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All Music Guide:
Neo-prog band Pendragon formed in London during the heady days of punk, but didn't coalesce until 1983, when the band began playing around London and earned a small spot at that year's Reading Festival. The lineup stabilized, after the 1985 album Jewel, around vocalist/guitarist Nick Barrett, bassist Peter Gee, drummer Fudge Smith and keyboard player Clive Nolan. Pendragon recorded the live album 9:15 in 1986 and began to establish a continental fan base the following year. European audiences proved enthusiastic, spawning a contract with the French M.S.I. label; nevertheless, the group was forced to form its own Toff label just to release material in England.
Pendragon lay dormant through the rest of the '80s, but returned in 1991 with The Rest of Pendragon -- a reissue of the early Fly High, Fall Far with added B-sides -- and their first new album in five years, The World. The album earned a U.S. release in 1993, followed by The Window of Life. A deal with the Japanese Pony Canyon label in 1994 resulted in the reissue of the entire back catalog, in addition to the new Fallen Dreams and Angels. The band made its U.S. debut a year later at L.A.'s Progfest, and released The Masquerade Overture early the following year.
Wikipedia:
Pendragon or Pen Draig, meaning "head dragon" or "chief dragon" (a figurative title referring to status as a leader), is the name of several traditional Kings of the Britons:
Ambrosius Aurelianus, son of Constantine II of Britain, called "Pendragon" in the Vulgate CycleUther, brother of Aurelius and father of King Arthur, is called Uther Pendragon because he was inspired by a dragon-shaped comet (In the Vulgate, he took the name from his brother)King Arthur, son of UtherMaelgwn of Gwynedd, described by Gildas as the "dragon of the island"In the Historia Regum Britanniae, one of the earliest texts of the Arthurian legend, only Uther is given the surname "Pendragon", which is explained as meaning "dragon's head". In the prose version of Robert de Boron's Merlin, the name of Uther's elder brother Ambrosius is given as "Pendragon", while Uter (Uther) changes his name after his brother's death to "Uterpendragon".
The use of "Pendragon" to refer to Arthur, rather than to Uther or his brother, is of much more recent vintage. In literature, one of its earliest uses to refer to Arthur is in Alfred Tennyson's poem Lancelot and Elaine, where, however, it appears as a title of Arthur rather than as a surname, following contemporary speculation that "pendragon" had been a term for an ancient British war-chief.
The term "Pen Dragon" also is a Fennian (Ephraimite) form meaning, Pen "child(ren) of" Ap "Son of" combined with "Dargon" or "Dragon" the symbol of the Tuatha de Dannon (Danites) who were warriors that married the Irish widows, hence the Gaullo term Welch (Ue Lach) or "woman of a warrior."
