Your Favorite Ballads

[Togakure]

What are some of your favorite ballads? If you would, post a link to a video clip of it if you can find one. Doesn't have to be of the band, I just want to hear the tune in a version you like.

Hmm ... so many ... here are some blasts from the prehistoric past for most of the younglings here:

Nazareth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrSs7gfLDjc

Aerosmith:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtJu-0eTUSU

And for you SFTS, this is indeed a favorite ballad of mine, but only Skynyrd's version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3QCDd8UiMc
This homegrown video is rank, but it's Ronnie singing. The currently popular copycat should have his vocal cords surgically removed with a spoon--what utter suckage. There is simply no substitute for Ronnie Van Zant on this song.

Stalker's Delight, heh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnejNGprm3I
These guys are reuniting for a show at the Garden. I read front row center tickets are being offered for $11,500 ... :laugh4:.

More later ....

[Strike For The South]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pga0sS8qJU Masamune here is Ronnie

[Gregoshi]

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iquCHSkmUek) - archival footage of "the Fitz" above and below the waters of the Great Lakes with a live version of Gordon Lightfoot's classic to accompany it.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing

Haunting lyrics that paint a powerful mental image of the event. :2thumbsup:

[Gawain of Orkeny]

By far my favorite two

Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-idDbIfGvw)

Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Live at central park (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfcu9PB6ohA)

[Strike For The South]

London Homesick Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kbZ7ae2wfk

[Orb]

Lady Of The Dancing Water - King Crimson
Moonchild (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXUJxUobYMw) (opening) - King Crimson
C'est La Vie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O28GVT1xoYQ) - Greg Lake/ELP

[Togakure]

This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWcO5ShZ3k) is my favorite ballad of all time. It was my final achievement as a classical music student, performing it from memory at my senior recital, sponsored by the Music Teacher's Association of California at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, 1980, after slaving over it for hours a day, for over a year and a half.

I like Ferratti's interpretations of the slower and quieter passages here. The more bombastic sections lack ... fire and brimstone. I look to Pollini for these. I prefer to listen to this clip, rather than watch and listen. Feratti's dramatic body movements remind me of my primary competitor back in the day, a very talented young woman whose swaying and jerking was extreme and distracting. But, to each their own. The bottom line is the music.