By Ralph Greco, Jr.
Rising from the ashes of the Yardbirds, Jim McCarty and long-time musical partner Keith Relf envisioned a Renaissance as fusing folk and classical influences with the bluesy rock they’d been playing and giving birth to a new musical direction. When Annie Haslam joined the band in 1971 to sing with her ethereal five-octave voice, the group became more popular, especially with the progressive rock scene.
After McCarty left, the lineup continued notably with Haslam out front. This configuration combined the poetic emotional words of Betty Thatcher and the timeless musical masterpieces created by Michael Dunford, John Tout, Jon Camp and Terry Sullivan.
Renaissance was reborn in 2009 with Haslam and Michael Dunford at the helm, along with keyboard player and musical director Rave Tesar. They’ve continued to play shows to keep Renaissance music alive.
For the Fall of 2025, Annie Haslam and Jim McCarty will play four shows, sharing an intimate discussion and visual presentation of Renaissance’s extraordinary history. This will be followed by a performance featuring, for the first time, Haslam and McCarty playing classic Renaissance music together.
Before doing so, I caught up with the two musicians to get the low-down on the late November shows.
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It’s not that you two were out there doing shows together all the time (the last time the two were on stage together was at the 2019 Renaissance 50th Anniversary ) and this is a unique evening to be sure. As I heard the story, Annie you were approached by an Edwardsville and St. Louis promoter, right?
Annie: Yes, this promoter contacted me, he wanted to take me down to Edwardsville to do a couple shows on my own at the Wildey Theatre; a one woman show. But I said, well that’s not going to work for me, ya know? And so, it morphed into me on my own, then we were thinking about bringing in a guitarist and keyboard player, but I suddenly went off and thought of Jim. I contacted him and he was very interested and that was the very beginning of it and now it looks like it’s gonna be a really interesting evening.
Jim: I’m more than excited to be back working with Annie again. I’ve only worked with her at the 50th Anniversary in 2019. This will be a nice opportunity to play and sing with her and the band with us. It will be fun.
How do you put a show like this together? Can you just wing it at times, go ‘off script’ even?
Jim: You do have to work out the story, have it all scripted so you can sync it with the back projector, more or less keep to the script. It’s funny, when I do this with the Yardbirds when I don’t keep to the script, Bernie, the guy doing the back projections he talks over the PA, it’s the voice of God, so I know when I am off and I got it wrong.
Annie: Yes, we have a time limit. Have thirty minutes to talk in the beginning then get on with the music.
It’s certainly an interesting approach. I know people Cat Stevens is doing it this way as Lionel Richie just presented a show where he only talked.
Jim: I’ve seen Peter Asher do it, and I first thought ‘What’s Peter gonna talk about? What’s he gonna play?’ Personally, he didn’t have too many hits with Peter and Gorden, but he was fantastic. He spoke about his relationship with the Beatles, Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor and it was a really good show. That gave me the idea of talking, as it seems to be quite common right now.
Annie: I’ve never done this before. I know that Jim has, and I know that Robert Fripp did a show like this early this year.
So, can you hope for some of the old chemistry coming back when you perform now?
(They both laugh)
Annie: Well, we certainly had a lot of chemistry.
Jim: Yes.
Annie: Seriously, it’s great, it’s meant to be.
For a vocalist and a drummer, I have to assume you are aware of some physical limitations or changes that have come to your skills over the years. How do you keep things working as well as you both seem to have them working?
Jim: I am thinking the bit of talking helps, it gives me a bit of a break from playing the full show. With the Yardbirds one of the guys plays a few songs on the drums so I don’t have to go back and forth so much, so that saves me a bit of energy
Annie: I had to practice a but for this, as I haven’t been singing for a while. But I still have strong vocal cords, the voice is still brilliant, I’m feeling good.
How about this prompting some new music from you two?
Annie: That would be great.
Jim: It’s always possible considering how close as we will be, we have plans to write so it’s very possible we might do another album.
Last question, and it’s slightly poignant, but what’s it like stepping on stage knowing that there are surely some band members who are simply not alive anymore?
Annie: They will be there with us; their spirits no doubt.
Jim: Yes, they are all there with us.
