What Would Renaissance's Illusion have sounded like if the band stayed together?

This year will mark the 50th anniversary of the release of progressive rock band Renaissance's second (and in my view most underrated) album 'Illusion'. The very troubled story behind this album's recording and release is almost more interesting than the music itself. Most notably the lineup of the band began to fall apart during it's recording, and by the time it was released, all five of the original members of the band had left. In this blog post, I will speculate how the album would have turned out if the band had stayed together throughout the whole recording.

A brief history of the original Renaissance

However before we get to the album speculation, let's go over the complicated history of the original band itself. Most people who know of the band Renaissance probably know them by what's referred to as the "classic lineup" of the band, consisting of Annie Haslam, Jon Camp, John Tout, Michael Dunford and Terry Sullivan. This version of the band released a string of albums in the 1970's, some of which are now considered progressive rock classics such as 'Ashes are Burning' and 'Scheherazade and Other Stories'. However, none of those musicians were founding members of the band.

The original band

L-R

Top: Keith Relf, John Hawken

Bottom: Louis Cennamo, Jim McCarty, Jane Relf

Renaissance was originally formed in early 1969 by singer Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty, both formerly of The Yardbirds. Relf and McCarty had grown tired of the heavy blues music The Yardbirds were playing and wanted to pursue something different, music with a folk and classical influence. Pianist John Hawken, who was formerly famous playing with the Rock 'n' Roll band The Nashville Teens, and bassist Louis Cennamo were both recruited into this new project Relf and McCarty were putting together. To complete the band, Relf took on the duties of guitarist, and brought his sister Jane into the band as another vocalist. This new group 'Renaissance', would emerge as one of the first bands in a new genre of music: progressive rock. The band toured the U.K. and Scandinavia before releasing their debut self titled album in October 1969, almost the exact same time as King Crimson's seminal debut album 'In The Court of the Crimson King' was released. The album was a moderate success on both sides of the Atlantic, and the band embarked on their first American tour in the opening months of 1970.

The band performing 'Kings and Queens' live on German TV right before the start of their American tour

However, despite the success of the tour, it physically and morally exhausted the band. McCarty explained in an interview decades later: 

"One of the reasons I left the Yardbirds was the exhaustion from incessant touring, and suddenly it was happening all over again. Keith and I felt we were losing control of the situation. We were under enormous pressure each night. In addition, communication problems began to arise inside the band. John was a bit pushy, and Jane was becoming more and more prickly. I was very tense, and after a while, I couldn't stand the idea of getting up on a stage anymore."

Louis Cennamo similarly stated:

"It became a routine, and soon, all the pleasure was gone out of it,"

The band was given no time to rest. As soon as the tour was finished, they would need to fly back to the U.K. and immediately begin to work on their next album. Then immediately after that, they were set to begin a large European tour. The five tired musicians entered the studio in April 1970, and recorded most of what would end up on the album, which was eventually given the title of 'Illsuion' by Jane Relf. The band then flew to Switzerland to play at the Montreux Jazz Festival to kick off their European tour. The tour never happened though. After the show in Montreux, Keith Relf and Jim McCarty finally had enough. They did not "quit" the band entirely, as they still wished to remain involved with the band in terms of songwriting and producing. Put simply, they ceased to be performing musicians in the band, and chose to remain involved in the background. 

A comparison to another band already mentioned is startlingly similar. Both Ian McDonald and Michael Giles left King Crimson in 1970 because of exhaustion following a large American tour, and both initially wished to remain as collaborators purely in the studio, and not perform with the band live. Their departure caused the second King Crimson album to made by a mish-mash of old and new band members plus session musicians, something which happened almost exactly to Illusion as well following Relf and McCarty's departure.  

With the two founding members of the band now gone, John Hawken became the de facto leader of Renaissance. To replace Keith Relf, he called upon two of his former Nashville Teens band members: singer Terry Crowe, and guitarist Michael Dunford (Now there's a familiar name!). Session drummer Terry Slade then joined to replace McCarty. However more instability was brought to the band's doorstep when Louis Cennamo was contacted by the band Colosseum with an offer to join them as their new bassist. Considering the very uncertain future of Renaissance, he accepted. Hawken once again called upon another Nashville Teen, bassist Neil Korner to fill the gap Cennamo had just left. 

This new lineup of the band with only Hawken and Jane Relf as original members returned to the studio to record a Michael Dunford song: 'Mr. Pine'. But this song, plus the other songs the original lineup had recorded earlier was not enough for a full LP. Because of this, in a strange turn of events, Keith Relf, McCarty, and Cennamo briefly returned to record one more song to finish the album. However Hawken was not present with them. I have been unable to find out why he was not there, maybe tensions between him and the other band members were too high, or perhaps he just had other commitments and couldn't be at the session. Whatever the reason was, keyboard player Don Shinn was the one who played with the other original members on the album's closing song 'Past Orbits of Dust'. 

It was messy and complicated, but the album was now finished and produced by Keith Relf. The original band however, was also finished, with Jane Relf and Hawken leaving shorty after recording was complete. Renaissance did continue, but with different members under the leadership of Michael Dunford. Despite the efforts made to finish Illusion, the record label was not satisfied with it, and it only saw a release in Germany in 1971, and did not even get a wide release elsewhere in the world until 1977. 

Re-constructing Illusion

Now that we've covered all the necessary background information, we can begin to speculate on how the album would have been different had the original five members stayed together. As mentioned earlier the band recorded most of the album before anyone left. Those four songs we can safely assume would still be on the album. The band also recorded a fifth song that never ended up on the album, but we'll discuss that one later. 

