''Refugee'' is the only studio album from the

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

band

Refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

, released in March 1974 on

Charisma Records Charisma Records (also known as The Famous Charisma Label) was a British record label founded in 1969 by former journalist Tony Stratton-Smith. He had previously acted as manager for rock bands such as The Nice, the Bonzo Dog Band and Van der ...

. It was re-released under the TimeWave label on 27 June 2006, and as an expanded three-disc

boxed set A box set or (its original name) boxed set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box and offered for sale as a single unit. Music Artists and bands ...

from

Esoteric Recordings Esoteric Recordings is a UK independent record label specialising in 1970s progressive rock, folk, psychedelic, and jazz-rock reissues as part of Cherry Red Records. Its releases include both catalogue reissues and new works from artists who s ...

in 2019.

Background and recording

The opening song "Papillon" (French for "butterfly") had no title when it was written, or even when it was recorded. While listening to the finished mix, the band members decided that the opening Moog flurry sounded like butterfly wings, and named the song after the recently released film '' Papillon''. "Someday" was written about the breakup of bassist/lead vocalist/guitarist Lee Jackson's marriage. Keyboardist

Patrick Moraz Patrick Philippe Moraz (born 24 June 1948) is a Swiss musician, film composer and songwriter, best known for his tenures as keyboardist in the rock bands Yes and The Moody Blues. Born into a musical family, Moraz learned music at a young age a ...

came up with the idea of writing a song about the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

and asked Jackson to write lyrics for it. Jackson took books and maps out of the library to research and get inspiration for the lyrics. The title of the track "Ritt Mickley" originated from Moraz's strong

French Swiss Romands are a Gallo-Romance ethnic group native to Romandy, in western Switzerland. Traditionally they spoke Franco-Provençal, as well as Frainc-Comtou in Canton of Jura. Today these languages fell in disuse in favor of the standard French langua ...

accent, when he asked the other band members to play the song again but more "rhythmically".Welch, C. (1999), ''Close To the Edge – The Story Of Yes'', Omnibus Press.

Track listing

*All songs written by Lee Jackson and

, except where noted. #"Papillion" (Moraz) – 5:10 #"Someday" – 5:03 #"Grand Canyon Suite" – 16:54 #*"The Source" – 2:23 #*"Theme for the Canyon" – 3:16 #*"The Journey" – 3:54 #*"The Rapids" – 2:53 #*"The Mighty Colorado" – 4:30 #"Gatecrasher" – 1:03 #"Ritt Mickley" (Moraz) - 5:57 #"Credo" - 18:08 #*"Prelude" - 3:41 #*"I Believe, Pt. 1" - 2:48 #*"Credo Theme" - 0:39 #*"Credo Toccata & Song (The Lost Cause)" (Jackson, Moraz, Jean Ristori) - 3:37 #*"Agitato" - 1:36 #*"I Believe, Pt. 2" - 1:10 #*"Variation" - 2:57 #*"Main Theme & Finale" - 1:36

Esoteric Recordings expanded edition

;Disc two - BBC Radio One in Concert #Ritt Mickley (Moraz) #Someday #Grand Canyon Suite ;Disc three - Live at Newcastle City Hall #Ritt Mickley (outro) (Moraz) #One Left Handed Peter Pan #The Diamond Hard Blue Apples of the Moon (

Keith Emerson Keith Noel Emerson (2 November 1944 – 11 March 2016) was an English keyboardist, songwriter, and record producer. He played keyboards in a number of bands before finding his first commercial success with the Nice in the late 1960s. He became ...

, Jackson) #Someday #Papillon (Moraz) #She Belongs to Me (

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

) #The Grand Canyon Suite #Refugee Jam (Moraz, Jackson, Brian Davison)

Personnel

;Refugee *

mini-moog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...

, AKS synthesiser, piano,

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

clavinet The Clavinet is an electrically amplified clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds by a rubber pad striking a point on a tension ...

, organ,

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

marimbaphone The marimbaphone (not to be confused with the similarly named marimba) is an obsolete tuned percussion instrument, developed by the J.C. Deagan Company of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. in the early 20th century. The marimbaphone had either shallow steel ...

alpine horn The alphorn or alpenhorn or alpine horn is a labrophone, consisting of a straight several-meter-long wooden natural horn of conical bore, with a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece. Traditionally the Alphorn was made of one single piece, or two parts a ...

, electronic slinky,

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

, occasional vocals * Lee Jackson - bass, electric

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

, guitar,

12-string acoustic guitar A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in o ...

, lead vocals * Brian Davison - drums,

tympani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

an temple bells,

African drums Sub-Saharan African music is characterised by a "strong rhythmic interest" that exhibits common characteristics in all regions of this vast territory, so that Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980) has described the many local approaches as consti ...

, kabassa, broken glass

Production

*Arranged: Refugee *Produced:

John Burns John Elliot Burns (20 October 1858 – 24 January 1943) was an English trade unionist and politician, particularly associated with London politics and Battersea. He was a socialist and then a Liberal Member of Parliament and Minister. He was ...

and Refugee *Engineered and mixed: Patrick Moraz

External links

Discogs Entry

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Refugee (Refugee Album) 1974 debut albums Charisma Records albums