Beggars Opera Anyone?

[bfd]

Never heard of 'em till today when I pulled up this Beat Club performance. Sounds like early UK prog to me. I suppose I'll have to dig deeper to find out if the singer is any good.

[Dunamis]

Waters of Change (1971) and Pathfinder (1972) are their best. Great band!

[TheH]

First three albums are good early Prog. Singer still sings with his son's German Prog band Poor Genetic Material from time to time

[Progbear]

There's another Beat Club performance which seems to have disappeared, of them performing "Time Machine" with a slightly altered lineup including Virginia Scott on Mellotron. Scott is guitarist Ricky Gardiner's common-law wife and had been involved with the band in a songwriting capacity from the beginning; she wrote or co-wrote two songs off of their debut album, Act One (actually, the only two originals that weren't adaptations of classical music).

[TheH]

[Dunamis]

Time Machine video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=169296195189930

[Man In The Mountain]

A bought a couple of their albums. I don't like the singer, so they didn't resonate with me, despite that beat club clip being really cool.

[Jacob]

Burn the witch!!! 😱 The song "The Witch" released in 72' on Pathfinder recalled the style of the early Rare Bird.

Act One and Waters Of Change reminded me of The Nice.

Beggar's Opera possessed a style of their own...( of course)...however it's probably safe to say that they were organ driven just as several other bands were in the early 70s....not completely different from Graham Fields and Vincent Crane

[Bytor]

They were a pretty good "proto-prog" band from Scotland. Dual keys, what's not to like. Very organ driven which my heart and mind dig a lot

[Mr.Krautman]

A very nice keyboard driven classical influenced early semi-obscure proto-prog band.
I really like their rendition of Jim Webb's MacArthur Park, originally a cheesy song but much improved here.
Pathfinder has a nice cover art too and included a big poster (which I still have !)
Their 3 first records are essential but after they went gradually downhill and there's not much to save in their later productions.

BTW, does anyone here have any experience (and/or recommendations) with the later R.Gardiner/V.Scott projects still Called Beggar's Opera ? They recorded a dozen albums together up to 2012 but I never heard any of them.

[Progbear]

BTW, does anyone here have any experience (and/or recommendations) with the later R.Gardiner/V.Scott projects still Called Beggar's Opera ? They recorded a dozen albums together up to 2012 but I never heard any of them.

The instrumental title track of Sagittary is excellent, a haunting vehicle for a great Ricky Gardiner guitar solo. The rest of the 70s stuff (recorded in Germany for loathsome Schlager hack Ralph Siegel's Jupiter label) is skippable. Note that Lifeline has no involvement from Gardiner or Scott, and is an attempt by Alan Park on cashing in on the name. It's terrible.