'Mr. Pine' however, has to go. This was a song that Michael Dunford brought with him when he joined, so obviously it couldn't be included if he never joined at all. 'Past Orbits of Dust' is an interesting case, it was a Relf/McCarty composition so it likely would have appeared on the album, but it would be a different version for two reasons. Firstly John Hawken would have been there on keyboards instead of Don Shinn. Secondly,  the song would be a different length. Past Orbits was recorded with the purpose of filling time on the LP (not to imply this makes it a bad song). You can tell just by listening that the band stretch it out as much as they possibly can. So in our hypothetical where the band isn't recording this to desperately fill the LP, I think it would be fair to say we can shave off four minutes from the song. 

With that being done, let's take a look at how the album looks now:

Uh oh, it looks like we've ran into the same problem the band did: this isn't enough material for a finished album. Now I mentioned earlier that the band had recorded another song that was never used. But this song 'Statues' is very short, only two and a half minutes and is not enough. Other than that, the band never recorded any more songs. However that doesn't mean we've reached a dead end, in fact I've put together three different scenarios where the album could have been completed. 

Scenario 1 - McKay's Rave

In the interview with Jim McCarty that was quoted earlier in this blog post, he mentions this when asked about Renaissance's live shows:

"We wouldn't play any Yardbirds songs, mainly extended versions of the album tracks, as well as a half-improvised track named 'McKay's Rave,' in the style of Santana."

The band never recorded this song in the studio, however there does exist multiple live recordings of the band in their short existence, and thus exists live recordings of this 'McKay's Rave', most notably on two CD releases: Live + Direct and Past Orbits of Dust. The version on both of them is taken from a live show at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, though it is titled 'No Name Raga' rather than 'McKay's Rave'. 

 Because of the half-improvised and extended nature of this song, we can probably shave a few minutes off of it for a hypothetical album version. And with that, here's our first reconstruction of Illusion.

Not only does this new addition fill the time, it actually fits really tightly on LP. The original four songs that are more laid back and classical take up side 1, while the two longer, more rock oriented tracks take up side 2. Out of the three scenarios, I consider this one to be the most probable. 

Scenario 2 - songs from Schizom

In 1971, Keith Relf and Jim McCarty composed the score to an obscure film called 'Schizom'. So obscure is this film that it doesn't even have an IMDB entry. So what does this have to do with Illusion? Well a few CD releases of the album include two songs from the movie soundtrack: 'Prayer For Light', and 'Walking Away'. Even though these songs were probably only included to make this release appear more "special", listening to these two tracks I was surprised to find that they actually fit with the rest of the album quite nicely. It makes me wonder if these had been intended for Renaissance initially. I was unable to find the individual songs on YouTube, but this video of the whole Illusion album includes them. 'Prayer for Light' starts around 42:30, and 'Walking Away' around  48:00. 

So when we include these two songs on our album, we find that like McKay's Rave, they fill just the right amount of time. We can never know for sure if Relf and McCarty had these songs written for Illusion, but they were written around the same time, so it's not too far of a stretch to say they might have been. 

Scenario 3 - Jane Relf solo songs

Now this scenario I consider to be the least probable, however it still is interesting to consider anyways. After the breakup of Renaissance, Jane Relf recorded three solo songs. The first two were released as a single: the A-side being 'Without A Song From You', with a B-side called 'Make My Time Pass By'. Now both of these songs are not prog, they are very much pop songs, though both could potentially fit on the album as they sound a bit similar to the album's two shorter songs 'Love Goes On' and 'Love Is All'. 

The third song however is the most interesting, a demo version of 'Carpet of the Sun'. Some who are reading this may recognize this song, as it was recorded by the classic lineup of Renaissance on their 1973 album 'Ashes Are Burning', it's one of their best known songs. But this demo found only on Jane Relf's solo compilation album features her on vocals and not Annie Haslam. The mere existence of this demo begs the question: when was this recorded? The only information I've been able to find is on Discogs.com, which claims that it was actually a Renaissance demo recorded in 1970. Big if true, however this claim is unsourced, and it's the only place on the internet I've heard it. But this is a hypothetical album we're constructing, so I don't think it's too far of a stretch to include it here. 

And finally we can include that studio outtake 'Statues' to complete this scenario. Here's what it looks like:

Make My Time Pass By interchangeable with Without A Song From You in this scenario.

Conclusion

Even though the Illusion we got might not be as great the album we *could* have got, there's no need to lament. Illusion as it stands is a great album in my view. 'Golden Thread' and 'Face of Yesterday' are both beautiful songs, two of the finest any version of Renaissance ever made. Most importantly, the album showed that the band itself had improved and matured in the short time since their first album was released. Keith Relf's guitar work had clearly gotten better. Jim McCarty comes into his own as a song writer and a singer.  John Hawken's piano work is incredible and he's a lot better at blending classical music quotes into the songs than on the first album. Louis Cennamo shows his versatility on the bass, leaving no doubt as to why he's considered one of the best bassists of his time. But the most matured of the members by far is Jane Relf. I would go so far as to say that Illusion is *her* album, and not just because she gave it it's name. Not only has her singing greatly improved, but whereas on the first album she was mostly relegated to the background, she makes her presence known on every song on Illusion, after all, she is the only member who appears on every song. 

To me, the original Renaissance was a band with so much talent and potential, it seemed like if they just stuck together they would have been huge in 1970's. However because of the band's short existence, they've been mostly forgotten and eclipsed in popularity by the classic era lineup. I hope that by writing this blog post, I've not only provided something interesting for fans, but also introduced some people to the band their albums.