Camel - Breathless (1978)

Dan:

It's hard to overstate the importance of Camel to our joint discovery of prog in 1978, despite the band's relatively obscure place in rock history. Camel is considered one of those "cult" bands, revered by a core group of dedicated fans but seemingly destined not to receive wider acclaim. But unlike other cult bands (like Love), Camel released about 30 albums in its 30 years of activity (1973-2002) many on major labels (MCA, Decca/Gama) as well as their own label (Camel Productions).

Many cult bands deserve their obscurity, and their fan base probably delights in being on the fringe. But in Camel's case, the music industry, and in turn the listening public, can be blamed for ignoring Camel's music. That's sad because there is so much wonderful music in their studio albums and live recordings. 

As I wrote in my "Father's Story" post, Camel's Breathless was a noontime album played in its entirety by a deejay in Miami. We had moved there the year before and I had acquired a cassette recorder that hooked up to my FM receiver. I taped the noontime albums on days that I worked from home. I remember the deejay scrambling to talk about Camel, a band that she had never heard of before. Her only insight was that Breathless was not Camel's first recording. Yes, those were the good old days when airplay was not always ruled by monetary criteria, allowing deejays to play music they might never have heard themselves. 

As I listened to my tape over the next few days, everything about Breathless sounded fresh and different, especially the distinctive guitar playing. But I had no idea who I was listening to. Nobody I knew had ever heard of the band. When I mentioned Camel, people figured it was Peter Frampton's band. I felt alone with secret knowledge about a great band that nobody knew existed. 

I soon found a vinyl cutout of Breathless, and it contained an inner sleeve with basic information on it. The band looked like a rather odd cast of characters. Andrew Latimer appeared to be the leader and he made the biggest impact as the only guitarist while sharing vocal duties with bassist Richard Sinclair. Peter Bardens (keyboards), Mel Collins (sax) and Andy Ward (drums) were the remaining band members. Acquiring Breathless was just the beginning of a wholly satisfying adventure into one of the world's great neglected prog bands.

My affection for Camel is directly tied to my admiration for Andrew Latimer's guitar playing. He was full of great ideas and could play with such emotion. I'd place him in the same elite company with Carlos Santana, David Gilmour, Robin Trower, and Roy Buchanan - all guitarists with the ability to speak directly to the soul of listeners - especially me. 

I didn't know at the time that Camel was in a state of constant turmoil, with band members arguing about artistic direction - some wanted to record pop singles while others wanted more extended instrumental pieces. Players left and new players came with almost every album. Camel fought with their manager and record execs about money. At one point Latimer moved to California where he started his own label. One of the albums from that time, Dust and Dreams, was allegorically based on John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Latimer's song "Go West" from Dust and Dreams expresses his desperation and hope for prosperity in the American west.

As a result of such conflicts, albums like Breathless are somewhat schizoid, containing different musical styles. I prefer the tunes with fewer vocals and longer instrumental sections featuring guitar. The novelty songs like "Down on the Farm" and "Wing and a Prayer" are charming enough not to spoil the album, but they certainly were never hit singles. My favorites are "Breathless," "Echoes," "Summer Lightning," and "Sleeper."

Steve:

As Dan points out, Breathless was a pivotal album in both of our musical lives. Their music was simultaneously daring/exciting and melodious/memorable, and the pop songs and moody instrumentals in their impressive catalog have an uncanny way of getting in your head and staying there. Andrew Latimer's gift is finding an emotionally resonant guitar melody and playing it with one of the finest guitar tones and techniques you'll ever hear. I count him among my "big three" favorite guitar players, along with David Gilmour and Alex Lifeson (I should probably also include Frank Zappa, but I'll keep him in a class by himself, where he'd likely prefer to reside anyway).  

Perhaps the most astonishing achievement on Breathless is its leadoff title track. I have not heard another track like it in the Camel discography, or anywhere else in music for that matter. It's a vocal-based pop song with an odd structure, sung in an impossibly pretty manner by Richard Sinclair - the giant intervals between the notes he has to hit makes it extremely difficult to sing, but he nails it. Underneath, several layered guitars sparkle like a star-filled sky for the main instrumental theme (there might even be a mandolin in there) and guide the vocal through a complex chord sequence for verses that resolve beautifully and never feel labored or awkward. The song has a dramatic pause in the middle, with Sinclair singing the last few lines of the lyric in a new melody, before a restatement of the original theme in a different key. The instrumental coda of the piece features Mel Collins' overlapping woodwinds creating billowing clouds of peaceful sound as the repeating theme fades out. Total time: four minutes of near perfection.

Although some lesser tracks fill the album (nothing rotten, though), other tracks dazzle. "Echoes" sounds at first like one of the most exciting prog instrumentals ever, until about 5 minutes in when it suddenly turns into a vocal piece. "Summer Lightning" makes tasteful use of a disco beat and grants the final three minutes to Latimer to play one of his finest guitar solos. "The Sleeper" is Breathless' closest analog to the earlier classic Camel instrumentals such as "Lunar Sea."

Speaking of classic Camel, many fans consider Breathless as a lesser album than its first few. On ProgArchives, the highest rated albums by far are three 1974-76 albums (Mirage, The Snow Goose, and Moonmadness), with Breathless and I Can See Your House from Here (1979) earning significantly lower ratings. My best explanation for this relative lack of regard is the latter two albums' inclusion of pop-like vocals, thereby distancing the band from its earlier instrumental focus, especially the all-instrumental Snow Goose.

The move towards more vocal material reflects the identity struggle within the band as personnel changed and pressure mounted to remain viable commercially. Breathless was the first and only Camel album to be released on Arista Records in the US, and the absence of a second album on that label indicates that the union did not go well. However, contrary to prevailing opinions, I believe that this period of Camel produced some of its finest music.