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Rare Bird

About Me

Rare Bird was an early British prog rock band. The band formed in October 1969, and got their debut album out the following month, which is really quite an accomplishment, since it usually takes a band a year or more after their formation to get an album out, not to mention it usually takes two or three months to get the album out after the band records it.
Here is Video Of The Song Sympathy this is a later version of the song as on the 1976 greatest hits Sympathy. It has a real good Guitar solo in it. This one someone made with a photo slide show of our times Very Very Good and Very Very stunning!!
This is there Greatest Hits CD
Here is a Video of the Song Sympathy This song was origanally on there first Lp from 1969 and a minor hit in Europe
Here is a Discography Of All there CDs
1969 Rare Bird
1970 As Your Mind Flies By
1972 Epic Forest
1973 Somebody's Watching
1974 Born Again
1973 Attention!
1976 Sympathy
1977 Rare Bird
1997 1st (Rare Bird) / Somebody's Watching [remastered]
2003 Third Time Around: An Introduction

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 4/25/2007
Band Website: http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Bird/artist/B000AQ0C16/
Band Members: Steve Gould (vocals/saxophone/bass) Dave Kaffinetti (keyboards) Graham Field (organ) Mark Ashton (drums)
Influences:
Sounds Like: Rare Bird
This was the very first album ever released on Charisma, the same label that gave us Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator/Peter Hammill, Lindisfarne, Capability Brown, and even Monty Python. Rare Bird was an odd band, for they had two keyboardists (David Kaffinetti on electric piano, Graham Field on organ), as well as bassist (Steve Gould, who also handled vocals), and drummer (Mark Ashton), but no one on guitar. Rare Bird had a rather unique sound and the powerful vocals of Steve Gould helps. The album has some really great prog rock numbers like "Beautiful Scarlet", "Iceberg", and the ever sinister "God of War" (my favorite). The album also features "Sympathy" which was actually a hit for these guys in Continental Europe. Written, obviously, during the Vietnam War-era, the song features lyrics I feel are just as relevant today (if not more so): "Sympathy is what we need, my friend/'Cause there's not enough love to go around" and "Half the world hates the other half/and half the world has all the food/and half the world lies down and quietly starves/'Cause there's not enough love to go around". In this era of conservative politicians screwing us all, and threats of going to war in the Middle East, it's real easy to relate to this song.
As Your Mind Flies
In 1970, comes their second (and unfortunately final) album with the original lineup, As Your Mind Flies By (although the band did reemerge in 1972, with an altered lineup that included guitarists, and released three more albums on Polydor until 1974, which had a mellower, West Coast-influenced feel). This was the album their reputation largely stands on, and for real good reason! Many of the songs on this album shows some pop influences like "What You Want to Know" and "I'm Thinking", while "Down on the Floor" tends to have a stronger baroque feel, complete with harpsichord. Then you have the heavy and aggressive "Hammerhead". This is no doubt the highlight for me on the first half of the album (side one, if you own the LP), even if it's very short. And vocalist Steve Gould often receives no credit as he's a great vocalist, and a rather distinctive one at that. You could never call his singing pretentious, as he was as much influenced by soul and R&B as Arthur Brown (although Gould was never as wild as Brown), yet it works great in the progressive rock framset of the band. Then comes the side-length cut "Flight". This was, without a doubt, the most ambitious thing Rare Bird ever did! A four movement suite that goes through different changes, including some experimental passages, a bolero (actually it was the band performing Ravel's "Bolero") and some great organ passages from Graham Field. And I almost forgot, a choir was included on some of the passages.Unfortunately this original lineup from Rare Bird quickly disintegrated. It's too bad that they only managed two albums with this lineup, but it could be argued that they couldn't really go any further (and probably true, as their Polydor albums sound drastically different from their Charisma albums, but those albums are good too, at least the two I have, Epic Forest and Somebody's Watching as I don't have Born Again yet). In 1976, Charisma released the compilation album called Sympathy. Although containing a nice selection, you really know how unnecessary a compilation album is if it solely concentrates on two albums (I would have a lot less problem if it also had non albums singles like "Devil's High Concern" or the single version of "What You Want to Know" which is said to be different from the album version, but this compilation doesn't). Organist Graham Field left to form a band with ex-King Crimson drummer Andy McCulloch in a band called Fields, who released one album in 1971 on CBS. Drummer Mark Ashton, well he was all over the place. Meanwhile the other Steve Gould and the other keyboardist David Kaffinetti formed a new edition of Rare Bird and released three albums on Polydor, Epic Forest (1972), Somebody's Watching (1973) and Born Again (1974). As Your Mind Flies By is certainly Rare Bird at their finest and a great place to know this band
Record Label: ABC RECORDS
Type of Label: Major

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