To any fans of the band Renaissance, this was posted today in the Renaissance fan-base:

Terence Sullivan
It is with great sadness, that I have to announce that my dear friend and co-writer Betty (Thatcher) Newsinger has passed away. She slipped away peacefully yesterday at 2PM.
A wonderful person with a unique talent...
She will be greatly missed.

All I can add is rest in peace and skae-no; "...bound for infinity."

akintews

Thanks for the video.  May I ask: Are you a Renaissance fan?

I'm not a big fan of prog rock, but I saw Ren in Oneonta, NY in February 1976, and I  was just stunned.  Before that night, my idea of female singers was Janis Joplin and Tina Turner--I'd seen Joan Baez about 6 months earlier in Central Park, but at two minutes into the show Annie Haslam blew so far past her that my jaw dropped to my chest.  I looked around to see if I had actually heard this right, and everybody in the adjacent three rows had their eyes wide and mouths agape.  The most incredible show I've ever seen.  I'm going to see them again in September at the Keswick Theatre.  I'm counting the days.

Search renaissancetouring to get their website, but I believe this tour, like the last two, will be primarily on the east coast.  They have a forum (?) on their facebook page about trying to drum up enough public interest to expand their tour to include mid-west and west coast shows, but I have no idea how that is going.  If you can't find it there, try Annie Haslam's website--I'm sure it would be there.  Then, get as many Ren fans as you can to sign up--personally painted artwork by Annie and some autographed souvenirs for prizes for the top "enlisters."

akintews

There is a five-hour tribute to Betty and Renaissance at

 http://www.radioenkhuizen.nl/ 

 playing now. 

Click on the address, when it loads you go to live radio, download and listen.

the play list is here:

www.beachradio.nl

enjoy--i am

Yeah, we had a severe thunderstorm here and it knocked out the internet for a couple of hours.  I was screaming at the computer, but it didn't help.  It just came back on minutes before post 10.

LOL!!!  Great reply!   Thanks.

Ocean Gypsy--maybe my favorite by them.  They play this great live.

Mother Russia--their biggest hit in the NYC area.  WNEW-FM used to play this a lot when it came out.  They had a DJ named Allison Steele (The Night Bird) who was a big fan; she'd start her shows reading a piece of poetry, then play a song that pertained to the poem.  She was great to listen to.

They stole a lot from classic composers, but I think they left Loonie Tunes alone!  I saw them do scheherazade live, the vocals were killer.

I see from the "Get Back to Work" post that you work at the rockpile--I mean, the Post Office.  My brother retired from the Binghamton, NY PO a few years ago.  I worked as a temp there for a week, then got into my accident on my only day off--nobody knows how to abuse a day off like me.

The chordal structure of Powerhouse does sound like it, but I thought Ren stole that from a 19th century Russian composer (somewhere, in an interview, I'm sure I read that)--but that's not to say that the Philharmonicas couldn't have stolen it from the same source, too.

Ashes--that song was the encore at both the shows I've seen, but the 76 show with Jon Camp on bass--the bass solo was longer than on the Carnegie Hall album; they just blew the roof off.  And that night was the only night that the band consisting of Haslam/Dunford/Camp/Tout/Sullivan played "A Trip to the Fair."  I'm one of only a few hundred people who saw them play it, so I'll be one of the few people who can say they saw them do it live twice.  Thanks for listening with me.