Rare Bird

All Music Guide:

Rare Bird came together in October 1969 when organist Graham Field, keyboardist Dave Kaffinetti, drummer Mark Ashton, and vocalist Steve Gould envisioned a two-keyboard rock sound without guitars. They released their debut before the end of the year, featuring the minor radio hit "Sympathy." The next year they released As Your Mind Flies By, a dark and heavier album that put further emphasis on Gould's melodramatic singing style. Field and Ashton left the group before Epic Forest, which saw new drummer Fred Kelly bring in guitarist Andy Curtis to revamp their sound into a more folk-oriented direction. Gould also picked up the guitar at this point, and the music became much more about their guitar interplay than anything else. By 1973's Somebody's Watching, interest had waned in their efforts, leaving the group with a dwindling fan base. Still, they managed to release one more album, 1974's Born Again, which featured an entirely different sound than the progressive rock of their first two albums. The band's demise was followed by a collection, Sympathy, which took its material from the first two albums only.

Wikipedia:

Rare Bird was a progressive rock band founded in 1969. They were formed in England, but had more success in other European countries than they did at home. They are mostly remembered for the haunting, organ-based track "Sympathy". It sold one million copies globally.

History

The band's initial line-up was as below, although there would be changes by the time they came to work on their third album. The first two members listed were a constant throughout the lifetime of the band.

The history of Rare Bird began when Graham Field placed an advertisement for a pianist in a musical periodical. He got thirty replies and formed a group called 'Lunch'. He met Dave Kaffinetti in November 1968, and together they formulated the basic ideas for Rare Bird. In August 1969, they finally found the ideal rhythm section in Steve Gould and Mark Ashton. Two weeks later, they had signed management and agency contracts, and three weeks later, were in the studio recording their debut album. With Van der Graaf Generator and The Nice, they were one of the very first bands that signed to Charisma Records, the record label that Tony Stratton-Smith had founded.

Their late 1969 release "Sympathy" reached #2 in Italy, sold 500,000 copies in France and over one million globally. It became their only UK hit single, reaching #27 and staying on the chart for 8 weeks. A 1970 cover version of the track by The Family Dogg, reached number two in the Netherlands. The song returned to the UK chart in 1992 when a version by Marillion reached #17. In 2001, the track was sampled by Faithless in their song "Not Enuff Love", named after a chorus line in "Sympathy".

Later members included Fred Kelly (Nic Potter), Ced Curtis, Paul Holland, and Paul Karas on the Epic Forest album with Andy Curtis and Fred Kelly appearing on the album Somebody's Watching. The band finally split up in the mid 1970s.

Dave Kaffinetti (credited as David Kaff) played the part of Viv Savage in This Is Spinal Tap (1984).

The song "Beautiful Scarlet" from their first album was sampled in the 2010 song "Summer's Gonna Hurt You" by electronic music producer/DJ Diplo.