Camp.

 

Couldn't agree more. I saw them in October in NYC and they were excellent. Annie sounded incredible!!!!!! Will always be one of my favorites.

 

The Camp lead vocal on the verses works here and is augmented by the gorgeous harmony vocals on the chorus parts with Annie's voice elevating things.

 

Sounds Of The Sea



This one is pleasant, but it really goes nowhere. The lead is good for real, but there's just not a lot going on that makes it particularly interesting to my ears. They would make this sort of song work a lot more once Dunford got in the band.

 

"Sounds Of The Sea" is actually an earworm for me, so something about it registers in my brain. Since this thread started, this song has inhabited my brain. Love the harmonies here.

This track is slightly shortened on the IN THE BEGINNING compilation - but it's just "sea" sound effects shortened at the end.

 

I never bought In The Beginning simply due to the truncating of At The Harbour - I didn't know about how they also made Prologue worse, but it's not like getting a copy is expensive.

The record store I frequent generally has most of their discography every day, for cheap. I suppose they really sold well in a small part of the US hence why they still tour almost only there.

 

It's a "thing" now, isn't it...whenever somebody mentions "Renaissance" and "Philadelphia" in the same sentence, you're suppose to take a swig...

 

What I find interesting and quite comical is how Renaissance's music is categorized in music stores. I have seen them listed under prog, rock or folk. Seems that no one can pigeon hole them like we tend to do most other artists. That is one of the things that makes their music so unique. I always thought they were a blend of classical and rock. That combination was something very different at the time, (70's) and that coupled with Annie's beautiful voice made them an instant favorite of mine. In my humble opinion their music is timeless.

 

One of Camp's finest moments and written by ex Yardbird Jim McCarty with Betty Thatcher. You can almost see the peasant areas of Kiev when listening to this great hard rending song.

 

Spare Some Love



This one's lead reminds me a lot of Jane Relf, honestly, in terms of how Annie delivers the vocals. Besides that it sounds like it could be a late 60s track easily, a psych pop song with great harmony vocals and heavy bass, and just a bit of what makes Renaissance... Renaissance, the piano/orchestral parts. Honestly if you didn't have Annie on this one you'd be hard pressed to tell it's even them, unless you're like me and can spot Jon Camp in 1 second...

 

This is probably my favorite Renaissance album. Thanks for showing the inside of the gatefold because I bought a used copy of this album with the shrink wrap still on so I could never see the inside. This album is different sounding than the albums that followed.

Scott

 

"Spare Some Love" is a track that grows on me every time I hear it.

 

A very hippy dippy folk rock song but I luv it! Always have.

 

In the Netherlands Renaissance and other prog artists were filed under "sympho" which means symphonic rock. I think that's quite a good decription of this unique style.

 

Symphonic or orchestral rock is perfect.

 

Yes that's a perfect description and also Orchestral Rock as Chemically altered suggests in the above post. Unfortunately none of the record shops I have ever been to in the US has had either of those categories.

 

Bound For Infinity



Not bad however I feel like this one is a bit overlong - it's got some really nice work from John but the vocal doesn't really capture me like a good short Renaissance song does.

 

Rajah Khan



Without any doubt this is Renaissance's trippy masterpiece, and it's set up is really neat too.

The track is nearly too heavy but the nuances of the band weren't established yet, and we have some really downtuned guitar work on here interposing with pauses of near silence, back to some more riffing, then into the song proper. That being, Annie singing Bolero while Jon and Terry keep the rhythm going. About halfway in Curved Air's very good Francis Monkman goes off the wall with a VCS3 solo atop of more upfront Jon Camp work and harmony vocalize, back to the Bolero section, then finally ending with those downtuned guitars and a bit of piano interplay with them coming to a complete end with nothing alluding to it. Just a final guitar riff and finished.