They opened for Strawbs in 76 :The Deep Cuts Tour..saw the Calderone show...don't recall much of Ambrosia aside from the drummer
They opened for Strawbs in 76 :The Deep Cuts Tour..saw the Calderone show...don't recall much of Ambrosia aside from the drummer
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I doubt that you saw the original line-up. As far as I know David Pack has not performed live with them since 1999. I saw that 1999 show with Pack in VA, just absolutely awesome.
I still find it incredible that people post on this website that they confuse Ambrosia with Air Supply. David Pack was an incredible vocalist and guitar player. However his influence in their music is songs like "How Much I Feel" and "Biggest Part of Me" which were hit singles. But even on those albums which had those songs, Ambrosia cranked out some pretty good progressive rock, getting towards hard rock on 180. Their last performance at ROSfest was awesome, and much more towards their proggy side. Alan Parsons was totally involved in engineering and production of the first two albums, which were done just after he engineered Pink Floyd's DSOTM. Pretty much all of Ambrosia worked with Alan on the first of the Alan Parson Project Albums, Tales of Mystery and Imagination. David Pack was a vocalist on APP's "Try Anything Once".
[QUOTE=Firth;330673]I doubt that you saw the original line-up.
He didn't say he saw the original lineup.
Can anyone identify the 12-string electric guitar that Pack is playing and dancing with? Very cool tone.
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I think the 12 string is a Baldwin with Trisonic pickups (same pickups as Brian May's Red Special). Very similar to Burns guitars, I think.
That was a Baldwin electric 12 string with Burns pickups. It wound up at a music store where I worked (Valley Arts in Studio City, CA) the late 80's as part of a bunch of used gear sold to the store when a cartage company went out of business. I opened up the case and the tag inside said "Ambrosia" so being a huge fan, I recognized it instantly bought it for $300. A couple years after the store closed, I ran into David Pack who was a customer and mentioned I'd bought the guitar. He was shocked and said it'd disappeared during a long dispute with that cartage company while Ambrosia was in legal limbo (another long story) and he figured it was gone for good so I sold it back to him for what I paid. It was a cool guitar and I wish I still had it. I did use it for a few recordings while I did.
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Personally I would not regard "How Much I Feel" as anything like Air Supply (other than the fact that it is essentially a pop ballad ... of which there were many, by many different bands in that era). To my ears, "How Much" had an R&B flavor to it that set it comfortably apart from anything I've ever heard by AS. One thing I've always appreciated about Ambrosia is that they were thoroughly "prog" in their sound and arrangements, but they were not afraid to step into the "mainstream" from time to time with material that managed to chart, most of which still holds up well today. YMMV.
I think the fact that one guy in each band had a fro is why they get lumped together. :P
I actually thought of Air Supply when I first heard that latest Yes album (I say "latest" because I fear there'll be more records from them). And there were no afros involved at all, AFAIK.
The first two Ambrosia albums are both great and highly eclectic takes on perfectionist yet experimental pop/rock, melodic but still strangely challenging and adventurous, and featuring some of the most ambitious arrangements attempted by a US band in the mid-70s. And they were definitely "progressive" - with and/or without the damn quotation marks.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
I'm not the only one who pronounces it Am-bro-zee-uh, am I?
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Check out my solo project prog band, Mutiny in Jonestown at https://mutinyinjonestown.bandcamp.com/
Check out my solo project progressive doom metal band, WytchCrypt at https://wytchcrypt.bandcamp.com/
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
I don't consider anything "prog", seeing how there isn't even a definition at hand that people can agree on. So what the hell else is new? By some folks' standard today, 90% of 70s progressive rock music couldn't possibly have been "prog" in the first place as it didn't comply with the grand outline laid by the retroactive efforts of Roine, Neal, Portnoy, Yanni and Jon Bon.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
I was trying to offer a compliment, but then this.
Air supply.jpg
The Culture Cafe, Sundays 6-9am on WWUH-FM
Broadcasting from the University of Hartford, CT at 91.3FM, streaming at www.wwuh.streamrewind.com and at www.wwuh.org
Well oh well, sorry about that - but I seriously couldn't find much funny about that Yes record. The third song there sounded uncannily like a Modern Talking wannabe-hit single (including the lovely vox and that farty-bubbly synth line), albeit a little less intriguing than them.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
That's funny!
Gordon Parry, who helped discover Ambrosia and who was one of the top recording engineers for
Decca Records and who can be heard reciting the Jabberwocky on Ambrosia's song "Mama Frog".
Said in introducing Ambrosia at an early concert "We at Decca have the distinction of having turned down The Beatles as an audition, but we have The Rolling Stones, The Moody Blues, The Ten Years After, and we hope we're going to have The Am-bro-zee-uh."
They got even closer to hard rock with Road Island, which was a lot less commercial than their previous two efforts (probably why it tanked so bad). They even get close to new wave on “Kid No More.” Incidentally, it’s a really good album, their most underrated disc, and it ought to be better-known.
Baldwin the piano company? I had no idea they made guitars!
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
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