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Welcome to Papa's Corner! The eclectic column by Rex Stocklin!
Pictures, memorabillia, reviews, personal treasures, & rarities! All from the vast vault of Papa Frog All opinions are those of Papa Frog.
Click Here For A Review of The David Pack Maestro's Show Click Here for the previous "Papa's Corner" Lengthy article that ran as a preview of Ambrosia's About five years ago Ambrosia came filled with hope to Chicago. Northwestern's McGaw Hall was scheduled as one of their maiden stops on their very first tour. It was the dead of winter and someone with a peculiar sense of humor had booked them to open for, of all people, the Beach Boys. As with nearly all opening acts, the crowd booed them unmercifully. Here they were expecting Hawaiian shirts and all they were getting was some "progressive rock" group who had just released their first album. The audience was getting nervous. It seemed Ambrosia was playing forever. The booing got louder. Ambrosia was running out of material. The crowd didn't know that they were told to keep playing because Mike Love had been snowed-in in Indianapolis. Fifteen thousand robust fans were not pleased. Not even an a capella rendition of "Duke Of Earl" could stem the tide of thrown objects. "Our manager whispered to us to get the hell off the stage and into the car," recalls Joe Puerta. "He didn't want us to be around when they told the audience that the Beach Boys weren't going to play at all." But those days are far behind Ambrosia now. Their last two LPs have been giant smashes ("Life Beyond L.A". and "One Eighty") and each has fostered even bigger hit singles ("How Much I Feel" and "Biggest Part Of Me"). Those fans, however, who know of the band only through AM radio airplay the last couple of years almost certainly have the wrong impression of Ambrosia. This is one band that hasn't sacrificed its musical integrity for commercial success. This is a band not afraid to take chances. "We felt we were getting into a rut with the progressive thing," said guitarist Dave Pack. "Bands have to be brave and experiment. I respect Fleetwood Mac for doing "Tusk" and Pink Floyd for doing "The Wall". They could very easily have just done Dark Side of the Moon Phase One, Two and Three instead. "We think we're a multi-faceted band. We're totally unique in that we can pull off whatever this band tries to. We've proven our versatility." "One Eighty", represents not a change in direction for Ambrosia to a more rock 'n' roll sound, but rather simply another side of the same band. Despite the popularity of soulful, rhythm 'n' blues-based "Life Beyond L.A", Ambrosia stuck its neck out and moved momentarily 180 degrees around. They even changed the composition of the band. Whereas most people make changes after failure, Ambrosia has altered itself after success. "We want to baffle," laughs Puerta. "We want to be one big question mark. It's our strange way of becoming a household word." But seriously ... "We had toured for a long time and like playing live. We began to miss that raw rock. Since people want to hear in concert what's on the records we had to put out an album that rocked so that we could play it in concert. It also gave us a chance to play more solos. We're always trying to challenge ourselves." The personnel line-up was expanded because, they discovered, it was easier performing Ambrosia's layered sound (which features multiple vocals and is not guitar-oriented) with six members than it was with four. The Ambrosia core of bassist Puerta, Pack and drummer Burleigh Drummond with keyboardist Christopher North now also includes another keyboardist - David Cutler Lewis - and ex-Steely Dan backup vocalist and percussionist Royce Jones. What Ambrosia has done is make it extremely difficult to pin a label on themselves. In their ten years together, their musical taste-testing would please a chef at a Swedish smorgasbord. They have applied their intricate and sophisticated sound to a number of styles. Their self-titled debut album included two hits, "Holdin' On To Yesterday" and "Nice, Nice, Very Nice." The latter's borrowing from a passage in Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Cat's Cradle" helped mark them as rock's literate poets. Their progressive music was termed Art Rock and their songs' lyrics were posterized. Snatches of poet e. e. cummings and references to novelist George Sand on their second effort, "Somewhere I've Never Travelled", further impressed the critics and FM radio programmers. Production of their second disc by the noted and artsy Alan Parsons didn't hurt either. Both albums received Grammy nominations. "I was amazed and disappointed with the first album," Pack reflected. "We spent a year on it. lots of love, meticulous care and lots of sweat. I thought it was going to revolutionize the world and sell millions. Well, it fell short of that. But it did give us credibility in the business and we got very heavy FM airplay." When they moved from 20th Century Records to Warner Brothers, their first release surprised disc jockeys on both sets of airwaves. "Life Beyond L.A." employed the piano talents of Joe Sample on the jazzy "Apothecary," showcased a ballad that reached the Top 5 on the charts, had some fun with "Angola," hard rocked to some and sang blue-eyed soul to others. There's a harder edge to One Eighty and only two ballads. Ambrosia shows it can rock with the best. That the public has chosen their two biggest successes to be ballads, they say, is through no effort of their own. Said Pack, "Every album we have about 50 songs to choose from. We not only try to pick the better songs but ones that'll make the album flow from cut to cut. What happened is that the people for some reason picked up on the sentiment in the ballads." Actually, Ambrosia considers itself steeped in R&B. Their early days of playing the Southern California club and bar circuit impressed that on them. "We're a players' band," continued Pack. "Our rehearsals always break into jamming. About four a week are jazz fusion, two are rock 'n' roll and one is R&B. We had to be flexible because one night we'd be playing in the barrio and the next night at the Hollywood Bowl." Puerta flippantly calls one song on the latest LP, "Kamikaze," "Buffalo Springfield meets King Crimson meets Wilson Pickett," but it indicates the eclecticism represented in the band. Pack noted the wide range in their record collections - from Persian music to Weather Report to Clifton Chenier to Pink Floyd. He himself can also claim performing as part of Leonard Bernstein's classical "Mass" for three months. In fact. the band's first big break came when classical music engineer Shep Gordon introduced them to the then-conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta. It was no surprise then that after we finished our interview in their Los Angeles rehearsal hall, the band warmed up by playing Otis Redding's "Heard It Through The Grapevine." You have to learn to expect the unexpected from Ambrosia. Perhaps that's one reason for them being a rather faceless band. Their audience hasn't had time to find out who they are before they moved on to something else musically. Like Pink Floyd, the individual members are largely unknown to the public. "We've kept it low profile on purpose. We wanted the music to speak for itself and when the time was right we'd bring out our separate personalities then. " Pack smiled. "The time has come. Now we're making a conscious effort to be a band with a face. The new album has our faces plastered on it for the first time. We were embarrassed at first but we want to show our individuality now." Pack calls "One Eighty" 'the missing link' for Ambrosia. It displays the rock 'n' roll submerged on the first three albums. "When people see us in concert they learn how all the parts fit together. It's hard when you see only one part on one album or just by listening to the radio. We want to stay fresh. For all we know the next album could be all orchestral." In a time that favors staying with what you already know works, Ambrosia is bucking the tide. No one would be thrown out of their chair if their next album IS orchestral. There would probably be a hit on it anyway.
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