Doing the Pandora shuffle, 6th edition

"OK, Google. Shuffle my Pandora."

"Trip to the Fair," Renaissance (Scheherazade and Other Stories, 1975). This is the 10-plus-minute opener on Renaissance's sixth studio album, the fourth with the Annie Haslam-fronted classic lineup. It's exactly what you would expect to hear from this band by this point -- heavy on John Tout's classically influenced piano and Jon Camp's melodic Rickenbacker bass and centered around Haslam's remarkably versatile, crystal-clear voice. This tune was written by Tout, acoustic guitarist Micheal Dunford and lyricist Betty Thatcher. Wikipedia says the song was written about Haslam's first date with Roy Wood, formerly of The Move and Electric Light Orchestra who was Haslam's boyfriend at the time. Renaissance had a nice three-album run culminating with this one in which every track is pure gold. "Trip to the Fair" is no exception.

Viva Voce: A delicate balance that got a little heavy

Viva Voce was a husband-wife duo from Muscle Shoals, AL, who relocated to Portland, OR, to get a foothold in the active indie scene there. They made a pretty good name for themselves, releasing several full-length albums and becoming stars on the festival circuit in the mid- to late 2000s. I first heard them in the early 2010s on a podcast hosted by a guy who worked for the NPR affiliate in Portland. (I can't remember the guy's name, and now I can't find any trace of that podcast, which ran for a few years.)