I think roger Chapman still plays live in the uk performing Family as well aa solo matertial I Last h eard! ..Unfortunely Rob townsend didnt want to be apart of the family Reunion..oh welll!
Family were the group that really got me into prog (to be fair I'd been sniping round the edges for a while). John Peel's Top Gear, BBC Radio One, Saturday afternoons was the culprit.
@@TheProgCornerI see you have a great gap between 1959 and 1966. Certainly you don't mean to indicate that nothing happened to progress music towards progressiveness during those 7 years, right? You missed this great cornerstone of progressive melodies. Cast Your Fate To The Wind in its original instrumental form no doubt steered jazz towards a musical melodic sensibility that is definitely progressive. Soon after Vince Guaraldi Trio released it, the wife of another bands manager wrote lyrics to it and a couple pop bands recorded it. That got Vince noticed. He got the Charlie Brown job because of the music of that song. I consider it to be the most progressive tune of the early sixties and should be in your list. I do understand how you missed this gemstone, the CORNER stone of progressive jazz. It flies under everybody's radar.
All of these albums that you're naming.You know frank sinatra to Arlo guthrie and so forth, it's a stretch to call them prog. I think Iron Butterfly, Ina-gada-da-vida isn't a stretch at all. I think it really is the first true prog album. Think about it .
You are my favorite prog analyst. So knowledgeable and interesting. And I have to let you know that Kansas is my FAVORITE band, particularly 1974-1982. I think that Kerry Livgren is the finest composer, orchestrator, lyricist, and multi-instrumentalist, surrounded by amazing musicians and vocalists. I could listen to them all day - and I always hear something new in his compositions. What a great songwriter and humble man!😊
Kerry is a genius!!! What a songwriter. What a musician. I’ve always loved Kansas. I am on an Audio Visions binge of late. Never loved it. Boy, was I wrong!!!!😑❤️👍🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾
@@TheProgCornerYou have a huge gap between 1959 and 1966. You meant to imply that nothing happened at all to develop progressiveness in different genres during those 7 years? There is definitely one band in that time gap that definitely help musically change a bit with Cast Your Fate To The Wind. Vince Giraldi Trio definitely should be on this list, just to fill that early sixties gap. When I dug deep into that song, I realized that that instrumental is more prog than jazz for sure. Then the wife of a bands manager wrote lyrics to it without Vince knowing about it. And because of that, Vince got the Charlie Brown job. Totally changed his life.
In my view psych paved the way and made prog possible although you could argue that both genres developed somewhat concurrently. They both came from the same zeitgeist nonetheless.
The concept album goes back even further than Wee Small Hours (which is really just a bunch of pre-existing unrelated songs by various different writers collected together because they all happen to share a similar "Saloon Song" aesthetic and recorded in such a way as to emphasize their shared mood, almost more similar to a themed playlist than a true concept album actually written as a unified work). Woody Guthrie's "Dust Bowl Ballads", a group of six 78rpm discs collected together in an actual bound "album", is a true concept album all about Guthrie's experiences among actual Dust Bowl migrants, (along with a couple songs that were directly inspired by and actually reference the 1940 movie adaptation of Grapes of Wrath, also about Dust Bowl refugees).
Great choice mentioning Dave Brubeck, the ultimate mid-mod sound and considered cross-over jazz, making it more accessible listening for non-jazz music fans.
Moody Blues, "In Search of The Lost Chord", no orchestra just the band. Great prog rock and 16 months earlier than Crimson's "Court". Love that mellotron.
Very big KC fan here and I don't mind a bit. There were loads of albums before Court was released, any music fan knows this. Plus, people forget or just don't know the plentiful classical music that was as progressive, if not more so, than anything in prog rock. @@visualizeprog2874
Spirit, Traffic, Family, Blood Sweat and Tears, It’s a Beautiful Day, Jethro Tull, Moody Blues all come to mind. John Coltrane also had an impact. Glad you listed Shine On Brightly from Procol Harum. Definitely deserves to be on there.
I think the first prog rock album is Ina-gada-da-vida by Iron Butterfly. In fact I think they're the reason most bands started doing drum solos. Theirs was the first album that had a 17 minute long song that I know of, maybe there was others. But that's the first one I know of.
