Chris de Burgh

[PeterG]

For some reason some soft pop and rock artists are considered "prog" by the prog community, simultaneously some light prog artists are dismissed as soft pop, soft rock.

Chris de Burgh for example, has many songs in his catalogue that are far more progressive than a lot of the
post-70s output of several of the acknowledged prog rock bands. Yet many proggers consider him the anti-Christ of music based purely on a couple of schmaltzy singles. He has made some fantastic albums.

I know for example that I prefer to listen to C de B songs like this rather than post-70s YES or Genesis.





Think of the vibe in The Strawbs "Burning for Me" when listening to The Traveller.

[PeterG]

[bob_32_116]

I do like some of CdB's songs, but I never thought of him as particularly progressive, just a singer/songwriter who was good at what he did.

Popular perception of him as uncool is probably largely due to the massive overplaying of "Lady In Red". even that's not a bad song, but one can have too much of a good thing.

Do we know what "Eastern Wind" was about? It's clearly a metaphor for some perceived imminent danger; the "eastern" suggests a reference to Cold War fears, which were just about reaching a peak at that time.

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Edit: Interesting coincidence - after posting the above I went to the ABC news site, and staring me in the face is an opinion piece by a journalist named Chris Berg.

[GuitarGeek]

I've really only ever heard his Stateside hits, ie Don't Pay The Ferryman, Ship To Shore, High On Emotion, and Lady In Red. Beyond that, I remember about a million years ago, the A&E channel showing a concert of his (yeah, there was a time when A&E actually showed stuff that reality TV garbage), but I honestly don't remember much about the other songs that would have been played.

[PeterG]

but I never thought of him as particularly progressive

Nor do I, but then again nor do I consider post-70s Yes prog, or post-Dark Side Floyd prog, or Jethro Tull as prog, EVER!

[Dan Roth]

Some good Chris D chatter here also: http://www.progressiveears.org/forum...Burgh-Any-fans

[Rarebird]

A spaceman came traveling was also covered by Eela Craig and I suppose they were prog.

[the winter tree]

I'm a fan of de Burgh. But he does tend to get overly sentimental often. He's an amazing vocalist. He has a really great band on the live from Dublin album. He's more interesting when he does Al Stewart-like historical/story songs.

[abc123]

Saw this good cover of Don't Pay the Ferryman:
https://youtu.be/qAOy65RY_4M?feature=shared

[BravadoNJ]

[interbellum]

While I did some research I discovered that a lot of albums by Chris de Burgh were produced by the late great Rupert Hine. And yes, SWT was often the engineer on these records.

[SWT]

While I did some research I discovered that a lot of albums by Chris de Burgh were produced by the late great Rupert Hine. And yes, SWT was often the engineer on these records.

Yes we worked on three of his albums, and in fact Steve Negus, the drummer from Canadian prog band Saga, played on 'The Getaway'

SWT

[interbellum]

Yes we worked on three of his albums, and in fact Steve Negus, the drummer from Canadian prog band Saga, played on 'The Getaway'

SWT

Cool. I believe Negus played more often on Rupert's albums.

Any favorites amongst the Chris De Burgh-CD's you both did, Stephen? I must admit I have no recordings with his name on it.