Vanilla Fudge-Renaissance (1968)

Vanilla Fudge's third album, "Renaissance", released months after their second, "The Beat Goes On", was their first to feature original songs. While it includes several covers, these are more suited to the psychedelic style this American band was exploring. This quartet, comprised of Vince Martelli (vocals, guitar), Mark Stein (organ), Tim Bogert (bass), and Carmine Appice (drums), had already showcased their ingenious style with clever reinterpretations of pop hits like Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" and The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", which appeared on their previous releases. By this point, the band had definitively established itself as a true creative force, displaying a sound that would soon become fundamental to hard rock and progressive rock. The heavy sounds of guitar and organ are present in the opening track of this second album, "The Sky Cried - When I Was a Boy", early sounds of progressive hard rock that Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Ken Hensley and Mick Box of Uriah Heep would soon make their own, and which are represented here in the hypnotic psychedelic tracks "Faceless People", "That's What Makes a Man", "Thoughts", and "Paradise". The album concludes with a cover of Donovan's pop song, "Seasons of the Witch", transformed into a dark demonstration of the creative avant-garde of this pioneering and sensational band.