David Surkamp’s emotive, stratospherically high voice and aching, melancholic songs distinguished 1975’s Pampered Menial and 1976’s At The Sound Of The Bell, the two revered classics for which his band, Pavlov’s Dog, remain best known. The group formed in St Louis, Missouri in 1972, and their baroque strings, foggy Mellotron and children’s choirs proved the perfect backdrop for Surkamp’s tales of Arthurian legend, lovers distanced by the Colorado gold rush, and the seemingly unattainable Julia, subject of the truly special piano ballad of the same name.
“We’re still doing all those songs in the same keys, you know!” Surkamp tells Prog proudly, prior to heading to Greece, Germany and Belgium for gigs with Pavlov’s Dog’s current line-up. At 72, his voice remains a marvel, but his band have never really…