''Focus 3'' or ''Focus III'' is the third
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
by Dutch rock band
Focus
Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to:
Arts
* Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film
*''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore
* ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based ...
, released as a
double album
A double album (or double record) is an audio album that spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically either records or compact disc. A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording i ...
in November 1972 on
Imperial Records
Imperial Records is an American record company and label started in 1947 by Lew Chudd. The label was reactivated in 2006 by EMI, which owned the label and back catalogue at the time. Imperial is owned by Universal Music Group.
Early years to 19 ...
. Recorded after touring in support of their previous album, ''
Moving Waves'' (1971), the album saw the band write extended pieces and is their first with bassist
Bert Ruiter
Focus is a Dutch progressive rock band formed in Amsterdam in 1969 by keyboardist, vocalist, and flutist Thijs van Leer, drummer Hans Cleuver, bassist Martijn Dresden, and guitarist Jan Akkerman. The band has undergone numerous formations in its ...
in the group's line-up.
''Focus 3'' received a positive reception upon its release. It went to No. 1 in the Netherlands for one week and reached No. 6 on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
and No. 35 on the US
''Billboard'' 200. "
Sylvia" was released as the album's sole single, which reached No. 4 in the UK and No. 89 in the US. The album was certified
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
by the
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
for selling in excess of 500,000 copies.
Production
Recording
By 1972, Focus had stabilised with a line-up of organist and vocalist
Thijs van Leer
Thijs van Leer (pronounced: ; born 31 March 1948) is a Dutch singer and keyboardist, best known as the founding member of the rock band Focus as its primary vocalist, keyboardist, and flautist. Born and raised in Amsterdam among a musical famil ...
, guitarist
Jan Akkerman
Jan Akkerman (born 24 December 1946) is a Dutch guitarist. He first found international commercial success with the band Focus (band), Focus, which he co-founded with Thijs van Leer. After leaving Focus, he continued as a solo musician, adding ja ...
, drummer
Pierre van der Linden
Pierre van der Linden (born 19 February 1946) is a Dutch drummer, songwriter and member of the band, Focus.
Biography
Van der Linden was influenced by his childhood hero Buddy Rich. He finds inspiration in French philosophers and classical comp ...
, and bassist
Bert Ruiter
Focus is a Dutch progressive rock band formed in Amsterdam in 1969 by keyboardist, vocalist, and flutist Thijs van Leer, drummer Hans Cleuver, bassist Martijn Dresden, and guitarist Jan Akkerman. The band has undergone numerous formations in its ...
. In July 1972, after touring in supporting their previous album, ''
Focus II
''Focus II'' (better known by its international title, ''Moving Waves'') is the second studio album by Dutch progressive rock band Focus, released in October 1971 on Imperial Records. Following the departure of original bassist Martin Dresden and ...
'' (1971), the band retreated to
Olympic Studios
Olympic Studios was a renowned British independent commercial recording studio based in Barnes, London. It is best known for its recordings of many artists throughout the late 1960s to the first decade of the 21st century, including Jimi Hendr ...
in
Barnes
Barnes may refer to:
People
* Barnes (name), a family name and a given name (includes lists of people with that name)
Places
United Kingdom
*Barnes, London, England
**Barnes railway station
** Barnes Bridge railway station
** Barnes Railway Bri ...
, south west London, to record their next album.
Initially a single LP was intended to be recorded but the group had written a considerable amount of new material, so the group opted to release a
double album
A double album (or double record) is an audio album that spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically either records or compact disc. A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording i ...
.
Mike Vernon reprised his role as the record's producer with
George Chkiantz
George Chkiantz is a British recording engineer, based in London, who has been responsible for the engineering on a number of well-known albums, many of which are considered classics, owing in part to the quality of the recordings.
Career
Chkiant ...
assigned as recording engineer.
[ Two versions of the album's sleeve design exist; its North American release features each member photographed during a performance on the ]BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
music television show ''The Old Grey Whistle Test
''The Old Grey Whistle Test'' (sometimes abbreviated to ''Whistle Test'' or ''OGWT'') is a British television music show. The show was devised by BBC producer Rowan Ayers, commissioned by David Attenborough and aired on BBC2 from 1971 to 1988. ...
'' with a black background. The second, designed by Hamish Grimes, depicts a close-up of van Leer playing the flute with the title over his face.
Songs
"Round Goes the Gossip" features five lines from the poem ''Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...
'' by the ancient Roman poet Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
, sung in Latin by van Leer and its chorus hook, "Round goes the gossip", also sung by Vernon. The five lines from the poem are printed on the album's sleeve in Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and English[ with the 1916 translation by Henry Fairclough. "Love Remembered" is a track written by Akkerman, playing an acoustic guitar with van Leer's flute, which is based on a young couple's morning walk. van Leer wrote " Sylvia" in 1968 when he was a cast member of ''Shaffy Chantant'', a Dutch theatre production by singer and actor ]Ramses Shaffy
Ramses Shaffy (29 August 1933 – 1 December 2009) was a Dutch-French singer and actor who became popular during the 1960s. His most famous songs include "Zing, vecht, huil, bid, lach, werk en bewonder", "We zullen doorgaan", "Pastorale", "Samm ...
. He was not fond of a composition that singer Sylvia Alberts was given to sing for her solo performance, so he wrote the instrumental with a set of lyrics in English written by Linda van Dyck. Its original title was a long one: "I Thought I Could Do Everything on My Own, I Was Always Stripping the Town Alone", and concerned an independent young woman who fell apart after she met the love of her life. van Leer kept the music, re-arranging it as an instrumental track when it came to selecting material for the album. He renamed it "Sylvia" after Alberts "to tease era little". The track includes a guitar introduction written by van Leer's brother Frank. Focus biographer Peet Johnson highlights several musical references and similarities that van Leer incorporates in "Focus III", including riffs from Bernard Hermann
Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely r ...
