Another Week Another Vinyl: The Nice: Autumn to Spring
I've always considered myself a pretty big fan of prog rock. Yet for some reason I've never sought out any music from one of progs pioneers. The Nice. When I was searching through the record store, I didn't have The Nice on my mind. To think about it, The Nice were probably one of the last bands on my mind. Then I came across a copy of their album Autumn to Spring. I was immediately interested. I had always wanted to listen to them but never had anything pushing me towards them besides the very fact that Keith Emerson was in the band and they are one of the originators of prog. Well here was my chance. I had never even heard of the album, but why not try it out?
I pulled the vinyl out of the jacket and was met with an awesome picture on the center of the disc. It was a cartoon of the Mad Hatter from Alice and Wonderland (Not the Mad Hatter from the famous "Mad Hatter Music" blog.) It appeared to be the logo of The Famous Charisma Label, aka Charisma Label, who I had never previously heard of. I did some research and saw they were behind many progs giants like Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator amongst others. They would later be bought out by various giants in the music biz and eventually disolved.
Aside from that little departure, the music was quite good. It turns out Autumn to Spring is a complation album, mainly taking from their debut album. From what I have read these songs are just remastered and it's practically the same as their debut. That didn't matter much to me seeing that I don't even own any of their music.
The album is quite good, and isn't full on prog but touches of it are certainly present. One of the most notable presences I heard on the album was Emerson. His distinct style and sound was immediately recognizable and brought me right back to ELP. This was a great introduction to one of the prog pioneers and I will certainly be on the lookout for more material.
posted by Jeff at 4:37 PM
8 Comments:
You hadn't heard of Charisma? Cool find! I love that label. My friend Michael introduced me to The Nice with "Five Bridges". He'd found them backwords through ELP and liked the orchestral/prog mix. Then he got into Can and other stranger prog groups. I stuck mostly with Genesis and other more, I guess, lyrical groups.
I just love the grinding organ on ELP's "Lucky Man".
Daniel - Once again my age is keeping me out of the loop on a lot of things related to classic rock. I probably would have never taken notice of the label if it weren't for the great logo.
Wow you guys are serious of classic rock I love Freddie Mercury.
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As a committed progger, I probably had more Charisma label LPs than any other at one point in the 70s!
As d.eldon mentions, 'Five Bridges' is probably the one to go for if you need to know about the Nice (and it gets a mention in my book!)
It's great to hear that someone from the 'younger' generation is discovering this stuff for the first time just as I did many moons ago. Keep digging.
musicobsessive - I was very impressed with Charisma's lineup. I might search through to see if I can find any bands they represent that I never heard of.
And I definitely plan on checking out "Five Bridges".
I, too, have not gotten into The Nice. But I should.
I'm very familiar with the Charisma logo from all of the purchased-long-after-release LPs and also from the recently released box set albums--which recreate the Charisma logo on the discs.
David - Does the new Genesis box set have the Charisma logo's on them? I still can't wait to get it.
Jeff,
I'm famous? Hehe. But seriously, I have three albums from these guys, and while they aren't anything near brilliant, there's some cool stuff. My faves from them are "Rondo" and "Azrael Revisited" from what albums I can't remember right now.
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