Another that I might suggest is Vanilla Fudge’s first album, and perhaps more importantly, their second album THE BEAT GOES ON, which is highly conceptual.
@@TheProgCornerIf psyche and prog are siblings, early sixties jazz is their older cousin. Here is the proggiest tune of 1962. How could you miss this gem? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rTA3aOfrDHA.htmlsi=XdJ88kTzEux2LSEY
@@TheProgCornerB side of a single, the original instrumental of the proggiest tune of 1962. Right in that gap you have between 1959 and 1965. Can there be anything else in that time period? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rTA3aOfrDHA.htmlsi=XdJ88kTzEux2LSEY
@@TheProgCornerEarlier I suggested what I know as the proggiest tune of the early sixties, the B side of a single by Vince Guaraldi Trio in July 1962 titled Cast Your Fate To The Wind. A year later, We Five released the tune with lyrics added by Carel Werber, the wife of Frank Werber who had managed another band. (Might have been We Five or Sandpipers who also covered the tune.) This is how that worked out. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Q4rWK43ELBY.htmlsi=v0m_cP916Vo7TSav
Love it Scot! I think Love-Forever Changes was groundbreaking but perhaps it was more the Zenith of psych rock than proggy. But it appeals to that era and they were respected by everyone. Too bad Arthur Lee couldn’t hold it together.
Hi Scott. Been watching your videos for a while now. I’m 23 and I’ve been immersing myself in prog for the past few years. Just wanted to say I love your channel and you’ve helped me discover great albums by great bands/artists! Really appreciate your channel giving guidance to enjoying the best genre of music. Keep it up! 👍👍
An absolute killer list here,Scot! Many of these albums and artists I love. Great episode. I love your knowledge of music and your wide spectrum of different artists. Your musical tastes are definitely not boxed in. Well done,sir. 👍❤️
Brilliant stuff Scot. A very eclectic twenty-five. Kudos for referencing Sinatra who recorded a number of concept albums from The Wee Small Hours through Come Fly With Me (1958), Only the Lonely & No One Cares (1959) right up to A Man Alone (1969) and Water Town (1970). Good to see Miles and Dave Brubeck included too.
Pretty convincing argument, Scott. I think King Crimson's ITCOTCK will always be considered the first "official" Prog album by a majority of the Prog Rock diaspora. But it was fun watching you go through the time line from Frank Sinatra to the big bang in '69. Pink Floyd's debut is a reminder that Prog was an outgrowth of Psychedelia, the idea of a musical form that knows no borders. And thanks for including In A Silent Way, which along with On The Corner is one of my two favorite Miles Davis albums of all time. And while we're at it, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme might be a dark horse choice, spirituality and taking Jazz saxophone beyond the norm being ever present in his work. Or how about Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz? Talk about a game changer. And I have the first two Frank Zappa albums. Only 600 more to go.
Great concise and informative video. You nailed the origin story of Prog! Spreading the word of great music to the World Wide Webers and beyond. Keep up the great work. You da man!!!
@@TheProgCorner Sadly I think there's more to it. Billy's a mate and with his consent I tried to write a biography 10 years ago on his legacy, and whilst Ian Anderson was gracious enough to grant me an hour interview, another prog legend took GREAT offence at the questions I posed.. After that, ALL doors were closed to me and I had to abandon the project.
Excellent list! I would add “Village Green Preservation Society” and “Arthur” by The Kinks. Both very British, conceptual, with poignant characters, and interesting arrangements (harpsichord, mellotron, etc)
Your brilliant chronology, with the Court at the end instead of the beginning reminds me of what James Joyce said about Christopher Columbus...that he was the last man to discover America. You gave me much I want to hear. Create ye a playlist with them on it, in order. Very useful. I am midway through a playlist with over 200 videos, called All the Countries in the World A-Z. Travel is a boorish tedium, but seeing places, I can dig. Hearing roots music, I can dig.
Great video, Scot. Really enjoyed that. You obviously can't cover everything that happened in that gradual build up you described, but I think you did well to capture highlights and the most significant. A few others that might merit a footnote could be Jimi Hendrix, Spirit, Vanilla Fudge, Jefferson Airplane, It's a Beautiful Day, Deep Purple, Spooky Tooth, The Collectors, The Move, H.P. Lovecraft, Kaleidoscope, Andromeda... and probably a lot more. It was a complex scene. Some of those I've mentioned were admittedly more on the psychedelic and/or folky side of things.
