Prologue
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Albums:
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Prologue
- Artist: Renaissance
- Rating:
- Release Date: 1972
- Total Time: 40:48
- Genre: Rock
Review
The first album by the '70s (i.e. Annie Haslam) version of Renaissance is a transitional work, rooted in more standard hard rock sounds (including psychedelia) than what followed. One can spot the difference, which may please some listeners and put others off, in the fairly heavy guitar sound of "Prologue," Rob Hendry's electric instrument playing both lead and rhythm parts prominently at various times behind Annie Haslam's soaring vocals and adjacent to John Tout's piano. "Kiev" may also startle some longtime fans, since Haslam doesn't handle the lead vocals, the male members' singing being much more prominent. The ethereal, flowingly lyrical "Sounds of the Sea" is the cut here that most resembles the music that the group became known for in the years ahead, and shows Haslam singing in the high register for which she would become famous. "Spare Some Love," with its prominent folky acoustic guitar, also anticipates material (specifically "Let It Grow" and "On The Frontier") off of the group's better known second album, Ashes Are Burning. "Bound For Infinity" marked the final creative contribution by co-founder Jim McCarty, of the '60s version of Renaissance, and is pretty enough even if it doesn't fit in anywhere with their subsequent sound. And the 11-minute epic "Rajah Khan," with its elements of raga-rock, including sitar-like passages on Hendry's electric guitars and an extended VCS 3 synthesizer solo by Francis Monkman, is a more advanced and virtuoso descendant of late '60s psychedelia. It, too, has little to do with the sound that the group subsequently adopted (although it does intersect, in the most peripheral way, with "Song of Scheherazade" and some of the other Eastern-theme works that preceded it), but the track is entertaining and does show off a startlingly different type of art-rock toward which this group could have gravitated. The sound is clean, and this version of Prologue is to be preferred over Capitol's abortive attempt to reissue it in the late 1980's as In The Beginning, which cut some of the material and had totally lackluster sound. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi| Prolo-Disco (2010 Album by Tussi-Lovers) | |
| Prologue (2001 Album by Various Artists) |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Prologue (Renaissance album)
| Prologue | ||||
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| Studio album by Renaissance | ||||
| Released | 1972 | |||
| Recorded | 1972 | |||
| Genre | Progressive Rock, Symphonic Rock | |||
| Length | 41:29 | |||
| Label | Sovereign (UK) Capitol (U.S.) Harvest (Germany original release) Repertoire (Germany 1995 CD reissue) Regal Zonophone (Italy) |
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| Producer | Renaissance Miles Copeland III |
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| Renaissance chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
Prologue was a 1972 album by progressive rock band Renaissance.
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Contents
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Information about the album
In 1972, Renaissance's then-new management disbanded the lineup at the time (one of several short-lived transitional lineups), retaining only Haslam and Tout to build a new band around. The new members added at this point were Camp, Sullivan, and guitarist Mick Parsons. Shortly thereafter, sadly, Parsons died in a car accident. Electric guitarist Rob Hendry was brought in at the last minute to replace him, and left the band soon after the album was completed.[2]
Because Prologue was a new start for the band, with a lineup that now included none of the original members, it would frequently be referred to as their "first" album (for example, on the Live At Carnegie Hall album, both in a song intro and on the inside cover).
Though all the songs are Renaissance originals, they were not written by any current members of the band but by former members Jim McCarty (from the first lineup) and Michael Dunford (from the transitional lineups), along with lyricist Betty Thatcher. Dunford would become part of the band again after Hendry's departure.
The piano intro to the song "Prologue" was borrowed from the beginning of Chopin's Revolutionary Etude.
In The Beginning reissue
In 1978 Prologue was reissued, together with the following album Ashes Are Burning, as a double album called In the Beginning. The original double LP included the complete Prologue; one song from Ashes was edited. The 1988 CD version of In the Beginning (on one disc) had edited versions of "Rajah Khan" and two Ashes songs.[3]
Track listing
EMI-Sovereign SVNA 7253 UK and in other EU territories as [IE 064 93685]
- "Prologue" (Dunford) - 5:39
- "Kiev" (McCarty-Thatcher) - 7:38
- "Sounds of the Sea" (Dunford-Thatcher) - 7:07
- "Spare Some Love" (Dunford-Thatcher) - 5:11
- "Bound for Infinity" (McCarty-Thatcher) - 4:23
- "Rajah Khan" (Dunford) - 11:31
Personnel
- Annie Haslam - lead & backing vocals
- Jon Camp (listed as "John Camp") - bass, backing vocals, lead vocal on "Kiev"
- John Tout - keyboards, backing vocals
- Rob Hendry - electric guitar, backing vocals
- Terence Sullivan - drums, percussion, backing vocals
VCS3 solo on "Rajah Khan": Francis Monkman
References
- ^ Eder, Bruce (2011 [last update]). "Prologue - Renaissance | AllMusic". allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/album/prologue-r47785. Retrieved 6 July 2011.
- ^ The History Of Renaissance
- ^ Renaissance Discography
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