Renaissance - Ashes Are Burning (1973 art prog rock)

Renaissance - Ashes Are Burning (1973 art prog rock)

Renaissance made considerable impact and won an enthusiastic cult following when they first emerged at the beginning of the seventies. The British art rock band was born from the ashes of the original Renaissance founded by ex-Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf in 1969. The new band continued with the concept of mixing classical music with poetry, blended with elements of rock, jazz and folk. The result was a highly individual sound blessed with hauntingly beautiful themes.

A variety of artists played with different versions of Renaissance, but the key members were guitarist and composer Michael Dunford, and singer Annie Haslam, who worked mainly with the gifted musicians John Tout (keyboards) and John Camp (bass). The lyrics to their romantic songs were contributed by the Cornish poetess Betty Thatcher, who listened to demo tapes of Dunford's songs and then posted on her lyrics. Annie Haslam, from Bolton, Lancashire, joined the band in 1972 to record their first album with the post McCarty-Relf line-up, called Prologue. Its success led to a more ambitious follow up album Ashes Are Burning.

Guitarist Rob Hendry who contributed to Prologue had left the band, and composer Michael Dunford joined the ranks as acoustic guitarist. "I went to visit the band and played them a few songs with my acoustic guitar," recalls Michael. "The acoustic sounded quite good and after a few rehearsals I became a full time member. In fact the piano was the main lead instrument which suited the orchestrated songs. There was a strong classical feel to the music. On Ashes Are Burning we worked with a string arranger called Richard Hewson who was great. The album was recorded at CTS Music Centre, which was than called De Lane Lea Studios, in Wembley.

The band line-up was John Tout, Terry Sullivan, John Camp, Annie and myself, and that was the line-up that continued until 1979. We used a 22 piece string section with woodwinds for two of the songs, "Can You Understand" and "Carpet Of The Sun". It was such an emotional feeling because we'd always wanted to work with an orchestra. Hearing the run through was absolutely fantastic, and we felt it was the way to go in the future. Over the next few years we did several "live" shows with orchestras. In the later years we changed too much, and got away from that sound, which was probably a bit of a mistake! But it was a breath of fresh air when we first recorded with the orchestra.

We didn't get any hit records off Ashes Are Burning but we gained a cult following and that album did very well in America. We were managed by Miles Copeland at the time and we went to America in 1974 for the first time. American audiences respond instantaneously and if they like you, they tell you. We were overwhelmed at the reaction to our first show, in a college in Brooklyn. We were astonished at the fact that people knew our songs. It was such a boost."

The title track "Ashes Are Burning" i