Yezda Urfa

A private-press prog band

Yezda Urfa were a progressive rock band from the Chicago area; the Indiana Music Encyclopedia places them in Portage and Chesterton, in Northwest Indiana. They formed in the fall of 1973 and split in the spring of 1981. The name joins Yazd in Iran and Urfa in Turkey, found browsing a dictionary, with Yazd changed to Yezda for pronunciation. Phil Kimbrough and Mark Tippins met in a German class and began as a folk duo, Tippins on guitar and Kimbrough on mandolin, adding a violinist as KGT and playing coffee houses; drummer Brad Christoff and a bassist joined in their final year of high school, and after graduation Marc Miller took over bass and the band became Yezda Urfa. The original line-up was Rick Rodenbaugh on vocals, Kimbrough, Tippins, Miller and Christoff.

Boris was recorded and mixed at Universal Studios in Chicago in May 1975 over two or three days, with engineer Jerry Declercq and manager Phil Tarr credited as producer. About 300 copies were pressed as a demo, and the band sent them to labels and travelled to New York to hand them out, without a deal. Sessions for a second album began in early 1976, moved to Hedden West Studios in Schaumburg, Illinois, and were shelved after a near deal with a small Chicago label; Sacred Baboon was not released until 1989, on Syn-Phonic. After the split Tippins and Kimbrough made a record as Crafty Hands.

The band reunited for NEARfest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on July 10, 2004, with Ronnie Platt, later Kansas's lead singer, on vocals; the set came out as YEZDAURFALIVE in 2010. Boris was reissued on CD several times and on vinyl by Noble Records, remastered from the original tapes. Wikipedia, Progarchy and Sputnik Music all compare them with Yes and Gentle Giant; Progarchy calls them America's response to Gentle Giant, not copycats but equally eccentric and talented, with the vocals the weakest element. The Indiana Music Encyclopedia calls Boris one of the most beloved and highly sought privately released progressive rock records anywhere.