Fireballet

Begun in North Jersey as The Fireball Kids, Fireballet marked the American emergence of bands that would at least attempt to contend with the classical vocabulary of European counterparts like <a href="spotify:artist:0nCiidE5GgDrc5kWN3NZgZ">Emerson, Lake & Palmer</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1hrQ50kU6hMQBVLatqUqnO">Gentle Giant</a>. Moreover, the band boasted the production talents of a bona-fide founding father of prog rock: Ian McDonald, late of <a href="spotify:artist:7M1FPw29m5FbicYzS2xdpi">King Crimson</a> and later to be of <a href="spotify:artist:6IRouO5mvvfcyxtPDKMYFN">Foreigner</a>. Armed with two talented keyboardists, Fireballet took their orchestral rock quite seriously; <a href="spotify:artist:284mnx33IWcymQEpMxyfHl">Mussorgsky</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1Uff91EOsvd99rtAupatMP">Debussy</a> both crop up in their 1975 debut album, Night on Bald Mountain. Their follow-up the next year Two, Too... was not as well received, despite an amusing cover photo of the band dressed as ballerinas. The band dissolved soon afterwards. Bryan Howe (nee Brian Hough) and Jim Como continued to play together and a compilation (Fireballet) was released in 2008. In 2014, their only two albums were remastered and reissued. ~ Paul Collins, Rovi