By 1974 I’d had over a full year of immersion into progressive rock, a term which wasn’t yet being applied to the genre, though what I was listening to was primarily material I’d identify as catch-up. Looking back on the classic albums which came out that year, hardly any were added to the Page collection at the time of their release; window-shopping was more the order of the day because of a shortage of ready cash. The exceptions were Refugee, Hamburger Concerto and Relayer. The Pages had been following Yes and Focus and we believed Refugee were natural successors to The Nice.
Refugee is right up there as one of my favourite albums of all time, a truly great symphonic prog release. I first heard about them when a xeroxed advert appeared for a Refugee gig at Lancaster University in Kelly’s, a local record store in late 1973, highlighting the Nice connections. I didn’t get to the concert (I was 14 at the time) but my older brother did, returning with a description of how good it had been and the polished production of their solitary studio album did not disappoint.
Refugee (1974) by Refugee - ProgBlog's favourite album from 1974
The major headline of 1974 was the ‘Rick Wakeman Quits Yes’ announcement splashed over the front page of Melody Maker on 8th June and it’s hard to imagine the effect that had on me even though his discontent with Tales From Topographic Oceans had been aired in the music press during the intervening six months following its release. The closest example that I can come up with is the disappointment I felt when Dougie Freedman quit as manager of Crystal Palace in October 2012 to go to Bolton Wanderers just as Palace were stringing together a good series of results in the Championship. Fans of other teams will have experienced the same sort of feeling when one of their star players has been lured away by the promise of silverware or Rupert Murdoch/Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan buckets of cash.
Rick Wakeman Quits Yes - Melody Maker, 8th June 1974
There is a distinct qualitative difference between pre-Wakeman Yes and Fragile, Close to the Edge and Tales From Topographic Oceans that was catalysed by the presence of Wakeman. The Yes Album may be a classic but it’s just a stepping-stone on the way to the band fulfilling its potential; I actually bought my copy of The Yes Album in 1974, an American pressing on heavyweight vinyl in a somewhat robust sleeve sourced in a Barrow record store as part of that catch-up phase. I still regard Tales From Topographic Oceans as a brilliant album, siding with the fans who ‘got it’, a number that’s increasing over time as the genre, perceived excesses and all, gets reappraised. I can understand the criticism that the quality of the material suffers for being stretched over four sides of vinyl but my immediate concern was that Wakeman’s replacement wouldn’t match up to his ability and potentially take the group in a direction I wasn’t going to like. Though not a great fan of Journey to the Centre of the Earth which I’d borrowed from a mate, I understood that he was an integral part of the Yes sound. I didn’t get to hear Vangelis’ Heaven and Hell until the following year but based on what had been written about this first possible replacement, I wasn’t convinced Vangelis was the right choice. In fact, Jon Anderson met up with Vangelis in Paris and the two quickly became good friends, the vocalist thinking that Vangelis could help Yes move to a style closer to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, which wouldn’t have bothered me at all! Vangelis went to London for a two-week trial period but it didn’t work out, partly because of the keyboard player’s reluctance to tour, and with that option off the table, it somehow seemed inevitable that the band would approach Refugee’s Patrick Moraz. Though Moraz was a fully capable and obvious choice, employing the full range of keyboards for a symphonic palette, I selfishly wanted Refugee to stick together but it’s fair to say that I was really pleased with Relayer when I was given a copy for Christmas that year.
Relayer, a Christmas present from 1974. Note the redacted music publisher details
My brother and I thought buying Hamburger Concerto was something of a gamble so we pooled our money and bought it between us. We were more familiar with Moving Waves, already part of our collection and Focus 3, which had been borrowed from friends and where the two single-length tracks Sylvia and House of the King had received a good deal of air play. My copy of Focus 3 wasn’t acquired until 1976 because it was pushed down the list in favour of other music - it was a double album and therefore more expensive than most other LPs. I’ve kept hold of our original Hamburger Concerto LP and I really can’t see what we were worried about; genuine concerns were realised when I first heard excerpts of the follow-up Mother Focus on the radio. The inclusion of Colin Allen on the album as a replacement for Pierre van der Linden was an unknown quantity (I don’t think I classify Stone the Crows as a prog act but the inner gatefold photos of Allen show he looked the part) although Focus didn’t have such as good history of maintaining drummers anyway! The variety of Thijs van Leer’s instruments was a bonus, reading like a true prog keyboard arsenal and Mike Vernon’s balanced production makes it, in my opinion, the most satisfying Focus offering, better even than the excellent Moving Waves because the compositions and musicianship maintain a consistently high standard. I always thought the sleeve itself was rather novel, with the record accessed from an opening inside the gatefold.
ProgBlog's original copy of Hamburger Concerto from 1974
I became aware of Tangerine Dream in 1974, when Phaedra hit the record stores. The cover was very interesting, the song titles were intriguing and the line-up was a progressive rock dream-come-true, consisting of three keyboard players. Tangerine Dream are possibly best remembered for their use of sequencers but I was particularly impressed by the sonic washes, other-worldly sounds and the use of plaintive Mellotron. A school friend lent me his copy of the LP and though I didn’t acquire a copy of Phaedra on vinyl until 2017, I bought Rubycon when it was released in 1975 because it seemed to me to be a more coherent album with its single track on each side of the LP and it remains one of my favourite albums for listening to in the dark.
While I wouldn’t get a copy of 1974’s Hergest Ridge, my favourite from the Mike Oldfield canon until the following year, one of the catch-up albums I bought was Tubular Bells, another Virgin album with a single track on each side. When it first appeared in 1973 I was beguiled by the brilliant cover artwork, the incredible range of instruments played by Oldfield and the sense of humour reflected in the little notice on the sleeve, almost obscured by Trevor Key’s beach photograph:
"This stereo record cannot be played on old tin boxes no matter what they are fitted with. If you are in possession of such equipment please hand it into the nearest police station."
