Iván

 

The music I enjoy is the music I enjoy, regardless of who contributed to it. However the idea of a record company executive inspiring prog, rather than the artists, somehow doesn't seem right to me. Just my opinion though  

I was moonlighting selling records at the time, and so have a slightly different view point. The Moody Blues had  reached a low point in their career, being some time after their hit Go Now. They were contracted to Decca (the parent record company of Deram*) were pushing the new fangled stereo LPs to the British middle class who could afford the equipment in the mid 60's. This was definitely something rich parents with an interest in recorded music might buy as a luxury, as opposed to their or poorer kids. We kids had  had to put up with MW radio's rare broadcast of pop (like Saturday Club, or the crackling Radio Luxembourg), 45rpm 7" singles or eps. The occasional 30 bob LP was a luxury and had to be saved up for and was almost always monoaural (stereo had to be ordered in specially - if pressed up in stereo at all). So the wheeze/experiment at Decca was to put a has-been (but still under contract) pop group with a studio orchestra (wasn't this Decca's house Phase 4 Orchestra?), and to hit both the middle class/middle age market with pop and/or the late teens and twenties market with stereo, by selling this hybrid. Now whether they intended recording a popped-up Dvorak's 9th or something else from the classical pops - or the new line-up of the Moody Blues originally came with some else to the table or offered something at a later date, is clouded. However, Days Of Future Passed emerged, having some commitment by Decca to promote it. Apart from the Nights In White Satin single, the album didn't not have the expected impact on the UK marketplace initially. I do believe the MBs decamped and spend some time touring/promoting the album in the USA, while a few singles were successfully released from the album over there? With the momentum of US success they came back to the UK and broke into the big time over here. Something lost in the mists of time, was the first UK issue of Days Of Future Passed on Decca or their Phase 4 label (*which begs the question when did Deram appear?) - I do remember the stereo version being pushed in shop but punters asking for/ordering the mono versions?

 

We're missing the folks from CAN in that list. Considering that 2 of them were direct students of Stockhausen ...

 

Being based in Santa Barbara at that time, near LA and a thumb away from San Francisco, was not quite the same.

 

Because I was into the European scene I bought a lot of Melody Makers and NME to find out what was going on in the music scene. I knew that the term progressive had been used in conjunction with a lot of bands and advertisements, but it had not exactly been defined in styles and basically what the word meant then, to me, was that the music was not commercially minded and had a very individual and often eccentric side to it. In other words it was not popular music per se, although some of the bands did well, mostly in an underground sort of way.

 

But there is a nice list of groups in that flyer, Dean ... and I'm partial to the Edgar Broughton Band and even Principal Edwards, that so few have heard.  I never thought of these as "progressive" other than the fact that  they were a bit more eccentric and fit the Harvest label perfectly ... this was the new underground, and that was (I thought) the original term for it.

 

I think the time allowed for people to express themselves a lot more. Today there is such a high emphasyz on the commercial side of things, and even here, discussing oddities is something that most people can not do because they have not given it a good listen. In the end, because of their eccentricity, like Peter Hammill and VdGG, this became known as progressive. And I still think that it was more about the music  and the individual expression for most of these people than it was about the "progressive" thing ... even a look at the list of bands shows the incredible variety and the fact that they do not have a whole lot in common at all! ... which was a statement that "progressive" was a lot more about  the music and the art itself, than it was about it being "progressive"  ... but it helped pool together odd ball bands and find them an audience, and in that sense I will not criticize.

 

Btw ... "symphonic" has been around for hundreds of years. "Progressive" is in its infancy still comparatively speaking. I suppose that as time goes by that description will get better and perhaps more efficient and descriptive of each band's music, but it bothers me that some bands are being called something simply because they use an effect or two on the guitar or keyboards or what not. At that point it's not about the music anymore I don't think, but the technology behind it. And while there is some merit and I would not want to place these bands in the scales of justice in music, I do think that they are not as progressive as some of the things that we listen to and like, and in fact when you look at the drumming and the song format in it ... there is nothing "progressive" here, except the use of the effects!

 

I don't think that the majority of the bands that we consider progressive were so much about the technology as much as they were about the music. The technology helped add a personality, but in the end, they also had the music to satisfy!  And that is the main difference.

 

And I agree...the Blues came first.

 

Of course we are not talking about a couple lessons, but I know personally musicians who took lessons and were accepted in an advanced stage in a Conservarory, for example my mother, she graduated as Pianist only after a year in the Conservatory after taking private lessons for years..

 

Without going too far, Ponty joined the Conservatory atthe age of 14 afte taking years of lessons wuth his father, he graduated after a year and a haf with the Premier Prix with srudents twice his age.

 

So years of lessons can equate a Conservatory in some degree.

 

BTW: Wakeman reached he Royal Collede of Musc if I'm not wrong, that alone is an achievement.

 

Iváb