Renaissance
In late 1968 former Yardbird Chris Dreja, John Hawken and steel player Brian (B.J.) Cole were going to form a country rock band, to be managed by Peter Grant and produced by Mickey Most, but they never got beyond the rehearsal stage. Dreja, aware that his former Yardbirds colleagues Jim McCarty and Keith Relf were putting together a new band, suggested Hawken as a possible member. In early 1969 Hawken got a telephone call from McCarty asking if he was interested in the new project. Hawken turned up at McCartys' house in Thames Ditton, along with bass player Louis Cennamo, Dreja and Cole. Cole and Dreja subsequently dropped out of the project: Cole went on to become a session musician heard on many recordings in the 1970s.
A short time later Jane Relf joined on vocals and Renaissance was born, with a line-up of Keith and Jane Relf, McCarty, Hawken and Cennamo. Live gigs included a tour of the US and work in Europe. This line-up recorded two albums, produced by another former Yardbird, Paul Samwell-Smith. Circumstances brought changes in the band, with Keith Relf, McCarty and Cennamo departing, followed soon after by Jane Relf. Hawken helped recruit replacements and, by the summer of 1970, the line-up consisted of himself with Neil Korner (the Teens' second bass player) on bass guitar, Michael Dunford (Cruisers and Teens) on guitar, Terry Crowe (from the early Teens) and Annemarie "Binky" Cullum as vocalists and Terry Slade on drums.
Hawken was ready for a change when Spooky Tooth contacted him in October 1970 for a three-month tour of Europe on the strength of their hit record "I Am the Walrus" from their Last Puff album. But before he left Renaissance he helped his successor, John Tout, to integrate with the band. Tout, together with Michael Dunford, formed the nucleus of a more stable line-up, with vocalist Annie Haslam, bass player Jon Camp and drummer Terry Sullivan, that went on to record many albums.
Read more about this topic: John Hawken
Famous quotes containing the word renaissance:
“People nowadays like to be together not in the old-fashioned way of, say, mingling on the piazza of an Italian Renaissance city, but, instead, huddled together in traffic jams, bus queues, on escalators and so on. It’s a new kind of togetherness which may seem totally alien, but it’s the togetherness of modern technology.”
—J.G. (James Graham)