This tongue-in-cheek sentiment fitted in with my developing world view, that hi-fi was a serious business and the pursuit of the ultimate listening experience was facilitated by good audio equipment. That one individual should compose and record such an album, given the state of recording technology at the time, was quite remarkable. I loved the development of part 1, 25 minutes of build-up and glorious release, but I didn’t play the second side as often as I’d play the first.
Tubular Bells, released in 1973, acquired in 1974 - not played on an old tin box
Other major releases from 1974 included Starless and Bible Black, Red, Mirage, Hatfield and the North, The World Became the World (I wasn’t aware of PFM’s Italian releases at the time), The Power and the Glory, Trace, You, Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and Red Queen to Gryphon Three. These albums represent output from some of progressive rock’s heavy hitters and over the next few years all were added to my collection. I first heard King Crimson while listening to Alan Freeman’s Saturday Show when he played The Great Deceiver to announce the release of Starless and Bible Black and this came into the Page collection via my brother and a friend who lived across the road from us then bought a copy of Red; Gentle Giant had been introduced to us via In a Glass House, lent to us by a friend; the eponymous debut album by Trace released in 1974 came to our attention following the band’s appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1975. The trio play music somewhere between The Nice, ELP and Refugee and became an instant obsession; while I probably wasn’t ready for Gong when I bought the 1974 Virgin Records reissue of Camembert Electrique which sold for £0.59, I’d later discover that You, the final part of the Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy was the proggy, space-y album I’d always thought the band were capable of; Emerson Lake & Palmer were one of the first bands I followed and I somehow managed to convert one of my friends who was still into pop-rock acts, that ELP were far superior to anything he’d been listening to. A triple LP was fairly expensive so I was pleased that Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends was his first ELP purchase and I could listen to it any time I went round to his house. It doesn’t make my top 10 live album list but it comes close, providing a good selection of their music at the time including full length versions of Tarkus and Karn Evil 9. The live version of Aquatarkus on Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends is sublime. My original copy of the LP was coverless but new and cost me £3 in 1982; I had heard The Fountain of Salmacis on label sampler LP Charisma Keyboards and had borrowed Genesis Live and I was more inclined towards the romantic, symphonic sound of early Genesis rather than the more urgent and modern-sounding The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, though it wouldn’t take me too long to fully appreciate what would prove to be Peter Gabriel’s final outing with the band and which happened to be the first Genesis album in the Page collection; Gryphon became famous for the unique feat of appearing on all four BBC radio stations in the same week and my brother saw them live in Liverpool, promoting Red Queen to Gryphon Three when they were the support act for Yes on the Relayer tour. I think Red Queen to Gryphon Three marks their progressive peak but Raindance, the subsequent release (from 1975) was the first Gryphon album I bought; Camel and Hatfield and the North were later discoveries and apart from Premiata Forneria Marconi, I’d not heard any Italian bands until the early 2000’s, creating more catch-up discographies.
A sample of progressive rock vinyl dating from 1974 - the majority was acquired during the subsequent years
1974 marked my first prog gig. Barrow wasn’t the biggest of towns and was stuck at the end of the Furness peninsula, there’s no university and at the time it had one road in and the same road out again so it didn’t attract either successful artists or rock acts on the college circuit. It was something of a surprise then that Fruupp, a band formed in Northern Ireland with one well-received album under their belt, should include Barrow in their tour itinerary for the promotion of Seven Secrets, their second album. I liked their mixture of rock with swinging jazz and the chamber prog nature of some of the music. They weren’t over-flashy, which is maybe why they didn’t make progressive rock’s premier league but they were solid and their (predominantly lengthy) compositions were nicely structured. I bought Seven Secrets three years later after borrowing all the Fruupp releases from a friend who played bass in a local covers band, and I’m pretty sure that I remember Fruupp material included in their set along with lots of Wishbone Ash!
Fruupp 'Seven Secrets' tour advert, 1974
My first gig outside Barrow was a trip to Lancaster University to see Barclay James Harvest on their Time Honoured Ghosts tour in 1975. I’d not knowingly heard any of their music before the gig so I bought an unwanted copy of 1974’s Barclay James Harvest Live from a friend who was involved in organising the trip and liked what I’d heard, what I still regard as a sort of ‘best of’ because it contains BJH’s proggiest material.
Page 3 of the Barclay James Harvest 'Time Honoured Ghosts' tour programme
Looking back, 1974 seems something of a watershed year. Yes underwent a lengthy tour to promote Relayer and would not convene as a unit in the studio until October 1976 following a tour to promote individual band members’ solo albums. ELP, another of the most commercially successful progressive rock acts, were still in Mountain Studios in Montreux working on Works Volume 1, the follow-up to 1973’s Brain Salad Surgery, eating into Yes’ time booked in the same facility for what would become Going For The One; Pink Floyd, still in their progressive phase, were out of synch with the Yes/ELP recording cycle but would take considerable time over the follow-up to 1975’s Wish You Were Here.
Whether or not these hiatuses were symptoms of overwork where each band needed to take a step back and recover their creative spark or the musicians themselves needed to take a break from bandmates, the lack of new material left a void in the music industry publicity machinery, thereby giving journalists an excuse to finally ditch what was becoming over-inflated and stale and fill NME column inches with reports about new bands who espoused the true ethos of rock ’n’ roll. Unfortunately, when Yes and ELP did re-emerge, it coincided with a time of social disconnect and the rise of punk.
Comments