Prog fans in their 70's

Based on the title and the direction the conversation took, clearly it's "Prog fans in THEIR 70's". anyone under 70 would have gone a different way. Right Gramps?? 

 

Are you warm enough?

ARE YOU WARM ENOUGH?

I was never into early Floyd or The Moody Blues; my favourite bands were Fairport Convention and The Nice. I liked Procol Harum and Family's early albums, but never thought of them as true prog. The first offerings from Genesis, Caravan, Yes, Jethro Tull and Floyd do nothing for me. I did buy ITCOTCK and initially found it interesting, but went off it (and KC) completely very quickly and VDGG have never done anything for me, as I cannot stand Hamill's vocal style.

For me, prog really found its feet in the very early 70s, with bands like Mannfred Mann's Earthband, Strawbs (as a prog band), Renaissance and Gentle Giant launching, The Nice morphing into ELP and the big six finding their prog feet.

The 60s set the scene, but the 70s were when prog became the powerhouse it was (and to some extent, still is).

I'm probably the odd man out ... in this group ... music for me, after having been in Portugal until I was 9 and then in Brazil until I was 15, and then come to America, I started getting into a lot of music back in the mid 60's and I suppose that the Beatles and Rolling Stones were very valuable, but then so was Maria Bethania, and a huge number of Brazilians, some that became well known, and others that were lost to time and not considered important ... but at least Villa Lobos was remembered!

Music for me, was already a "progressive" affair ... you did not hear "Carcara" by Maria Bethania ... and not realize the incredible emotional pull and strength of that song and its lyrics ... it made the guy in "Apocalypse Now" seem fat and bloated just because he had the money to show what she sang about, in a movie to shock the sh*t out of our imaginations.

Movies were important, to bust a lot of your ideas and mind in those days, but music was there before and already had a lot of history and material that made a lot of polka dot bikini music sound really stupid and sick ... it wasn't even fun at all ... and it merely showed the commercial side obviously trying to scam money fast and furiously when you saw the media tear into Maria Bethania and so many others for doing the things they were doing ... all of you folks that "were" and "became" progressive, completely ignored the content of the music ... for an imaginary ideal that called it "progressive" when ITCOTCK is as much a poetic album as it is a political album, even though things are beautifully masked ... to sound like poetry ... and not make a political statement ... something that was the life of a lot of Hyde Park shows, that we continually ignore ... we remember some bands were there, but we intentionally ignore a handful of them, and I find the complete leaving behind of bands like The Edgar Broughton Band, and then folks like Roy Harper ... an incredible sad story ... Roy is a magnificent poet and writer ... but no one would give him a chance because if you asked for one of his "hits", he probably would throw his bottle of beer at you and tell you to leave!

We still, here, can not discuss these last two ...like their words don't mean sh*t ... and we think the heavens of a PG this or that ... when his words are nothing compared to the real thing!

I'm not angry ... it's the same thing in all the arts ... there are as many more folks that are not appreciated that some "prog" and "progressive" folks will never listen to ... because it will create a break on their ideas of the "prog" and "progressive" concepts in their head ... but all of the arts in the 1950's and 1960's were specially progressive and experimental, which helped determine the 1970's ... however, the 1970's was way more about the sales and the money than it was about the arts ... so someone saying that this band or that band for me were the big 5, or the big poop ... is just as silly and ridiculous as any other comment, the kind of stuff that some folks don't like me talking about and writing, as I do about it.