Every band you mentioned got serious consideration. In the end, it’s kinda just the stuff I want to talk about on a particular day because Vanilla Fudge, The Move, Spirit, Hendrix - all part of the story!!!!
That's a huge topic. Prog is built from hundreds, if not thousands, of years of music, including Gregorian chant. Rites of Spring. Beethoven's Fifth. Westside Story.
What a fantastic video and what a fantastic list! That's the way it has to be done. A history lesson in fifteen minutes which sweeps away the established opinion that everything started with King Crimson. I love it that it was Frank Sinatra who you did mention first. And it is so true that people had to get used to side long epics (such as "Alice's Restaurant" and "In-A-Gadda-da-Vidda") in order to establish Prog in its purest form in the seventies.
Happy to say I own most of these albums! Including the Sinatra! Frankie made a great string of albums in the late 50's, featuring tons of minor keys and Gordon Jenkins' lush orchestrations that would sound amazing if they were reimagined on the mellotron. When my brothers and I get together for tunes we say "how about some Frankie" and on comes Sinatra, Zappa, or Marino!
A fantastic episode Scot !!! In fact the origins of prog would be a best seller in book form !! Fancy it ?? Absolutely loved this my friend , phenomenal !!! 😍
Great list man! I would have thrown in albums by the likes of The Incredible String Band, Grateful Dead, Silver Apples, Fairport Convention, The Velvet Underground, Spirit, and The Small Faces
Fascinating topic. One could go in a myriad of different directions and other genres. You had a lot of solid choices, including The Chairman of the Board, who later returned with another concept album in 1970 with Watertown. You even had a pair of other bands that l have never encountered: Clouds and the one l can’t spell or pronounce. Keep up the stellar content! Cheers from The Big Apple. Rock Out, Prog On & Pogo! Your clone and mine, ~ The Decibel Destroying Doppelgänger of Davey Cretin, from CRETIN CLASSICS.
Love the choices. Good calls. I might replace Tull's This Was, Colosseum and Led Zep's first and maybe even West Side Story and Stravinsky's Firebird Suite as being more instrumental to the concept of prog than Alice's Restaurant but...I'll give it to you. : )
GREAT list! Another one I think would be worth mentioning, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967). More often associated with art rock and proto-punk, but it's experimental approach, unconventional sounds, and themes I think contributed to the broader progressive rock ethos.
Wow, so glad you included Touch-Touch! I keep trying to get reviewers like Just JP to give Seventy-Five a listen. Yes, Touch was early proto-prog. Side one of the album is... eh, not that good, but side two is a masterpiece, it flows together so well, and Seventy-Five totally kicks proto-prog, psychedelic butt. Seventy-Five builds and builds to a climax, but never ends. On the original vinyl, it was mastered to go into an infinite loop if you didn't pick up the tone arm.
@@TheProgCorner Fully agree (though Down at Circe's Place is very Prog) but the other tracks are also of high quality and, to my ears, just as good a listen. btw: Touch owed something to Vanilla Fudge who should have made this list.
Some fantastic albums on the list, love East of Eden, Mercator Projected is a brilliant and unique album. Also on January 28, 1970 one of the most important albums was released BITCHES BREW, and is one of the most influential works of all time. Cheers my friend and prog on.
Some of these albums I haven't heard yet, though I've heard about them. But I believe you. Great list that starts and ends exactly like mine if I had made one. I was afraid you weren't going to mention Frank Sinatra's excellent concept album, but boy was I wrong. Sgt.Pepper is not a concept album, but it has so much prog relish that to me it is deffo prog. Pet Sounds is all about new and progressive ideas, so therefore it's prog in my book. And I could go on and on. There are so many gray areas in this genre that makes room for personal definitions. Prog was developed and your collection of pebbles pretty much shows the geological story, if you get my drift. Peace, love and all the rest from the very sunny and warm Oslo to you, Scot.
Love this and that you mentioned Frank Sinatra "In The Wee Small Hours" and the Brubeck "Time Out" albums. I consider Duke Ellington and Igor Stravinsky to be grandfathers of prog, and both Coltrane and Miles Davis to be uncles! But hey, Scott - dude, you got one GLARING OMMISSION that I am actually quite shocked you missed, and that is the West Side Story soundtrack from 1961 - that is absolutely 100% prog and extremely important to the pioneers of the prog rock genre!!!!
