Caravan & The New Symphonia is the first live album by Caravan, which was formed in Canterbury in 1968.
Caravan & The New Symphonia is not just any hastily assembled live release intended to cash in on the band’s popularity. Inspired by the orchestrations on their previous album, For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night (1973), Caravan decided to also perform live with a symphony orchestra. The band’s dream came true with a 50-piece orchestra and choir at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in October 1973.
The orchestra was conducted by Martyn Ford (who had also handled the orchestrations for For Girls), and the orchestra included a few very interesting figures. The flutist and saxophonist was, of course, Caravan’s external member Jimmy Hastings. One of the violinists is Godfrey Salmon, who has worked extensively with Keith Emerson and Greg Lake, and the percussionist is Morris Pert, who played a significant role in the jazz-rock band Brand X at the end of the decade and, a few years later, in Mike Oldfield’s band (Martyn Ford has also done orchestrations for Oldfield).
Caravan itself had managed to retain the lineup that played on For Girls, and the band’s perhaps second most significant lineup was assembled for the gig: Pye Hastings on guitar and vocals, Geoff Richardson on electric violin, Dave Sinclair on keyboards, John G. Perry on bass, and Richard Coughlan on drums.
The world of prog and rock is full of various half-baked rock bands meeting orchestras, but Caravan & The New Symphonia is definitely one of the better ones. The small orchestra led by Ford works beautifully alongside Caravan, adding power to the songs. Neither side is overshadowed by the other at any point, and the combination feels mostly natural. A few slightly awkward moments reveal that the band only had a few rehearsals with the orchestra. Pye Hastings has also said that some of the orchestra members were a bit arrogant towards the long-haired Caravan, as was typical of the era. According to Hastings, however, the band silenced the orchestra with their complex rhythms: ”That was until we hit them with a 19/8 riff and they couldn’t keep up with us! They were all over the place!”
The album also features two brand new songs, ”Mirror For The Day” and ”Virgin On The Ridiculous,” which Pye Hastings composed at lightning speed for this special concert. Both are excellent songs and would have fit well stylistically on the For Girls… album. However, the highlight of the record is the energetic 15-minute version of the Caravan classic ”For Richard.”
The expanded edition from 2001 includes four bonus tracks, totaling approximately 30 minutes of music. Three of these four tracks, ”Memory Lain, Hugh / Headloss,” ”The Dog, The Dog, He’s At It Again,” and ”Hoedown,” were played by Caravan as a warm-up at the beginning of the concert without the orchestra. The fourth bonus track is the ten-minute-long ”A Hunting We Shall Go,” played with the orchestra, which concludes the album. The original album feels rather incomplete compared to the expanded edition, which is definitely the definitive version of Caravan & The New Symphonia.
Caravan & The New Symphonia is an excellent live album offering fresh new arrangements of old songs and a couple of completely new tracks. However, it is not Caravan’s best live album, as that honor belongs to Live At The Fairfield Halls, 1974, recorded in 1974 but only released in 2002*, on which the band is in truly spectacular form, playing almost the same set as on New Symphonia, but with a much tighter grip (and without an orchestra). Caravan & The New Symphonia is one of the few successful examples of the ”rock band meets symphony orchestra” format.
Best tracks: ”The Love In Your Eye”, ”For Richard”
*(Except in France, where it was released in 1980 under the odd title The Best of Caravan “Live”.)
Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI
Kappaleet (2001 laajennettu painos):
- Introduction by Alan Black / Memory Lain, Hugh Headloss (11:00)
- Memory Lain, Hugh / Headloss (9:57)
- The Dog, the Dog, He’s at It Again (6:36)
- Hoedown (3:54)
- Introduction (6:49)
- The Love In Your Eye (12:49)
- Mirror For The Day (4:29)
- Virgin On the Ridiculous (7:57)
- For Richard (14:18)
- A Hunting We Shall Go (10:23)
Caravan
Pye Hastings: kitara, vokaalit Geoff Richardson: sähköviulu Dave Sinclair: – sähköpiano piano, urut, syntetisaattori John G. Perry: bassokitara, vokaalit Richard Coughlan: rummut
The New Symphonia Orchestra
Liza Strike, Vicki Brown, Margot Newman, Helen Chappelle, Tony Burrows, Robert Lindop, Danny Street, Martyn Ford (kapelimestari), Richard Studt, Irvine Arditti, Paul Beer, Ted Chance, Andrew Cauthery, Roger Chase, Lynden Cranham, Michael Crowther, Robin Davies, Rita Eddowes, Liz Edwards, Wilfred Gibson, Lucy Finch, Jo Frohlich, Wilf Gibson, Roy Gillard, Michael Harris, Tony Harris, Jimmy Hastings, Terry Johns, Skaila Kanda, Skaila Kanga, Garry Kettell, Chris Laurence, Helen Liebmann, Stephen May, Donald McVay, Dee Partridge, Geoff Perkins, Morris Pert, Mike Perton, Martin Robinson, Godfrey Salmon, Jan Schlapp, Colin Walker, Cathy Weiss, Robin Williams, Dave Woodcock, Nick Worters, Gavyn Wright.
Tuottajat: David Hitchcock
Levy-yhtiö: Decca
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