“Turn Your Head”—I will not be able to write enough about this song…but here goes nothin.’
Savage Grace was an incredibly gifted Detroit area band from the early 70’s. Their self-titled first album was an instant classic. It put together so many different styles of music—many of which hadn’t even been named yet.
Rather than talk about all of the songs, I am going to focus on just this one, which is the song that ends the album. This prototypical progressive rock song has all of the elements of the album encapsulated into this one epic sojourn!
It starts with Beatlesque harmonies over acoustic guitar and piano. Lead vocalist Al Jacquez, a singer who can do amazing vocal acrobatics, (check out “All Along the Watchtower” also by Savage Grace for Al at his best), wisely reigns in his talent to work as a team.
The song continues to build as piano and bass become more prominent and then retards before it explodes into a loud heavy metal guitar section. In fact, the dynamics on this song, the way the music level bounces back and forth between quiet and loud, are some of the best ever recorded.
The song then goes from its metal section into an extended Bach-inspired classical piano solo by John Seanor! This is where it gets the prog rock label—the pseudo-classical piano section mixed with the loud guitars.
Before the acoustic melody returns, the rest of the instruments join in with the piano through a transitional section that includes some of the earliest synthesizer work on a rock album. It gives the music a symphonic texture, almost of muted French horns, as the song retards again to pick up the melody.
After this familiar section, the song explodes into loud guitar supplied by the incredibly gifted Ron Koss, and tribal drumming, skillfully bludgeoned by Larry Zack, a forerunner of Renaissance’s later release of “Rajah Khan!” Maybe “Turn Your Head” was an influence for them, although Savage Grace do it much better on there own song.
After a couple of minutes of extended soloing the song ends somewhat abruptly as the band allows the listener to go over a cliff—even though they took them off many other cliffs during the previous six minutes.
This is just a small piece of what I feel about this song. It is a true life changing experience if you just let it take you where it can go. I like to think that this is the music that Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven would have been making if they lived during this era and played in rock bands!
