Song of the Day 10/22: Audience, “Indian Summer”

This week might have been too damp to qualify as actual “Indian summer” weather, but I’m not going to let that stop me from resurrecting the only charting single ever released by the British band Audience during its five-year original existence from 1969 to 1973.

Though usually lumped in with the progressive-rock movement, Audience’s blend of rock, jazz, blues and R&B was impossible to pigeonhole because the band employed neither lead guitar nor keyboards. Singer and main songwriter Howard Werth played an electrified nylon-string classical guitar while Keith Gemmell filled out the sound with woodwinds ranging from sax to flute to oboe. The instrumentation wasn’t as unusual at the time as it seems today; Chris Wood gave Traffic a similar if more conventional sound.

Audience’s first two albums were released only in the UK, and though they gained a cult following they didn’t sell well. In 1971 the band brought in producer Gus Dudgeon and set its sights on both America and the pop charts, releasing its best-known LP, “The House on the Hill.” The American version included “Indian Summer,” which was released separately as a single in the UK. The song briefly touched the American chart at No. 74, but by the end of 1972 Gemmell quit, and the group fell apart soon after. They reformed in 2004 for a decade-long swan song.