Scheherazade and Other Stories

In 2012 I went to a music festival called Nearfest.  I have talked about this festival a few times here on the blog.  I always mentioned the great community the fans of the genre Progressive Rock are.  They are people who are warm, giving and most of all willing to teach you about what makes Progressive Rock one of the male dominated genres in music.  You very rarely see a women come to these festivals.  If you see a women at the show they are either in tow, or part of the band or the bands entourage.  In 2012 It was different,  the male dominated festival was taken over by more females then I have ever seen.  The band Renaissance was a headliner at that years Nearfest and the buzz of hearing Annie Haslam was in great voice would make the performance memorable. I could not wait to hear a band I loved, but never saw live.  A band that we were told is going to a certain album in it's entirety for the first time ever.

In 1993 I borrowed and then bought Renaissance Tales of 1010 Nights Vol. 1 and 2.  These two volumes were basically compilations of their best material from the years at Sire records. A record label who at one time signed The Ramones and Madonna and they slipped right in. It was interesting to hear this music because it was not like any other Progressive Rock I heard.  One their was the beautiful voice of Annie Haslam in a mostly male dominated genre and also the band full sound that would make YES, ELP and others turn their heads.  They and a small group of bands made a sub genre of prog called Symphonic Progressive Rock before the term was actually used on other bands of the time; Caravan, Pink Floyd with Atom Heart Mother, Deep Purple with an Orchestra, Moody Blues With Days of Future Passed. and Procol Harum Live With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.  Only one difference was Renaissance had a female vocalist the others did not. A voice with a five octave range too.

Asking friends and others at Nearfest what I expect to see when Renaissance gets on stage was pretty consistent.  Annie's voice will take you to another dimension and she will send chills down your spine.  The giddiness was that they were going to do a two hour show with the opening part of the set doing an album called Scheherazade and Other Stories. The two compilations did not put it together but broke it up and for the longest piece of music at twenty-four minutes was only represented by one four minute section of the piece of music.  This time I see it live, and played in full completion.  A few friends said they saw it done at a Capitol Theater Show in May of 1976 and others have never seen this done before.  The ones who saw it said it was a little fuzzy what they heard.  What we got was an awesome treat and to the "fuzzy" friends they get to see it thirty-six years later. There is a YouTube clip of the show from 1976.  When she introduces "Ocean Gypsy" someone in the crowd yells it out before Annie can introduce the song.

Scheherazade and Other Stories was an album I had in my collection, but I did not play it often.  I inherited this album among others in Renaissance discography from a friend who was moving and he needed to unload what he had.  He told me that I would love this just as much as hearing Sandy Denny in Fairport Convention.  "Annie's voice is just as powerful as Sandy's," he said while handing me a bunch of albums.  That was the endorsement I needed since I loved Sandy Denny's singing voice.  Sandy worked perfect in the Folk world and Annie's voice worked perfect in the Progressive Rock world.  It was also mother approved.  She had strong opinions of my music most of the time and hearing any female voice from my music collection she would always give me a thumbs up.

After the show at Nearfest I went home and grabbed my copy of Scheherazade and Other Stories and played it again.  I was impressed by how well Annie's vocals were then and now. I was also impressed on how the subtle bass parts of Jon Camp made each song unique and not like most Progressive Rock albums or bands that the bass parts were kinda heavy.  The instrumental passages of Scheherazade turned the band into a Classical ensemble.  It was amazing.  Songs like "Ocean Gypsy", and "Trip To The Fair" sounded like they could have been a second movement of any Beethoven or a Mozart piece.  Even the Haunting vocals of "Trip To The Fair" Annie spooks you like no other band of it's era.  Sadly about five months after seeing Renaissance the guitar player Michael Dunford  (the one with the beard in the photo) died in his home.

We might not put Renaissance in the same category or even breath as the big names of Progressive Rock, but we should put them in one of the influential bands of it's genre.  There was no heavy Progressive Rock solos, or huge theatrics, but they carved a great section in their own way.  I loved what I heard from their golden era of 1969-1979.  Those retrospectives might do some justice, but it's Scheherazade and Other Stories, at least for me is their crowning moment.  I only wish I saw them in 1975.  Take a trip back in time to forty-five years ago and have a great time with under the radar classic.  Enjoy!!!