Camel Canterbury?

Now, I keep hearing it mentioned elsewhere that Camel are a Canterbury scene band, but PA does not really acknowledge this. What is the band's connection to the rest of the scene, are they a part of it, and if they are, why aren't they included in the neat little Canterbury scene category? I searched a bit, but this is a hard thing to search for, you know...

^^ Going by ' perception' I would tend to agree that they sound the least canterbury of the lot. Still even tagged under a genre they are hard to beat!

Well, according to someone, Caravan are as 'inoffensive' as Camel, so there should be reason enough...

Seriously, I think that the main reason is the presence of Richard Sinclair in the band for two studio and part of one live album, even though there might be musical similarities (which I really don't see, but that's probably a limit of mine).

The 'Canterbury' band that I believe that Camel sound closest to is Supersister (Who came from The Netherlands...sic).

The flute sound is similar in style to that of Andrew Latimers and the vocals are not dis-similar to Richard Sinclair's.

The similarity in sound is especially noticeable on the first two Camel albums.Camel even 'dedicated' a track (Supertwister from the Mirage album) to Supersister.

I believe that the reason for Supersister's 'Canterbury' accreditation is because of their paying homage to The Mothers of Invention. The band that a lot of 'Canterbury' bands tried to emulate to a certain extent.

Edited by Man Erg - March 02 2009 at 08:24

cacho wrote: I don't think the relation is much of the entry of Richard in "later" albums. Camel's debut album, is certainly not Syphonic, and definitely is directed more in the Canterbury side, but that's it really....

Actually, if I told you what I think a lot of Camel's debut sounds like, you'd laugh me off the site... First time I heard it, all I could think of was Santana - believe it or not.

In my opinion also some King Crimson's albums are 'Canterbury Scene' style...

There can be a hint , but they aren't part of the Canterbury scene for sure.

I think the comparison comes from the crossing of members with a blatantly Canterbury band (Caravan) - but that doesn't automatically make Camel Canterbury...

It's a widely critisized label, not the music in the genre itselft, but if it's a genre.  I think it's not really that connected, but I still refer to many bands as Canterbury bands, because there are similarities.  But look at Soft Machine, they all moved to Canterbury shortly before forming the band,  so theres no actual connection there either.  It's just that a lot of the bands share similar members.  Such as Camel containing Richard Sincliar, David Sinclair, and Jan Shelhaas, all having also been in caravan/

himtroy wrote: But look at Soft Machine, they all moved to Canterbury shortly before forming the band,  so theres no actual connection there either.  It's just that a lot of the bands share similar members.