Most financially successful prog artist?

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 AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

 verslibre wrote:

 cstack3 wrote:

 AFlowerKingCrimson wrote:

I wouldn't necessarily say that 2.5 million figure for Vangelis is correct. I just looked it up and I have seen different figures for him for net worth. Two sites say he has a net worth of 245 million and is the highest paid musician in the world. Another one says 15 million and another says 5 million. I suppose it all depends on who you want to believe. He doesn't seem to be listed on that celebrity net worth site so it's probably hard to know for sure.

How about Yanni?  Isn't he prog?  

Yanni is a Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer and music producer who has a net worth of $50 million. Yanni has earned his net worth through his many performances as a pianist as well as his many albums and tours.

Believe it or not, he was...for a short time. Before he found success as a solo New Age artist, he was the keyboardist in a band called Chameleon that started as what we might call "Crossover" and went to AOR, kind of like Ambrosia.

Yanni's first solo album, Optimystique, recorded in 1980, is instrumental keyboard prog that sounds like a cross between Vangelis and Jan Hammer.

Yanni wasn't the only "new age" artist who started in a more proggy direction. There was also Andreas Wollenweider, Shadowfax and Mike Oldfield.  Ok, that last one is a bit of a joke. ;) I guess you could say Kitaro was more proggy in the early days too. Lot's of musicians seemed to have been bitten by the new age bug though. Even Rick Wakeman. 

I've had my newagey period in the 90s. First of all, I think Kitaro is prog. He has at least one fully prog album: "Dream". And he was in Far East Family Band. I have some albums by Yanni. I don't listen to anymore. Not prog but proggy sometimes. I was surprised to see Vollenweider added, but not a scandal. Vangelis, old story, for me is a full prog artist. I still don't understand why he's listed as related only.