In the 60s, a wave of popularity of rock music swept across the UK. Scotland did not stand aside, where teams also appeared inspired by the success of The Beatles.
Early years
In 1968, Peter Agnew and William McCafferty founded Nazareth. The group quickly became famous in their homeland thanks to a bright stage style and interesting songs. The band was spotted by the label, and a contract for recording and releasing a debut album soon followed.
This record received the same name - Nazareth. She did not have much commercial success, but was seen by critics who praised the group for its sound. In 1972, the second Exerxises album was released, which had some shade of blues. A mix of this genre with hard rock has become the brand name of the Nazareth band. The group began touring successfully in the UK.
In the same year, musicians were lucky to perform on the same tour with the extremely popular Deep Purple, which had already become heralds of a new fashion for rock music. The friendship between the teams lasted several decades. Successful tours allowed Nazareth to declare itself not only at home, but also in Europe.
The third RazAmaNaz album was successful in Japan. The audience in the Land of the Rising Sun loved Western rock music. From that moment, the musicians became welcome guests with their Asian fans. Songs such as Bad Bad Boy and Broken Down Angel were a commercial success and were massively sold as single singles. In 1973, readers of the authoritative magazine Melody Maker called Nazareth the most promising young team. The group made its producer musician Roger Glover. He perfected the sound on new recordings.
Success
The Rampant album, released in 1974, differed from the previous ones in that it first resembled “metal”. It was a new genre that gained momentum in the 70s thanks to Black Sabbath and some other artists. Nazareth did not pass by. The group continued to move in a given direction. The result of such research was Hair of the Dog - the most successful and popular album of the collective.
Simultaneously with the new release, the musicians released a collection that contained the best songs of the Nazareth group. The ballad Love Hurts hit him. This song was a rework of the classic version, which appeared in 1960 in the repertoire of country performers. The composition became a hit at concerts, and now it is a constant number of performances by the collective.
New albums and concerts
The Scottish rock band is a long-liver on stage. In the 80s, she actively experimented with her style, not being afraid to write unformatted songs that are atypical of their repertoire. For this reason, several albums have failed in the market. But over the years of world tours and sold-out concerts, Nazareth has acquired loyal fans of all ages.
In 1986, the team first visited Eastern Europe, thus breaking through the Iron Curtain. Then the group gave a concert in front of an audience of 150 thousand people in India. Nazareth often performed with other colleagues in the genre, such as Europe, who at that time were on the wave of commercial success.
In the USSR, musicians first appeared in 1990. Then they played 6 concerts at once in the Moscow Olympic Sports Complex. A year later, the group went on tour and in Leningrad.
Modernity
In the mid-90s, musicians often began their own solo tours, for example, using acoustic instruments. In recent years, the group often performs in retrospective tours, in which only songs from the first albums or compositions that have not been played at concerts for a long time are played.
In 2013, permanent vocalist Dan McCafferty announced that he was leaving the band due to poor health. As the musician himself explained, he simply does not have enough physical strength to speak with a 2-hour program. Nevertheless, McCafferty continues to participate in studio recordings. In 2014, the last 23 Nazareth album was released today .