![]() "Carnival Fugue" borrows from Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier before venturing into cool jazz territory, then culminates in a rock finale with piccolo improvisations and a hint of Calypso rhythms on guitar. Akkerman requested to include birdsong on the recording Vernon suggested to include sounds of cows mooing and the song's title, the "Elspeth" being an old Scottish variant of the name Elizabeth. ![]() Akkerman wrote "Elspeth of Nottingham" after driving around England for a holiday in 1967, stopping in a town in the Cotswolds where he first heard guitarist Julian Bream play the lute which inspired him to learn the instrument. ![]() Ruiter came up with its basic riff, with Akkerman coming up with the "second part". "Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers!" was titled by Akkerman and features extended flute and guitar solos. Focus biographer Peet Johnson highlights several musical references and similarities that van Leer incorporates in "Focus III", including riffs from Bernard Hermann, " Don't Sleep in the Subway" made famous by Petula Clark in 1967, Tchaikovsky, and Schubert. The track includes a guitar introduction written by van Leer's brother Frank. He renamed it "Sylvia" after Alberts "to tease a little". van Leer kept the music, re-arranging it as an instrumental track when it came to selecting material for the album. Its original title was a long one: "I Thought I Could Do Everything on My Own, I Was Always Stripping the Town Alone", and concerned an independent young woman who fell apart after she met the love of her life. He was not fond of a composition that singer Sylvia Alberts was given to sing for her solo performance, so he wrote the instrumental with a set of lyrics in English written by Linda van Dyck. van Leer wrote " Sylvia" in 1968 when he was a cast member of Shaffy Chantant, a Dutch theatre production by singer and actor Ramses Shaffy. "Love Remembered" is a track written by Akkerman, playing an acoustic guitar with van Leer's flute, which is based on a young couple's morning walk. The five lines from the poem are printed on the album's sleeve in Latin and English with the 1916 translation by Henry Fairclough. "Round Goes the Gossip" features five lines from the poem Aeneid by the ancient Roman poet Virgil, sung in Latin by van Leer and its chorus hook, "Round goes the gossip", also sung by Vernon. The second, designed by Hamish Grimes, depicts a close-up of van Leer playing the flute with the title over his face. ![]() Two versions of the album's sleeve design exist its North American release features each member photographed during a performance on the BBC music television show The Old Grey Whistle Test with a black background. Mike Vernon reprised his role as the record's producer with George Chkiantz assigned as recording engineer. Initially a single LP was intended to be recorded but the group had written a considerable amount of new material, so the group opted to release a double album. In July 1972, after touring in supporting their previous album, Focus II (1971), the band retreated to Olympic Studios in Barnes, south west London, to record their next album. The album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling in excess of 500,000 copies.īy 1972, Focus had stabilised with a line-up of organist and vocalist Thijs van Leer, guitarist Jan Akkerman, drummer Pierre van der Linden, and bassist Bert Ruiter. " Sylvia" was released as the album's sole single, which reached No. 1 in the Netherlands for one week and reached No. Recorded after touring in support of their previous album, Moving Waves (1971), the album saw the band write extended pieces and is their first with bassist Bert Ruiter in the group's line-up.įocus 3 received a positive reception upon its release. Focus 3 or Focus III is the third studio album by Dutch rock band Focus, released as a double album in November 1972 on Imperial Records.
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