, "Don't Sleep in the Subway
"Don't Sleep in the Subway" is a song written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent and recorded by British singer Petula Clark, for whom it was an April 1967 single release.
It received a 1968 Grammy award nomination for best contemporary song, losi ...
" made famous by Petula Clark
Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer. She has one of the longest serving careers of a British singer, spanning more than seven decades.
Clark's professional career began during the ...
in 1967, Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
, and Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
.
"Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers!" was titled by Akkerman and features extended flute and guitar solos. Ruiter came up with its basic riff, with Akkerman coming up with the "second part". Akkerman wrote "Elspeth of Nottingham" after driving around England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
for a holiday in 1967, stopping in a town in the Cotswolds
The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale.
The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...
where he first heard guitarist Julian Bream
Julian Alexander Bream (15 July 193314 August 2020) was an English classical guitarist and lutenist. Regarded as one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century, he played a significant role in improving the public per ...
play the lute which inspired him to learn the instrument. Akkerman requested to include birdsong on the recording; Vernon suggested to include sounds of cows mooing and the song's title, the "Elspeth" being an old Scottish variant of the name Elizabeth. "Carnival Fugue" borrows from Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
's ''The Well-Tempered Clavier
''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time, ''clavier'', meaning keyboard, referred to a variety of in ...
'' before venturing into cool jazz
Cool jazz is a style of modern jazz music that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the fast and complex bebop style. Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and ...
territory, then culminates in a rock finale with piccolo
The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...
improvisations and a hint of Calypso rhythms on guitar. "Anonymus II" borrows its theme from "Anonymus" from the band's first album, and features a solo spot for all four members. At 26 minutes in length, it remains the group's longest recorded piece.
The vinyl pressings of the album includes " House of the King", a track Focus recorded for their first album, ''Focus Plays Focus
''Focus Plays Focus'' is the first studio album by Dutch rock band Focus, released in September 1970 on Imperial Records. It is the only album recorded by the group's original line-up consisting of organist and vocalist Thijs van Leer, bassist Ma ...
'' (1970), intended to fill up space on side four. The two former members who perform on the recording, bassist Martin Dresden and drummer Hans Cleuver, are not credited on the album sleeve.
Release
Released in November 1972, ''Focus 3'' was a commercial success for the band, reaching No. 1 in the Netherlands for one week. It reached a peak of No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
in March 1973 during a 16-week stay on the chart. In the US, it reached No. 35 on the ''Billboard'' 200. " Sylvia" was released as the album's sole single, which reached No. 4 in the UK and No. 89 in the US. In November 1973, ''Billboard'' announced the album was certified Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
by the Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
for selling in excess of 500,000 copies.10 November 1973 edition of ''Billboard'' magazine, page 90.
/ref> The album reached the same certification in the Netherlands and the UK.
Reception
In his retrospective review for AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
, Ben Davies rates the album four-and-a-half stars out of five, highlighting the band's "jollier, more accessible tone" compared to their more serious sound on ''Moving Waves''. He rates " Sylvia" a "classic" track that continues to be "one of the most loved and best remembered" songs from the band's catalogue. He concludes with: "To be frank, this LP has it all: diverse songs, astounding musicianship, one of the finest singles ever released — Focus III should unquestionably be ranked alongside the likes of ... rock's greatest".[ '']Down Beat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...
'' rated ''Focus 3'' five stars out of five in 1972, citing it to be "a sincere, emotional mixture of classical, jazz, and rock."
Track listing
Vinyl version
CD reissue
Charts
Personnel
;Focus[
*]Thijs van Leer
Thijs van Leer (pronounced: ; born 31 March 1948) is a Dutch singer and keyboardist, best known as the founding member of the rock band Focus as its primary vocalist, keyboardist, and flautist. Born and raised in Amsterdam among a musical famil ...
– vocals, Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...
, piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
, alto flute
The alto flute is an instrument in the Western concert flute family, the second-highest member below the standard C flute after the uncommon flûte d'amour. It is the third most common member of its family after the standard C flute and the ...
, piccolo
The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...
, harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
*Jan Akkerman
Jan Akkerman (born 24 December 1946) is a Dutch guitarist. He first found international commercial success with the band Focus (band), Focus, which he co-founded with Thijs van Leer. After leaving Focus, he continued as a solo musician, adding ja ...
– guitars
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
, lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
*Bert Ruiter
Focus is a Dutch progressive rock band formed in Amsterdam in 1969 by keyboardist, vocalist, and flutist Thijs van Leer, drummer Hans Cleuver, bassist Martijn Dresden, and guitarist Jan Akkerman. The band has undergone numerous formations in its ...
– bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
*Pierre van der Linden
Pierre van der Linden (born 19 February 1946) is a Dutch drummer, songwriter and member of the band, Focus.
Biography
Van der Linden was influenced by his childhood hero Buddy Rich. He finds inspiration in French philosophers and classical comp ...
– drums
;Additional musicians
* Mike Vernon – backing vocals on "Round Goes the Gossip" (uncredited)
*Martin Dresden – bass guitar on "House of the King" (original vinyl version, uncredited)
*Hans Cleuver – drums on "House of the King" (original vinyl version, uncredited)
;Production
*Mike Vernon – producer
*George Chkiantz
George Chkiantz is a British recording engineer, based in London, who has been responsible for the engineering on a number of well-known albums, many of which are considered classics, owing in part to the quality of the recordings.
Career
Chkiant ...
– recording engineer
*Bill Levy – art direction
*Frank Marcelino – design
References
;Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Focus Iii
1972 albums
Focus (band) albums
Imperial Records albums
albums recorded at Olympic Sound Studios