The 10 Greatest PROG KEYBOARDISTS of All Time | RANKED 

"I Can't afford a mini-moog but i've got some guitar effect pedals" keyboard players.

Great list, I would put Dave Stewart higher :) his playing with Bruford, Hatfield, and National Health is to me some of the best ever for any rock genre. (and did I see a video with a young Dave playing with the Maynard Ferguson band??)

Idk why your name isn’t listed on the Bruford albums like Holdsworth and Berlin. (Yes, your name is on there, but almost as a side note.) it always pissed me off. I’m not even a keyboard player. I’m a guitar player. But I thought your contributions to those recordings were every bit as important and fantastic as the other players. Your keyboard parts literally MAKE some of those songs. I hope you got (or get) paid as much as the other guys. The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. Album cover should have read: Bill Bruford Featuring: Allan Holdsworth Dave Stewart Jeff Berlin (Not necessarily in that order) Just my 10 cents.

Dave Sinclair! Definitely.

Loved your album with "Harry and James"!

Yes...I agree...a one off

And he could do it all upside-down, as I saw him do it twice. 🎉

Can I mention Keith’s natural successor the incredible Rachel Flowers

You're absolutely right young lady. He was not only a genius he was a savant and most people don't know that. The greatest of all time there will never be one better. Mr. Emerson is God on keyboards. Thanks young lady. I always knew you knew your stuff young lady.

@@steveselby6201 Yes, you can mention her. In fact....you already did.

Thanks, will do!...check out next weeks schedule!!!

That is the sound upon which IQ is built...

Jordan is a good call...and he is out and out prog too

He is a very versatile musician

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I saw the great Dave Stewart perform live last week (at Kings Place, London, 9th July) with his partner of 40 years, singer Barbara Gaskin. They finally got married last year! Stewart's prog/fusion playing was always sensitive, subtle and utterly tasteful, none of the tacky up-and-down the keyboard histrionics of Rick Wakeman's "Six Wives" musical tat. Stewart/Gaskin have released about six prog/pop studio albums since the mid 1980s.

Robin nearly made the list...I totally forgot about David Sancious...as I have on my forthcoming Fusion Keyboardists top ten. You watch how many will remind me this! But it does the RU-vid algorhythm no harm...

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Looking forward to it, Andy!

Great list Sal 👌

You're right he's really good. However he's no Keith Emerson but then nobody is.

@@edljnehan2811 Keith Emerson is also a virtuoso jazz player. That's a different ball game.

@@truefilm6991 I hear your brother I heard him playing with Oscar Peterson. ELP even has Jazz licks in it just listen to and watch take a pebble from that Switzerland video filmed in 1970. My man does everything and does it five times better than anyone else. Thanks though.

@@truefilm6991 sorry I almost forgot the nights. How about country pie? Rondo?

@@truefilm6991 the nice not nights. Sorry this Google transcriptionist is terrible.

He certainly is. Very classical.

Both of them - John Hawken and John Tout

John Tout never composed any music before he joined Renaissance. Then he just went for it and was their main composer.

Thanks for that...a LEY LINES Fan!!!! Steve is not well at the moment, just come out of hospital after having first bout of chemo for lymphoma. He is in my thoughts a lot at the moment

Thanks Robert...I plan to return to fusion next week...

Very well put I agree. Actually the nice were truly the first progressive rock band predating King Crimson Harriet

​@@edljnehan2811I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of the Nice.

@@garygomesvedicastrology thank you.. finally someone with some brains. I don't think if it wasn't for Keith Emerson and Robert Fripp there would be such thing as a progressive rock.

Yes...the piano drums duet thing...wonderful stuff...

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Yeah, it was all acoustic. Probably around 83-84. First time I saw Bill. It was great!

Many have mentioned Eddie Jobson. I omitted him because there are only the UK albums where he made an impact on prog, but what an impact

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer understand but lets not forget early work with Curved Air and later Frank Zappa and playing with Jethro Tull. Roxy Music was a big deal though not prog. I met Eddie when he toured playing the music of Keith Emerson a few years back.

ahhh...Sancious...I always forget him....

Early Gentle Giant will blow your mind.

I have never really got early Soft Machine...it sounds like a British Zappa copy to me. I acknowledge their influence on prog however.

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I think the best Soft Machine albums (and live recordings) are after the initial two, but before they became a jazz-rock outfit. More specifically, Third and Fourth, and especially The Peel Sessions 69-71. (And the many live recordings from this two-year period). They were truly amazing, methinks. Influenced by Zappa (and Terry Riley) for sure, but they had their own distinct sound, in part due to Ratledge's particular sound based on a Lowrey organ and fuzz box (and sometime wah wah I think).

Yes Mike Ratledge was brilliant. You had to see Soft Machine live to experience how heavy and tight they were. Later this week, is the 50th anniversary of a Soft Machine concert at the Belfry Hotel Sutton Coalfield 21.10.72. I was there, life changing music for me.

