I dug recently a bit deeper into the discography of the German band Anyone's Daughter. Founded in the early 70s , named after a Deep Purple song they released their first record Adonis only in 1979. Interesting record with a side long track and a majority of instrumental passages but without memorable song material. Their second self named record from 1980 , one of my favourite , goes into a more song based direction and shorter tracks but still with lots of instrumental passages featuring mainly vintage keyboards like Rhodes, Hammond and Moog. The songs are very well written , sung in English by vocalist and bass player Harald Bareth, one of the best German prog vocalists.
Coming from the Stuttgart region in southern Germany the band toured heavily and was quite popular in southern Germany AD had a record deal with Spiegelei , from memory a Decca subsidary.
The third record presents another turn , a concept record , Piktors Verwandlungen, an adaption of an esoteric story by Herman Hesse, who came from Calw , a small town from the same region.
The record alternates between narration in German and longer instrumental tracks with a jazz rock flavour. For me the balance between the narrated parts and the instrumentals does not work too well.
Their fourth record In Blau from 1982 goes back to medium long songs and one longer track this time sung in German and is IMO their best record. The lyrics are very good and quite deep especially on the long track Tanz und Tod. They stuck to the vintage keys and the record has kept a classic prog vibe.
Neue Sterne from 1983 is the last studio record with Bareth and also their last prog record. The tracks have become shorter and more radio friendly , but including still interesting instrumental passages.
Neue Sterne has again very good lyrics, among them two of my favourite AD songs Der Plan and In Zerbrochenem Glas , the latter narrating a car accident from the perspective of one of the victims and a highlight in song text writing .
The band reunited in 2000 but changed completely their style. There are three live records from the Bareth period which are all excellent