Four non English prog bands from the 70's.........

Once again, another thought-provoking list. Chicago and Styx were extremely popular in the 1970s, but they are, as has been said by others, more on the fringe. They definitely had many proggy moments. Some people prefer to call Chicago jazz. I think Styx probably deserves to be in there. Some might make a similar argument for Boston, but that's pushing it. It does remind me of a guy who used to ONLY listen to Chicago and Boston. Weird.

Jefferson Starship was a biggie

Saga (Canadian) was around then, but didn't become very popular until the late 70s/early 80s transition period.

Another possible entry might be Sky, with their Australian roots, but then again, they also had English members in the group. So, you'd have to split the difference.

Frank Zappa (Captain Beefheart, etc.) was doing all kinds of stuff back then. But, some people prefer to call him jazz, too.

Triumph had a number of proggy moments in the 70s, but there was sort of a tug of war going on there between Gil Moore (who was more straight up rock) and Rik Emmett, who excelled at many different styles: Classical (great stuff there), jazz (he won awards for jazz), and rock. The most proggy moment to my ears from the 1970s was The Blinding Light Show. But, what they gave to prog on the one hand in the 1970s, they took away on the other, with some real cheese-ball songs. So, once again, you'd have to split the difference.

Steely Dan deserves consideration, and if you don't think so, you can tell Micky. He'd just loooove to have that conversation with you.

I'm sure that there are others ... but my brain isn't firing on all cylinders today. When I think "prog rock + 1970s + USA", I immediately think of Kansas, Styx, and Jefferson Starship. When I think "prog rock + 1970s + Canada", I immediately think of Rush and Triumph ... with Saga building up steam!

If that’s what you’re going for, I think that’s fair enough. They can sort of go either way, depending on your personal tastes. Just curious. What do you think about Jefferson Starship? In hindsight, would you include them on your list?

Glass Harp another group.

Edited by Jaketejas - July 08 2020 at 19:00

Jaketejas wrote: If that’s what you’re going for, I think that’s fair enough. They can sort of go either way, depending on your personal tastes. Just curious. What do you think about Jefferson Starship? In hindsight, would you include them on your list? Glass Harp another group.

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - July 08 2020 at 19:31

Psychedelic rabbit hole. That’s funny! I think of Jefferson Airplane like that but Jefferson Starship was more organized in their music, I think. Not really a Prog Band per se, but they played some music that was proggy at times.

Glass Harp toured with a lot of people who charted but I didn’t find anything either. Maybe they were number one on the Christian Prog charts or something.

So ... you’ve exhausted the supply then? Probably makes sense. It was the disco era. People in the States were more interested in rock versus disco versus urban cowboy versus soul. Prog elements found their way into rock but few were interested in going too far out on a limb. The radio format favored shorter popular songs, I suppose.

Ok, I stand corrected. Klaatu did have some chart success in the US so they officially count.

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - July 08 2020 at 20:26

BOC got quite a bit of airplay but your on the fringe again there.

Fortunately with PA there is a deep vein of Prog to mine and explore. It’s all gathered in one place, rather than scattered incoherently amongst varied pop/rock/jazz/etc genres.

However one wants to classify them, they were able to blend rock and jazz in an interesting way. My definition of Prog is a pretty wide net. Of course, here you have on one end of the spectrum, some die-hards who like the Big 6 and a few “second tier” groups, and that’s as far as Prog goes up to the late 70s. That’s fine. It’s all a matter of personal opinion and experience.   Probably bragging rights comes into it a bit. And, those who shout the loudest tend to be heard the most. But, let’s not forget the art of listening, the context in which the music was written (location, time, circumstances) and try to be fair. I have one foot in the UK and one foot in the USA, and it is interesting to me to see how progressive music developed in both countries, as well as other parts of the world. The history is, after all, very different. I enjoy hearing from people who discuss proggy bands from all over. It is a good way to discover new music, even if that “new music” might be decades old in some cases.