Robert Fripp mentioned he was driving, and then he turned on radio. "A day in the life" was aired... So he though that was the kind of stuff he would like to develop... A few years later KING CRIMSON opened for the Rolling Stones.... The crowd was blew away, about the material and perfection of such presentation It could be the same venue, Jon Anderson and Chris Squire attended, so Jon said to Chris "we need to rehearse More" "Every little thing" by Lennon and MCcartney was included on 1969 YES ephonimous album
I think it’s a great list. It is after all your list and no one can take that away from you. Before I write what I wanted to write, I’d say for me, Moody Blues - Question of balance, Quintessence, Black Sabbath 1st AND of course King Crimson set me right into the progressive groove. NOW, AND LISTEN CAREFULLY! Arlo Guthrie made an Alice’s Restaurant Revisited not so many years ago. That song is there with an explanation where Richard Nixon’s deleted 18 minutes from his tape went.
I think another album that is usually overlooked as a forerunner of what would become known as Prog....is Ogden's Nut Gone Flake by The Small Faces, from 1968. One of the first true concept albums and contained a lot of the early elements that would feature as the genre progressed through the 70s. That album opener title track really sounds like it's playing a shape of things to come in rock music!
Oh yes and also (although I did include it as a comment during the Pink Floyd live stream) CONGRATULATIONS on reaching 10,000 subscribers. Your 'birth of progressive rock' list is intriguing but, I believe, entirely justified although I admit I have never heard Clouds. Indeed I'm only vaguely aware of their name as they were mentioned in a Keith Emerson interview many years ago. As for your list of classical composers given in the description...my only caveat is Carl Orff...Hitler's favourite composer. Ugh. He joined the Nazi party through choice. I know many people prefer to separate a composer (or a group) from their religion or politics - which I can understand and appreciate - but I am not one of those people. Thus I do not possess a single note of Wagner, Orff or Richard Strauss in my fairly large classical music collection. With, say, Pink Floyd it's not so simple since I don't believe it is fair to judge messrs Barrett, Mason, Wright and Gilmour by the deplorable behaviour of Waters. Thus, though he's quite obviously a Jew hater, I can still retain in my small prog rock collection the 5 Floyd tracks I actually enjoy without being too much of a hypocrite...possibly! Oh yes and in your previous video you sported a splendid t shirt whose message I endorse. How can a Jew sanction a 'vote for Jesus' message? Easy: though we don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, suppose we're wrong? Christians say he's the Messiah. We say the Messiah will be a descendent of David. Well, so far as I am concerned, when moshiach comes, if it's Jesus or a David descendent - or, better still, both of them - then I'll be equally happy but I hope he or they come soon because, they way humanity is heading at present, we need the return of the Messiah! Sorry for bringing religion into a prog rock channel (and respect is granted to you atheists out there) but when I saw you in that shirt, I smiled because it cheered me up!
I brought it upon myself by wearing that shirt. I am 100% Christian but believe in love and tolerance. And the eternal concept that I could be wrong. If everyone worshiped the way they wanted to with respect for others the world would be a better place!!!! Too many religious people refuse to accept that humans are flawed and therefore prone to making mistakes and being misinformed. 👍👍👍❤️❤️❤️
I agree with this list, I would add John Coltrane ("A Love Supreme", "Ascension"), his music was a big influence especially to the Canterbury Sound and bands like East of Eden.
Very good episode. Prog wasnt "invented" it coaleced from what a lot of musicians were doing from Brubeck to the Beatles and yes Bob Dylan... he really opened up conceptual lyric and song topics. You should doa post on classical music and Prog... Beethoven really threw people fora loop with the 9th symphony and his late piano pieces, Bach etc. Also, great that you stated the thing about the USA's contributions...
Very cool piece. Great to see Time Out and In a Silent Way in there! I would consider beyond The Doors, some of the heavier Blues Rock, especially just from a standpoint of Reaching wide levels of exposure. Electric Ladyland Disreali Gears Led Zeppelin I
A couple other artists that deserve a mention: Burt Bacharach -- Arguably the first songwriter to use odd time signatures in a pop (as opposed to jazz) context. Check out "Anyone Who Had a Heart" or "Promises, Promises" for some mind-bending examples. The Velvet Underground -- Probably more of an influence on alternative rock than prog, but still, if you define prog as music that pushes envelopes, you can't deny they did that.
