The Renaissance Zone - Progressive Rock Music Forum

^ This is cool. I fast forwarded straight to the F5 section in Ashes Are Burning. I guess we know our Annie!

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pretty awesome indeed

SteveG wrote:

An oddball Annie song that Psychedelic Paul might like.

That was Poptastic!

I'm just old enough to remember that "Flowers in the Rain" by The Move was the first ever record played on BBC Radio 1 by Tony Blackburn way back in 1967.

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - January 27 2020 at 09:33

SteveG wrote:

Psychedelic Paul wrote:

SteveG wrote:

An oddball Annie song that Psychedelic Paul might like.

That was Poptastic!

I'm just old enough to remember that "Flowers in the Rain" by The Move was the first ever recorded played on BBC Radio 1 by Tony Blackburn way back in 1967.

Right you are. I remember the Move had a male vocalist that seemed to disappear very quickly after this song came out.

I just realised I made a typo error in my last message. It should have said "record" and not "recorded"

I just Googled The Move and discovered that the vocalist who disappeared from The Move soon after "Flowers in the Rain" was Carl Wayne. He also sang "Fire Brigade" and he sounded remarkably like Roy Wood. In fact, I'd always assumed it was Roy Wood on vocals on those two records until now.

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - January 27 2020 at 09:42

Took the risk of attempting to sing a Renaissance song! I mostly stick to Hindi and some R&B/alt/soft rock (Wonder/Radiohead/Steely Dan) and the toughest song I have previously attempted was Jeff Buckley's Last Goodbye.

But I chanced on a software that can take vocals out of a recording so used it to create a karaoke of sorts for I Think Of You. Which is probably the easiest song in Annie's repertoire and still not frightfully easy. At least not if you have to sing in the same key (or the exact octave below, as I did). Annie carries an astonishing amount of brightness even into her low range and that's HARD. I also had to do three different takes, not because I was struggling with pitch, but because she straddles a perfect balance of minimalism and expression and if I tried to override the backbeat - which I love to do - it made the rendition sound lazy or lacking in intensity. I could have got around the low note being too low if I could simply sing in a higher key because a D4 (the high note) is very easy for me but obviously when I am using the original music, I don't have that option and had to make a fist of it.

I usually stop attempting retakes at the point where I think I have hit my ceiling, regardless of how low or high it happens to be in that song! So here goes. Hopefully didn't totally murder the song for you.

Edited by rogerthat - March 03 2020 at 01:50

Thanks Steve!

kenethlevine wrote:

yes I have a sense of how challenging that must be from having tried Northern Lights on karaoke. Suffice to say you did far better than me!

But on to other relevant topics. Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth did a neat video at a famous record store in NYC in which he dug up vinyl that was a big influence on him, and guess which album showed up? It is between 2:50 and 4:10 or in this video

Thanks, Ken. Would love to hear you sing by the way.

That Akerfeldt video got a bunch of people turned onto Renaissance. Clap

Hilarious anecdote there about a drunk Steven Wilson actually asking Roy Wood how was Annie in bed. Wilson is lucky to have come back alive from that. LOL

You're in for a treat!

Oh man, you’ll melt when you listen to Turn of the Cards.

Listening to Turn of the Cards now, amazing stuff. This band is brilliant, ive been sleeping on them!

The sun has left the sky...
...Now you can close your eyes