What Are You Listening To?

[Ruby]

Roger Hodson’s Open the Door. Not Supertramp, but pretty close, and all in all, a great listen. Having said that, it must be very limiting for an artist to be forever associated with one major act and never allowed by their public to deviate from the formula, or if they do, to face becoming a pariah! Vangelis has said that he has this very same problem, where the expectations placed upon him do not allow him to create freely, as he would wish, or certainly not to publish his private compositions which he works on all the time and which he may never reveal. To hear him speak, you understand the ‘trap’. On the flipside, Hodgson is at least half of what made that very distinctive Supertramp sound, so he’s bound to perpetuate the style, to a large degree.

Back to Open the Door - there are around 27 contributors on this one, far too many to list, but some names that stand out are Trevor Rabin, Alan Simon and Didier Lockwood. The album was recorded in France using quite a few local musicians, which no doubt adds the international flavour – it’s also beautifully arranged.

Here is the nearly nine minute epic title track which doesn't seem to feel that long at all …

[video=youtube;_OVe6jS5DDA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OVe6jS5DDA[/video]