This time last week, a passing reference was made to Patrick Moraz, the man who was my final prog fascination before punk came along with its new broom to sweep all that old stuff away - for a few years at any rate. I was introduced to Moraz via the debut (and sole) LP from Refugee in early 1974. The band was put together by Brian Davidson and Lee Jackson of The Nice after Keith Emerson jumped ship to form Emerson Lake and Palmer. Moraz was in turn snatched away later the same year by Yes, following the departure of their keyboard maestro Rick Wakeman, where he contributed heavily to the 'Relayer' LP and accompanying world tour. The prog supergroup merry-go-round came to a shuddering halt for Moraz a couple of years later when he was asked to leave Yes to make way for the returning Wakeman. 'The Story of I' in 1976 was the first LP to be released under Patrick Moraz's own name and in 1978 he commenced a 15 year stint with the tremendously dull Moody Blues. I was long gone by that point though.Somehow, despite many moves and financially motivated downsizes in the interim, after 45 years I still have my original copy of that Refugee LP on the Charisma label. As you might expect it's a record chock full of classically tinged piano passages, impenetrable lyrical flourishes, tricky time changes, sweeping moog set pieces and long 'songs' divided into multiple disparate movements. Here's one of the latter, containing all of the former.
Refugee - Credo
