the 70s prog scene's attitude to early metal

I ran by a short passage in Dave Thompson's 2004 book on  the history of DP titled Smoke On The Water: The Deep Purple Story where he mentions that some of the British music press (not identified) tried to place the nascent prog name on DP but as soon as the song Smoke On The Water went ballistic world wide, the band was quickly shuffled back into the 'hard rock' category. (The author's words). However, the search for a connection continues.







Edited by SteveG - August 01 2014 at 11:28

In my country (I'm talking now about our, local scene in ex-Yugoslavia), there had been a huge "disagreement" between proggers and metallers (the hardcore fans of heavy stuff) also in the second half of the seventies. I well remember when the bands like Pop Mašina (engl. "Pop Machine", already in PA) was replaced with the bands such Vatreni Poljubac (engl. "Kiss of Fire"). While both were heavy, the difference in the music and the image was drastic at that time.

Edited by Svetonio - August 01 2014 at 08:15

SteveG wrote: ^Sounds like rewritten history or the opinion of the writer of the liner notes, but if the quote was from one of the band members At the time the album was released ( I presume it's a seventies album), it would have some credability.

Actually, you are right. I was just checking the liner notes again. It's from the "In Rock" reissue, it seems. It was written by some Simon Robinson in 1995. In one of his prog references he said (about the "black night" single): "It's perhaps a little hard now to appreciate the debate about singles which raged in the very early 70's amongst progressive rock bands. Many saw themselves as forming part of an underground movement which wanted no part of the commercial daytime radio scene, and releasing singles was seen as pandering to a medium they despised. Led Zeppelin were of course the arch example...". Also, in a quote from Ian Gillan, he compared Deep Purple with Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and Black Sabbath, mainly saying that their own aproach was different to theirs... but still he must have felt there were important similarities between the bands to put them all together.

Updating the Grand Funk and Zappa connection, Billy James' definitive 1999 bio book on GFR titled An American Band: The story of Grand Funk Railroad states that the GFR/Zappa connection was made by GFR's manager at the time with both GFR and Zappa having never met before then. The only loose end in this prog and metal story is Rick Wakeman's contribution to the song Sabbra Cadabra on BS's 1973 album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Does anyone know how that collaberation came about?

Edited by SteveG - August 05 2014 at 12:37

^Sounds llke something the self deprecating Wakeman would do. Thanks.

Edited by SteveG - August 05 2014 at 10:59

rocknrollcola wrote: Festivals and concert bills had both Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Bands and Progressive Rock Bands sharing bills. Even Jazz Fusion/Jazz Rock would be on the bill along with other things in the mix.

I believe that was before bands like Tull actually went full blown prog and started identifying with the Progressive Rock genre, as they were a blues rock band in the late 60's.

^ I forgot all about the open air festivals as I only did sound work in music hall venues. How many open air festivals did the UK have in the seventies aside from The Isle Of Wight and the two you noted?

^Funny,  there seems to be about 15-16 in 1970. Then 10 in 1971,  8 in 1972,  then down to 5 by  1979. The festivals seem to have drifted out with the counter culture.