Ambrosia are filed under progressive rock and remembered for soft-rock hits, and both of those are true of different halves of the same band. Two ambitious art-rock albums, then two number three singles, then a hard record mixed in London that almost nobody bought.

The short version

Formed in Los Angeles in 1970 by David Pack, Joe Puerta, Christopher North and Burleigh Drummond, Ambrosia made five studio albums between 1975 and 1982. The first two are elaborate, orchestrated art rock with Alan Parsons at the desk; the next two are the records that took them to the top of American radio, with three of their five top forty singles and three Grammy nominations; the last is a hard rock album cut in London. They stopped after it, and reunited for live work at the end of the decade.

A sound test at the Hollywood Bowl

The band spent five years between forming and releasing anything. The story of their break, as they tell it, starts with a friend working sound at the Hollywood Bowl who invited them onto the stage to test a newly installed system in 1971; the venue’s head engineer was impressed enough to invite them back to hear the Los Angeles Philharmonic and introduced them to Zubin Mehta, who featured them in a concert. The sources record the introduction and the concert without much detail, so it is worth taking as the band’s own account. The name itself came from a dictionary, chosen after they found another group already using their first one.

Four voices, and two men out front

What made Ambrosia distinctive was the vocal writing. Pack and Puerta both sing lead, both write, and both are on almost every track, which gives the band two frontmen instead of one and a four-part harmony sound underneath. Drummond plays bassoon as well as drums; North covers organ, Chamberlin, clavinet and Minimoog. On the first two albums those elements are used to build long, shifting pieces; from 1978 onward they are used to make three-minute songs sound bigger. The instrument stays the same and the purpose changes, which is the whole story of this band in one sentence.

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The Alan Parsons connection, both ways

All four members played on the first Alan Parsons Project album in 1976, appearing on ‘The Raven’. Parsons in turn mixed their debut and produced their second album, bringing Andrew Powell with him to orchestrate. Powell came back six years later to arrange strings on their final record. David Pack went on to write, play and sing on Parsons’s solo album Try Anything Once in 1993. Few American bands of the period had a working relationship with a British studio project this close, and it runs in both directions.

Two albums, then two hits, then London

The debut reached number 54 in 1975 and the second album number 79. Then Life Beyond L.A. in 1978 changed everything: a move to Warner Bros., a rawer jazz and rhythm-and-blues influence, and ‘How Much I Feel’ at number 3. One Eighty in 1980 reached number 25 with two more hits and three Grammy nominations. Road Island in 1982 reversed course, was produced by James Guthrie and mixed in London, and stopped at 115. The band broke up, reunited in 1989 for live work, and have continued touring in changing line-ups ever since; David Pack played his final show with them in November 2000.

Album by album

Five studio albums between 1975 and 1982, split almost exactly in half by a change of direction. Tap any title for its guide.

The players, and what came after

David Pack sang lead, played guitar and wrote most of the hits, and played his last show with the band in November 2000. Joe Puerta sang the other half of the leads and played bass, and became a founding member of Bruce Hornsby and the Range. Burleigh Drummond drummed and played bassoon on every album, and returned with the band after the break. Christopher North covered the keyboards, left in 1977 during the making of the third album and was back for the 1978 tour. Around them David Cutler Lewis and Royce Jones came in at the end of 1978 and stayed to the last album, and a long list of session players — Ruth and Ian Underwood, Joe Sample, Ernie Watts, Jim Horn, Daniel Kobialka — passed across the records.

Where to start

Start with Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled (1976) if you came for the progressive side: it is the most ambitious thing they made, with Andrew Powell orchestrating three tracks and neither single reaching the charts. Then the self-titled debut (1975) for the songs. Then Life Beyond L.A. (1978) for ‘How Much I Feel’, which is worth hearing whatever you think of the turn it represents.

Why they still matter

Ambrosia matter as the clearest American example of a band who could do both things well and were only rewarded for one of them. The first two albums are as carefully written as almost any art rock the United States produced in the 1970s, and almost nobody bought them; the two that followed sold on the strength of a vocal group with two strong lead singers. Progressive listeners tend to treat the second half as a betrayal and radio listeners have never heard the first. Hearing all five in order is a better use of an afternoon than either camp expects.

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