Ray Russell Part 2, in Bands Running Man (1972), Mouse (1973), Chopyn (1975), Magician (1979), 2 Trolls (1978) , RMS (1982)

 

This guy popped up in innumerable bands throughout this period, as a session guitarist I guess mostly, sometimes in genuine rock groups.  He was in two Rock Workshop releases prior to this series, which I didn't like at all (being ordinary, beneath our highly erudite & sophisticated tastes).  The first release featured here (Running Man, 1972) is mostly bluesy hard rock with occasional prog touches-- resembling the old Finnish protos like say Elonkorjuu, but maybe not as good.  Compositions are by both Ray and Alan Greed (who was also in the preceeding Rock Workshop).  I think Mouse - Lady Killer (1973) is well known among prog circles, mystifyingly, as it's mostly totally ordinary and average bluesy rock with very little originality.  A surprise shockingly atonal modern music composition suddenly pops up in East of the Sun:

Chopyn is more in the AOR, classic seventies poppy hard rock direction we love so much (e.g. Baby Grand) and understandably so. At times it seems Ray Russell foreshadows his brilliant fusion opus magnum Ready or Not from 1977, as in the track Laughing Tackle:

 

Dig the outrageous synthwork over that driving guitar riff, by (possibly?) Ann Odell (here credited as arranger too).

The 1979 release he appeared on called Magician (check out the beautiful cover drawing above) features the libraryish soft fusion plus orchestra of arranger/easy listening composer Stan Butcher.  It comprises enough original thinking to make it into the canonical science textbooks. There's a lot of very atmospheric music, witness the track called Drowned Village:

The two Troll albums were written by Barry Ryder and Mac Prindy (Gerhard Narholtz), mostly library composers I believe.  Note the latter appeared in the wonderful Milan Pilar I posted not long ago (here).  On these 2 though the music is rather generic library with early eighties hints (silly jumpy beat, e.g.).

Finally, RMS Centennial:

RMS is a jazz fusion band formed in 1982. It consists of three well known and acclaimed British session musicians. Guitarist, Ray Russell, bass player, Mo Foster and drummer Simon Phillips.

Just a wonderful slice of later fusion with its very smooth Bob Bruford / UK (i.e. the band) style, all instrumental, filled with great ideas.  It's a pity they didn't make more music:

But I guess the days of fusion were already numbered, in fact, by this time it was already a walking dead zombie, like the monarch butterfly or the rhinos in Africa much beloved by the Trump family as wall trophies (and the Chinese as boner bumpers).

Another wonderful album to take a lot of time to listen to, savor, and enjoy. In the wild.