Black Sabbath, the unsung prog trailblazers

Therefore, bands like Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Santana, the Allman Brothers, Zappa, Pink Floyd, Traffic and Jethro Tull veered from blues to jazz to prog to straight-ahead rock as it suited them. Shall we do 2 double-album rock operas within a three-release span of time? Sure, why not! How about a 45 minute long song without a single? What the hell, go for it! Our next album is not going to have a title or our band name anywhere on the cover. Ummm...okay...if you think so. We are going to release an album that sl*gs the whole record industry. Sure, it could be made into a monster if we all pull together as a team. 

From 1968 to 1972, Frank Zappa released a parody of hippies, a doo-wop album, an avante-garde experimental album, jazz-fusion/prog albums, an avant-rock/free jazz album, a few comedy rock albums, and a big band jazz album. Tull released a blues rock album, a blues/folk/rock album, two hard rock albums (once arguably a concept album), and then two progressive albums with record-long sides of uninterrupted music. Floyd went from psychedelia to full-blown prog to a rock opera. Yes decided to record albums with 10 to 20 minute-long songs and abandon pop music altogether. The Who released Tommy and Quadrophenia with Who's Next sandwiched in the middle. Zeppelin went from blues rock, to folk/hard rock to prog to a double album that had nearly every genre (Middle-eastern, prog, blues, folk, hard rock, etc.). King Crimson went from being already eccentric King Crimson to a metal version of King Crimson. Santana left rock altogether for a while. And Sabbath got more and more proggy till they reached a max of prog on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage.

There really was no such thing as "prog" because on any given album, a band could suddenly turn to being Prog before they decided to do something completely different. Queen is another case in point. Stevie Wonder and David Bowie as well.

I don't think anyone cares. As long as the thread isn't closed it shouldn't make a difference. I think typically threads are closed after six months or maybe after a year. Anyway, glad I could help. 

Also, if you are open to non prog some of the 90's grunge bands are worth looking into especially Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. Soundgarden in particular I know were influenced by BS.  Not a whole lot of prog influence in there though but there might be some(I really only know one album by them).

 

Mastodon's album, Crack The Skye, sounds like Sabbathesque prog to my ears:

 

 

 

 

proto-prog or proto-metal are not music genres, they just are early examples of artists bands create something new, sometimes unique that would influence many others (a bit) later. I can't put it simpler than that.