"Nazareth": a group with a long history and success

In the 60s, throughout the UK, a wave of popularity of rock music swept. Did not stay aside and Scotland, which also appeared collectives, inspired by the success of The Beatles.

Early years

In 1968 Peter Agnew and William McCafferty founded Nazareth. The band quickly became famous at home due to its bright stage style and interesting songs. The staff was noticed by the label, and soon a contract was signed for the recording and release of the debut album.

This record received the same name - Nazareth. She did not have much commercial success, but was noticed by critics who praised the band for its sound. In 1972, released the second album Exerxises, which had a certain shade of blues. The cross between this genre and hard rock became the signature "chip" of the Nazareth team. The group began to successfully tour the UK.

In the same year, the musicians were lucky to perform in one tour with the extremely popular Deep Purple, who already became messengers of a new fashion for rock music. Friendship between collectives lasted for several decades. Successful tours have allowed Nazareth to express themselves not only at home, but also in Europe.

The third album RazAmaNaz was successful in Japan. The audience in the Land of the Rising Sun loved western rock music. Since that moment the musicians have become welcome guests from their Asian fans. Songs such as Bad Bad Boy and Broken Down Angel, had commercial success and were sold massively in the form of single singles. In 1973, the readers of the authoritative magazine Melody Maker named Nazareth as the most promising young group. The group has made the producer of musician Roger Glover as the producer. He brought to the ideal sound on new recordings.

Success

The album Rampant, released in 1974, differed from the previous ones in that it first resembled "metal". It was a new genre, gaining momentum in the 70's thanks to Black Sabbath and some other performers. Not passed by Nazareth. The group continued to move in the given direction. The result of such researches became Hair of the Dog - the most successful and popular album of the collective.

Simultaneously with the new release, the musicians released a compilation that contained the best songs of the band Nazareth. He got the ballad Love Hurts. This song was a reworking of the classic version, which appeared in 1960 in the repertoire of country performers. The composition became a hit at concerts, and now it's a permanent number of performances by the band.

New albums and concerts

Scottish rock band is a long-liver on stage. In the 80s, she actively experimented with her style, not being afraid to write unformal songs that are atypical for their repertoire. For this reason, several albums failed on the market. But for the years of world tours and sold-out concerts Nazareth got loyal fans of all ages.

In 1986, the team first visited Eastern Europe, thus breaking the Iron Curtain. At the same time, the group gave a concert in front of an audience of 150,000 people in India. Nazareth often performed with other colleagues in the genre, for example with Europe, which at that time were on the wave of commercial success.

In the USSR, musicians were first in 1990. Then they played at once 6 concerts in the Moscow sports complex "Olympic". A year later the group went on a tour in Leningrad.

Modernity

In the mid-90s, musicians often started their own solo tours, for example, using acoustic instruments. In recent years, the band often performs with retrospective tours, in which only songs from the first albums or songs that have not been played at concerts have been heard for a long time.

In 2013, the permanent vocalist Dan McCafferty announced that he was leaving the band due to poor health. As the musician himself explained, he just does not have enough physical strength to perform with the program in 2 hours. Nevertheless, McCafferty continues to participate in studio records. In 2014, the last for today's 23 album Nazareth was released.