How Do You Explain...?

I have strange encounters with young family members that are interested in rap or hip hop. They might invite me into their conversation. A few years ago when I played coffee houses occasionally, we had poetry night. Various rappers would show to the stage and recite a rap piece without music. It turned out to be real interesting for me. Many of them had the upmost ability to create sentences that told a story, all the words were rhymes and completely off the top of their heads. It was evident to me that they must have practiced a method where one improvises with rhymes and experiments with wording. It's not an easy task to accomplish and I was very impressed with these guys. But later,.... they struck up a conversation with me and because of my age, they were under the assumption that due to my age, my musical taste was with Boston, Foghat, Peter Frampton, Cheap Trick etc ...all the things I depised about rock music during it's dreadful change when I was 18. This is most likely due to their full time exposure to the media and the media does not represent as a whole, the truth regarding music from my generation or doesn't give more of an inside glimpse into the social environment between 66' to 71'.

In conculsion, this being the reason why society in general reflects a foul attitude toward proggers. They have no understanding of our life in the 60's and early 70's and their minds are lured in by the media coverage and all it's lies. Just as it's almost impossible to convince stadium rock fans that Robin Trower's Bridge Of Sighs, (which during the first release was excepted by everyone), became for musicians an insult. A record which contained a guitar style that emulated Jimi Hendrix to the extreme. Many musicians just threw their hands into the air yelling "What for?"  Many people in the world just can't come to that realization. Some people say....."Who ever heard of such a thing?"  But you see? You had to be there to understand. Clapton turning into a singer songwriter was another big blow to professional players.

Remember the saying...The hippies were cool until Madision Ave got a hold of them? It's the same deal. People don't understand concepts of practices in music during the early times....whether it be rock or even commercial rock....let aloine soundtrack music, Prog or Jazz. You have thousands of people in America raving over Eric Clapton and they don't even have a clue who Rory Gallagher is. It's a worthless battle and most of the time at social gatherings, I calmly avoid social contact and music conversations. Many times I have lied and stated that I know nothing of Progressive Rock just to escape the annoying raves over Led Zeppelin and Yes.  

Well you know the tune...just sing it in your head.