The League of Prog Nations

Germany
France
Italy
Japan
Spain

In "evaluating" my choices, I find that I'm more attuned to the European continent than I am England, or the USA, and I probably will blame someone for that.

However, I quickly fell into the Japanese scene, with the Sadistic Mika Band, and then Yellow Magic Orchestra and some of their members that went solo. Stomu Yama'sh*ta also comes to mind, and then Kitaro and the incarnation of Chronicle, Far East Family Band ... and the various solos within.

Surprisingly enough I never really got a lot of the Latin American things, and other than Egberto Gismonti, while I was aware of Airto, Flora Purim, Milton Nascimento and some of the bigger names in Brazil, there was a keyboard artist in Mexico, whose name I can not remember, that had an excellent CD ... and I wish I knew who it was. I think it was 2 long cuts, but I am not sure of it.

My tastes in African music is very different. I remember listening to the MISSA LUBA going back to my days in Brazil (dad bought the album) ... and then later when I came to America I even acquired the PIPES OF PAN that Brian Jones put together. It gave me a rather different idea about African music, and then many years later hearing Ginger Baker talk about it, and even realizing that he had a hard time drumming with it, kinda brought about ideas that there was more to music than we knew and understood.

You would think that I would know and be better acquainted with Portuguese music, but in my early days, hearing the FADO next to classical music, was very boring, and later I enjoyed the Spanish Rock bands a lot more because they at least took their ability into a more progressive state of things, though many of us have a hard time discussing guitar pickers, so many of which in the streets of Madrid of Barcelona, make almost every rock&roll guitarist look like a high schooler. But the Spaniards were never at the level of my top three choices in terms of preferences.

The only odd one I would like to mention, that doesn't exactly fit France, is ALAN STIVELL who represents "Brittany", that part of France on the Western front. He has, for a long time, done traditional material that thrashed the French and then some ... and one of the reasons why "New Age" folks did not like him a whole lot, was because he was too political and an activist. But his first album (I think it was actually his second) still is, and should be listed as the VERY FIRST "New Age" album ever done since it was done in the late 60's ... but I doubt that we will find votes for Brittany by anyone else buy me, even though there were some nice musicians coming out of it with and without Alan Stivell.

France

UK
Italy
Sweden
Norway
USA
Germany
Belgium

Top 7 update after four more rounds of voting:-

jamesbaldwin wrote: 1) Uk 2) Germany 3) Italy 4) Usa 5) France 6) Sweeden 7) Netherland

jamesbaldwin wrote: In my opinion, it's a big mistake that Uk is not the winner.

.. My error, now I see Uk at the first place

In my opinion, it's a big mistake that Uk is not the winner.

Top 7 update with AFlowerKingCrimson's votes added:-

Top 7 update with DrWu23's votes added:-

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - November 07 2022 at 23:48