Babs serves up the food of the Gods

This time [specifies Babs] I’m taking a break from Jazz and Blues, and instead looking at a long-time Prog Rock Favorite of mine.

Many of you may know the band Ambrosia, from their late 70s and early 80s slickly produced Yacht Rock/blue-eyed soul/soft rock hits below.

"(That's) How Much I Feel”

"You're the Only Woman”

 

"Biggest Part of Me”

 

 
While the above videos may or may not be to your taste, they are fairly harmless pieces of catchy fluff, with radio-friendly melodies, and aren’t bad by Soft Rock standards.

But did you know that Ambrosia started out as a Prog Rock band? Or that Ambrosia’s first eponymous titled album was mixed by Alan Parsons? Also, all four members of Ambrosia played on the first Alan Parsons Project album, “Tales of Mystery and Imagination”.

I came across Ambrosia one day in 1975, on FM radio, when I switched on my radio and heard:

Oh, a whirling dervish and a dancing bear
Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire

Or a teenage rocker or the girls in France
Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance

I thought to myself, “Where have I heard that before?” Then the chorus came in with:

Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device

And then it hit me, it was from Kurt Vonnegut’s book “Cat’s Cradle”! The next day, I went to my local record store and bought it.

Whenever the subject of Prog Rock comes up, I always mention the first Ambrosia album, and I’m always surprised how many Prog fans are not familiar with it, but love it when they hear it.

Myself, I have an ambivalent relationship with Prog Rock.
On the plus side: the musicianship is often amazing, and the production is often just great.
On the downside: many times, it is overblown, pretentious, self-indulgent and just plain boring.

In the 1970s, I saw Keith Emerson driving knives into his Hammond organ and riding it like a rodeo bull, while Greg Lake played bass stood on his own private patch of Persian rug, and Carl Palmer played a seventy-eight-piece drum kit. Later in the show, Keith Emerson and his piano were lifted into the air, and did somersaults like it was some sort of amusement park ride. Other Emerson, Lake & Palmer (a name better suited to a law firm) shows I saw featured an orchestra, and a choir. All of which was very entertaining.

I’ve seen Yes several times, in one particular show, Rick Wakeman, Steve Howe and Chris Squire got into a loudness war, with all three trying to drown each other out, and in doing so completely made Jon Anderson’s castrato vocals inaudible. I’ve sat through a live rendition of Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans, an experience which to me was unintelligible and close to unbearable, like being read aloud a lengthy passage of prose with no verbs in it. That said, the musicianship was excellent.

I’ve been totally bored several times by King Crimson shows, which incidentally I seemed to be the only female audience member.  But, I love their records.

I’ve seen Pink Floyd’s 'Meddle', 'Dark Side Of The Moon', 'Wish You Were Here' and 'Animals' tours, which were constantly excellent. Pink Floyd might be the most popular Prog Rock band of all time, but I’ve always thought they lacked sufficient technical proficiency, and therefore not really Prog Rock at all (as always, your mileage may vary).

A friend of mine, once, jokingly told me:
“There was a time in my life when I considered the virtuoso thunder of Yes, Genesis, and my favorite, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer to be the greatest music on earth…. Then I turned 15.”

Ambrosia’s second album titled “Somewhere I've Never Travelled” released in 1976, was also Prog Rock, produced by Alan Parsons, and sold poorly. So in the late 70s and early 80s, they went strictly commercial, as did many other Prog Rock bands.

Genesis, having lost ultra-arty frontman Peter Gabriel, turned out to have been incubating an enormous pop star in Phil Collins.

King Crimson’s Robert Fripp achieved a furious pop relevance by, as he described it, “Spraying burning guitar all over David Bowie’s album”—the album in question being 1980s Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).

Yes hit big in 1983 with the genderless cocaine-frost [Blimey! - Ed.] of “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”

So here’s Ambrosia’s first eponymous titled album, from 1975 with David Pack on guitar, lead and backing vocals, Christopher North on keyboards and backing vocals, Joe Puerta on bass, lead and backing vocals and Burleigh Drummond on drums, backing vocals, percussion, and bassoon.

 

Also, the album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording (other than Classical), so needless to say, it sounds excellent.

Enjoy!

 

[When Babs has finished tasting the new selection of vintage wines for the Major's bar - I've been assured that the new batch of Thunderbird is up to snuff - she'll be stopping by to ask a question that will qualify you for the load down link for this fine album.]