SF Sorrow yes indeed. Also ones that could have been included here but are very much overlooked are Renaissance first album is highly significant, also Van Der Graaf Generator The Aerosol Grey Machine is another one which bridges that Psych and Prog thing, as does Reality by Second Hand on Polydor. I would agree with Music in a Doll's House due to the segues and reprises of certain tracks with the Dave Mason production etc.
@@TheProgCorner Yes but you covered the Classical symphonic stuff with The Nice and The Moody Blues. I think because that Renaissance album came out around the same time as In the Court of the Crimson King there were more of these movements toward more Progressive stuff from the Psychedelic era, Traffic and Family both became more Progressive as did Soft Machine and many more examples not just bands who did a prog or proto prog number on an album (Prog? Non Prog?). It is interesting how a lot of these bands who transitioned came from Soul, Blues, Jazz, Beat or R&B backgrounds, even skiffle, or they were classically trained products of music colleges Gryphon or Dis dwelling Rick Wakeman. Just as Ian Carr's Nucleus and The Graham Bond Organisation cultivated some fine musicians who were abundant interplaying on other British Prog albums and beyond such as Pete Brown's Piblokto and Battered Ornaments, Colosseum and other fine examples, significant others in the very early part of the 70s such as Brian Davison's Every Which Way with Graham Bell who also came from that Psychedelic background with Skip Bifferty and the absolute belting I Keep Singing the Same Old Song by the none band Heavy Jelly.
Caravan Jan '69, the track "Where but for Caravan Would I?" has bits that sound like King Crimson before aforesaid band - listen to the last few minutes.
Excellent video. I've said before that there must be a great book in this particular subject (there's plenty of Prog books and Psych books but none about the hinterland and the antecedents of Prog) and if I had the time and connections, I'd write one, but what about yourself, Scot? If anyone knows of such a book, let me know!
Very interesting video, thanks! I think the debut album of The United States of America is also worth checking out as a potential early prog influence. Not really prog but pretty experimental. Also, Don Ellis, probably the jazz musician who worked most passionately with odd time signatures (Electric Bath 1967 and several other albums).
@@TheProgCorner yeah I knew you had to draw the line somewhere, but your list made some good points and charted a path that I was vaguely aware of in my own life. I bought Brubeck’s album before I started my Prog journey with the Moody Blues in high school (class of ‘71) Keep up the good insights !
Oh Scott, not only did you not mention Family (even if you meant to), you also didn't mention Traffic, which is a bit weird because they were the first group I ever saw the word "progressive" attached to in print, and that was in 1967.
Interesting list. Got a kick out of Sinatra and Brubeck from the year of my birth. Those are indeed classics. Also couple in there later that I don't know at all. Good to see Dylan, The Doors and Iron Butterfly in there. I was surprised not see even more of the American influences like Jefferson Airplane; Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago not to mention Buffalo Springfield; The Byrds; Spirit or The James Gang. Yeah, I might have been down an American origins rabbit hole myself lately. ;)
I'd love to see a show on "Not Quite Prog" by "Way Not Prog". For example, Billy Joel - The Nylon Curtain. What other Way Not Prog people have done something that is Not Quite Prog? These should be suggestions that don't make you think Prog at all.
Great stuff Scot. I whole heartedly agree. In particular some of those 50s albums are definitely building blocks. Sinatra was the first to come up with a concept album. The 3 albums he released around Wee Wee Hours all go hand in hand. I’ll still pinpoint Revolver as the beginning. Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow Never Knows…I’m suspicious. A track on Procul Harum’s first album has an instrumental tune called At the Gates of Cerdes which is as Prog as Prog can be. But as you mentioned at the start there is no the “first” Prog album. It was more of a gradual thing. That’s got me thinking Scot. What about epics that are not Prog? Hmmm…I’m thinking of tunes like MacArthur Park or even something like Love to Love You Baby by Donna Summer. Maybe that’s a stretch but I think you can see what I’m getting at. Could be an interesting topic?
