A brief history of prog

salmacis wrote: I have a magazine somewhere that has a selection of music related ads from the 1970s- I shall have a read over that.

    I have scoured articles about Genesis from the Genesis Music.com Archive eg:
http://www.genesis-music.com/Archivephase2.htm

The trouble is they are invariably described as performing pop music-maybe these scribes were psychic..

or he could have just been tapping into the vernacular of the fans.
I am adamant that I was referring to it as "prog rock" prior to 1976,it's just proving it!
    

Edited by Tony R - August 13 2006 at 09:48

salmacis wrote: http://krisma.mayancaper.net/records/peter/peterbig.html I suspected the 'prog fairytale' bit was added later, and this cover confirms it. No mention of it being 'prog' on the front...

Thanks,that is exactly what I was looking for a blown up version of the cover,because I "knew" it wouldnt contain the words "a prog fairytale".
I agree with you that they were maybe added later to the description.
    

Its the contraction of the term into "Prog Rock" that we are searching for CT.

Tony R wrote: RaúlGuate wrote: Here's proof that the word "prog" wasn't coined in 1976:http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD.asp?cd_id=2387<h2>Peter and The Wolf - Prog Fairytale</h2>So? Well done-released in 1975

However I would have to see the album cover to be sure.
On this and two other Prog Rock sites the album is referred to as "A Prog Story" however o0n other sites it is referred to as a "Rock Story" so maybe the "Prog" bit was added to the title at a later date.
    

Tony R wrote: So when was the term "Prog Rock" first used Dick?

Spent the last few hours trawling through my clippings garnered from the pages of Melody Maker, Disc, Record Retailer (ie the UK musical trade weekly), NME and even some Rolling Stone materials, and this covering the period approx 1967 to 1980.

Although I've largely saved material from what we now would call 'prog rock', the term 'progressive' is hardly used!(and as for 'progressive rock' or even 'progressive music' not a thing - and then two references (so far) of 'progressive blues' bands - reinforcing what I remembered as to the earliest labelling. However, a critic reviewing the compilation Love Masters credits Love as being 'truly progressive'. Keef Hartley's Halfbreed has a critic comment " the music goes far beyond the blues and must establish Hartley as one of the leaders in Britain progressive pop scene".


'Underground' is being used for Pink Floyd on a Ummagumma review.

Quicksilver Messager Services's Happy Trials is called 'head music'.  (Remember the Monkee's movie directed by Jack Nicholson...)

'Experimental pop' is used for The Nice's Ars Longa Vita Brevis.

Soft Machine by the time of the Triple Echo box set is called 'fusion'.

RTF's Light As Feather is attributed 'jazz rock'

The Doors  (Love Street) as 'a pubies underground group' - pubies???

Yes interviewed when Rick Wakeman first joined the band are calling themselves 'orchestral rock'. BTW the term 'rock' seems to be fairly common in the UK press after 1969. An article in the Daily Express May 1973, are calling Yes 'probably the most musically brilliant pop group in the world'.

No genre or other pigeonholing in many reviews including those for Greenslade (Spyglass Guest), Genesis (Wind & Wuthering), Steve Hackett (Please Don't Touch), Hugh Hopper(1984), Steve Hillage (Open), King Crimson (Wake Of Posiedon), Magma (DMK), Matching Mole (first album),  apart from comments about the musical complexities and borrowing from varous other musical genres.


So hard referencing with accurate dates are still to be nailed wrt 'progressive rock' - so folks time to dig through the the old newspapers hidden away for 30 years  in lofts. etc.

RaúlGuate wrote: Here's proof that the word "prog" wasn't coined in 1976:http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD.asp?cd_id=2387<h2>Peter and The Wolf - Prog Fairytale</h2>So?

Well done-released in 1975
     

Edited by Yukorin - September 14 2006 at 02:08

Edited by Yukorin - September 14 2006 at 02:09

Cheesecakemouse wrote: Kraftwerk really pulled it off in the late 1970s breaking ground in electronic music,  Return Forever's groundbreaking Masterpiece Romantic Warrior was released after 1975 ELP not prog?

Our radio station was acknowledged by Phonogram (KW's label) as the one that gave the band its initial break - after the Beeb ignored them - and this was mid 70's. I can assure you Kraftwerk was an antedote to prog, at the time not thought as prog. The band's first few albums were heard as avant garde industrial electronics, but with their third (or was it the 4th) album Autobahn, they had simplied matters.

As one who has bought all RTF's albums (including the dire 4 LP Live set), and one of many who much prefer Hymn of The 7th Galaxy, IMHO RTF's Romantic Warrior was not ground breaking (in deed you'll have to explain "ground-breaking" in this context because I don't get it);  I recommend you hear their much earlier eponymous album for that.