Q&A
Former Yardbird discusses his time in Renaissance and Illusion, and reveals what he thinks of the current line-up playing his old songs.
Jim McCarty made his name as drummer – and songwriter and backing vocalist – in The Yardbirds, but when they split in 1968, McCarty and singer Keith Relf formed Renaissance, with Relf’s sister Jane on vocals. Their self-titled 1969 debut was one of the earliest progressive rock albums – but here it gets complicated. They disintegrated when recording its 1971 follow-up, Illusion, but reformed – minus Keith Relf, who died in 1976 – as Illusion, recording Out Of The Mist (1977) and Illusion (1978). A compilation of unreleased material, Enchanted Caress, was released in 1989 and in 2001 McCarty reunited with Jane Relf and Louis Cennamo (bass), releasing Through The Fire as Renaissance Illusion. Renaissance was reissued in 2022 and a four-CD Illusion box set, Everywhere You Go, is due at the end of February.
Renaissance were very different in style from The Yardbirds. How did you and Keith Relf make the transition?
Keith and I were close friends. We started writing songs together, and they were quite different, getting more out of the blues thing, and going more folky and classical. We were a good unit but dried up creatively, especially when Paul [Samwell-Smith, bass] and Jeff [Beck, guitar] left. We were on tour nearly all the time and you always had to think, “What’s the next single?”
Did you have an idea about how Renaissance would sound?
There wasn’t a Machiavellian character who planned it all, it just happened [laughs]. The band could all contribute. We started playing a song and then [keyboard player] John Hawken suddenly played some Beethoven. It was a bit odd at first, but then we thought, “This is good. It’s different.” Louis [Cenammo, bass] and John used to play all those fast piano and bass runs. It was unusual and it worked for us.
Bullet has some strange abstract sections…
Yes, it was a bit weird, wasn’t it? We also liked Modern Jazz Quartet and modern classical stuff, like John Cage – something evocative that could put you in a space. But the whole album was good. It was very exciting, especially in England – I don’t think they quite understood it in America. When we played gigs here we just played the album and everyone went mad.
Jane and Keith’s voices blend as well as you’d expect, too.
We were thinking along the lines of Fairport Convention and bands with a female singer. I thought it looked really good as well, as Jane and Keith looked similar.
Do you have any regrets leaving Renaissance so soon after they were established?
In retrospect it was a bit silly, but Keit
