Rock with strings

The New York Rock Ensemble were Julliard grads and played excellent string and woodwind parts on their albums.

Canadian band Lighthouse had their own string and woodwind section.

LOVE..."Forever changes" 1967 Elektra...Brass and strings arranged by Jazz composer/arranger David Angel.
The seamless blend of great vocals,electric combo Rock, brass and strings has rarely been surpassed.
This record is in the top 50 of Rolling Stone top 500 albums,if I recall.....It really is a cult record and if you don't know it, well........

Forever changes is a great selection. Immaculate production as well. Not that I dislike Tull, I just feel better when they are not around.

Al,

I think you mistook my intention (although it's possible that I didn't state it clearly). You cited a bunch of ballads (albeit ballads performed by rock bands) in your post. I wasn't really trying to reference that in my post. Strings are definitely more appropriate for ballads than rock n roll, IMO, but - even there - caution should be exercised lest the schmaltz factor take over.

When posting, I was thinking about real, up-tempo, backbeat, rock n roll. I may have overstated my point a bit, but I'll generally stand by the post. Things like "Orchestral Tommy" generally strike me as very bad ideas. I will also mention again that there are probably exceptions, even there. Some of The Moody Blues' material and snippets of The Wall work well enough, but it's still not an approach that succeeds very often, IMO.

Of course, that says as much about my taste in rock music as it does about the strings idea. As always, YMMV.

I saw ELP live in 77 with full orchestra at MSG NY. Incredible performance, well suited for their style of music.

The editing of the album and YouTube videos don't do it justice.