Rare Bird : Rare Bird 1969

Rare Bird were an English progressive rock band, formed in 1969. They had more success in other European countries. They released five studio albums between 1969 and 1974. In the UK, they never charted with an album but charted with one single, the organ-based track "Sympathy", which peaked at number 27. It sold one million copies globally.

The history of Rare Bird began when Graham Field placed an advertisement for a pianist in a musical periodical. He got thirty replies and formed a group called "Lunch". He met Dave Kaffinetti in November 1968, and together they formulated the basic ideas for Rare Bird. In August 1969, they finally found the ideal rhythm section in Steve Gould, Chris Randall and Mark Ashton.

Field and Kaffinetti had originally envisaged that the band would be a four-piece and were looking for a singer/bass player. Steve and Chris, who had both previously been members of the Pop-Psych band "Fruit Machine", applied to the ad as vocals/guitar and bass respectively and were taken on. Lunch played a few gigs; one notable one was at the Tilbury Working Mens Club for the princely sum of five pounds.

The band had no van and they managed to get amps, drums, guitars and Hammond organ into their cars. The gig was marred by Chris receiving a bad electric shock whilst on stage. It later turned out that the founders of the band were more interested in Steve and convinced him to play bass. Chris was now high and dry and was kicked out of the band. Two weeks later, they had signed management and agency contracts, and three weeks later, were in the studio recording their debut album.

Before joining Lunch, Randall and Gould had previously written a song called "To the Memory of Two Brave Dogs". Rare Bird included this song in their debut album, renaming it "Iceberg" but Randall received no credit on the L.P. Along with Van der Graaf Generator and The Nice, they were one of the very first bands that signed to Charisma Records, the record label that Tony Stratton-Smith had founded.

In their debut featured an organist and an electric pianist, but no guitarist, resulting in a moody Hammond-heavy album from a band that would later become more progressive and varied in its sound. "Beautiful Scarlet" shifts easily from histrionic soul to offhanded slow-four interludes, and the instrumental "Iceberg" shows off the organist Graham Field and the rest of band's chops well. The whispered vocals and weird background noises of "God of War" achieves the kind of creepy gloom appropriate to an era of carpet bombing and napalm.

Their late 1969 release "Sympathy" reached No. 1 in Italy and in France, sold 500,000 copies in France and over one million globally.It became their only UK hit single, reaching No. 27 and staying on the chart for 8 weeks. A 1970 cover version of the track by The Family Dogg reached number two in the Netherlands. The song returned to the UK chart in 1992 when a version by Marillion reached No. 17.In 2001, the track was sampled by Faithless in their song "Not Enuff Love", named after a chorus line in "Sympathy". The first album released by "Lunch" in 1969 was called "Rare Bird", which now also became the band's new name.

In early 1971, Graham Field left Rare Bird to form a short-lived solo project, Fields. Later members included Fred Kelly (Nic Potter), Ced Curtis, Paul Holland, and Paul Karas on the Epic Forest album with Andy Curtis and Fred Kelly appearing on the album Somebody's Watching. The band finally split up in 1975.

TRACKS

01. "Iceberg" - 6:46 (originally "To the Memory of Two Brave Dogs" by Randall/Gould)
02. "Times"- 4:00
03. "You Went Away" - 4:17
04. "Melanie" - 3:27
05. "Beautiful Scarlet" - 5:23
06. "Sympathy" - 2:30
07. "Natures Fruit" - 2:32
08. "Bird On A Wing" - 4:13
09. "God Of War" - 5:08

Personnel

    Graham Field - organ
    David Kaffinetti - electric piano
    Steve Gould - bass guitar, lead vocals
    Mark Ashton - drums, tympani, backing vocals

GOD OF WAR LYRICS

God of War
God of War
God of War

Feel the morning brush my eyes
I know I have woken, I see the skies
Shepherd boy comes into sight
He's looking for his dog, his nocturne nights

God of War
God of War
God of War

His face is white, his body frail
The shepherd boy has told his tale
He told of love and war and hate
And the shepherd boy knew his fate

We saw strange sights in the night
The God of War was hard to fight
Many men have died they say
At the mercy of Mars, God of the Dead

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