Description
Kansas: Steve Walsh (ARP synthesizer); Dave Hope, Kerry Livgren, Phil Ehart, Rich Williams , Robby Steinhardt.
Personnel: Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin); Steve Walsh (vocals, piano, organ); Rich Williams (guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Kerry Livgren (guitar, piano, ARP synthesizer, Moog synthesizer); Phil Ehart (glockenspiel, drums, gong); Dave Hope (bass guitar); Food Alright And The Wines (hand claps).
Liner Note Author: Bret Adams.
Recording information: Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH (1975); Wally Heider Studios, Los Angeles, CA (1975).
Photographers: Don Hunstein; David Gahr.
On its debut album, Kansas leavened its progressive rock complexity, with relatively concise hard-rock tunes. The follow-up, SONG FOR AMERICA, finds both elements still in play, but prog rock definitely dominates. Like its predecessor, SONG FOR AMERICA opens up with a simple, heavy rocker, but then wastes no time leaping into the Yes-influenced breach with the 10-minute epic title track. Aside from the anomalous "The Devil Game," which sounds like a Bad Company outtake, the rest of the album finds Kansas headed straight for art-rock glory, as tricky syncopation, swirling synthesizers, and fiery fiddle dart in and out of willfully dense arrangements, often following classical-inspired structure. The album's final song (followed here by a couple of bonus cuts) is one of Kansas's most accomplished pieces, a strikingly complicated suite endearingly titled "Incomudro - Hymn to the Atman" that sounds pretty European for a bunch of boys from Midwestern farm country.
- Format: CD
- Genre: Pop
- Released: 02/01/2008