The Doors - The Soft Parade

 

All in all, i nmy book, just about all of the Doors material fits into "prog" ... a lot better than most metal and prog stuff listed here in this board!

 

I always thought that the long cuts they did were ... poems ... not songs, and had a lot less to do with music than they did with the poet on his lectern!

 

There are some things the Doors did as well, that you and I can sit here and think ... sounds like album filler to me ... then you hear it again, and the lyrics and the strength and conviction they are delivered with ... beats you to a pulp! And I can tell you that two-thirds of the "progressive" and "prog" listed in this board does not even come close to doing that! Some of them even pretend to have very with it lyrics ... Jim Morrison did not have to resort to that ... a poet rarely does!

 

Why not progressive? Because they don't sound like Genesis or ELP? ... guess what ... they were around before Genesis, and pretty much the same time as ELP ... thought The Doors were already legendary in the states way before ELP became so. And by the time that ELP had to do leather pants and balls, Jim was already gone and not interested in the star thing ... while his death and drugs is not on my list of wonderful achievements, the honesty and lyricism far out weights ELP and Genesis and so many other bands.

 

The Doors didn't have to be hip! ... or pretend! ... or impress you with a chord that made it progressive!

 

There is a side of "progressive" that is scary for me.

 

For the most part, there is no clear history and concise quantization of the work that grew with the time and place ... it's like it was magic and there it is in one place ... and the fact is that many bands, specially in California were also doing it, at the same time that others were doing it in Europe as well as London ... and our ability to exemplify, strengthen and define "progressive" loses its power ... when so much of it was inspired by the likes of Jim, Janis, and others that came from a different place and time ... but in America "progressive" means you do blues and jazz better than anyone else ... until later! And that leaves a massive amount of work, bands and people completely un-discussed ...

 

Historically, I would love to see the world of "progressive" start ... way back ... and I mean around the early 60's even ... and be big enough to list some things ... that really busted out the whole thing ... and really ... The Doors definitly fit in my book! ... But then I would also add Chicago 1 and 2 ... but it appears that folks here think that horns are not prog because they are not metal enough? Or Symphonic enough? Or Neo enough? Or you can go back to Jefferson Airplane as well, if not Paul Kantner's experimental solo albums ... they do fit as progressive, but will not get the credit for it, because a Garcia played guitar in a couple fo moments, and other goons sang in there that fit ... progressive folk at the time (Crosby Stills and Nash) ... and ... it just goes on and on!