@@johnayres2303 How lucky!

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I think the Softs members would be stunned in disbelief at the thought they were Zappa copies. Go back and listen to Third and Fourth!

Fireballet could give Happy the Man a good run for their money as far as best American prog band goes. And early Kansas has them both beat. Yezda Urfa is right up there too.

Yes Vincent Crane was good but tragically was taken too early.

I agree.

I did consider those two...

Jem and Martin are both incredible keyboardist. I have also worked with Rob Reed and Clive Nolan who are both monsters. But the guy that is astonishing is Lalle Larson.

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Lalle Larson? Don’t know him … here I am to know something new! Rob Reed just seen in Veruno (Italy) with Magenta, great guy, love his solo works Sanctuary x … and loved the Kiama project with you. Hoped for your reunion with Jem in Frost*, but now waiting for your second Rain release 😊

Check out the albums I suggested if you are a progger...

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer i will

Corea and Hammer are good, but they are not prog.

unparalled virtuosity?

You're the man thanks. Keith Emerson is God.

Oops. Mahavishnu.

I will keep persevering Danny...I have always had this strange feeling Benny The Bouncer is a work of genius....

Yes he did it indeed, and survived, but man, he was nervous haha! I think Oscar appreciated it.

Moraz was the free-est keyboard player Yes ever had! Hope you also know his 2 fine albums with Bill Bruford?

Kerry Livgren was every bit as good as Steve Walsh on keyboards. In fact, he was far more versatile, and did the vast majority of the composing and also a great guitarist.

Agreed. Dave Greenfield was fantastic. I've been a Stranglers fan for 46 years. RIP Dave Greenfield.

His work with Wilson is stunning

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer i like the jane getter albums and dig quite a bit of his solo stuff,which like most fusion proggy solo keys albums,have a top end cast of guest appearances

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer adam holzman and brave new world ,great stuff

That's true. Wakeman did very little composing with Yes. Most of the musical ideas in Yes actually came from Anderson and Squire. Howe added ideas here and there. Even Wakeman's solo albums I thought were weak and derivative in the composing. He just imitates the old masters like Bach and Beethoven. He was stuck in classical music.

Kerry Livgren of Kansas also never gets the credit he deserves as a fantastic keyboardist.

I think Kerry Livgren of Kansas was also deserving of a mention. But no one ever gives him credit for his incredible keyboard playing and composing.

@@lashedbutnotleashed1984 When I wanted to buy a synthesizer in 1976 I went down to my local store (Steam Music, Topeka Kansas). I opened the door and Kerry Livgren was playing a Minimoog and staring right at me. I waited a while and talked to him, I knew who he was because I took guitar lessons at the same store he previously taught at, and I had seen Kansas play twice. I went back a few days later with my dad and he bought me that synthesizer.

A lot of people are mentioning Eddie...who would I lose?

His Eurythmics stuff as well

@@irena7777777 Different Dave Stewart....

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Exactly the same Dave Stewart. And I know them both…

This Dave Stewart has nothing to do with the Eurythmics

Eddie J nearly made the list...his playing in UK is tremendous. I have just done a greatest jazz rock keyboardists and didn't put Sancious on that, opting for Jeff Lorber...that may have been a mistake...

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer UK such a terrific band

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer No disrespect to Jeff Lorber but, yes, he and David Sancious are two completely different categories of musician. The level of conceptualization and utilization of classical music references in David Sancious' music is a large part of what lead me to think of him for the prog keyboardist category. Even though, he, like Chick Corea could stand in jazz as well, but he had a different spirit for music and arrangement. Matter of fact Eddy Offord produced at least one of his albums (like that's a prog certification, right?). Now, I think of jazz-rock as leaning heavier towards instrumental music where as David Sancious wrote what seems to be a greater percentage of vocal music. To me Jeff Lorber, great musician that he is, has been thought of more as a "more adventurous than some others" smooth jazz-fusion artist. In the end I think all modern market-based categorization is empty and ultimately detrimental to music (just like the concept of race) but because someone started it and people built an industry around it...it's difficult to have a conversation without using those references (same with race). Not that you did this, although none of us can say we're not influenced by social trends and traditions to some degree, I can't help but think that David Sancious, because he didn't fit the usual ethnic associations that follow the marketing category that his music would have been sold under...that his exposure as a progressive music artist suffered. I think you should have gone with David instead of Jeff but, it's all subjective.

Jordan nearly made the list, what a fantastic keyboardist. Keith was a product of his time. In terms of showmanship, virtuosity and charisma I would put Hiromi up there as one of the greatest keyboardists of all time.

Tangerine Dream was not prog.

@@lashedbutnotleashed1984 I didnt say they were nor did I expect Edgar Froese to be in such a list! sorry for the confusion.

Yes...more than one...

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Thanks. Found it. My old eyes had caused a dyslexic search.