A previous thread established Procol Harum's 'In Held Twas In I' as the first prog epic and gave examples of other 10+ minutes songs. One of these could have been the main inspiration for 'In Held...' but please consider the other sources of main inspiration in the poll. What do you think? or perhaps you know from reliable data what actually inspired Procol Harum?

Classic Music (see Moody Blues, Procol Harum, The Nice).

For always yours, Mandrakeroot.

The liner notes to Repertoire Record's 1997 re-release of Procol Harum's 'Shine on Brightly' says that Matthew Fisher wanted to get involved in songwriting so they came up with the idea of doing an extended piece - the song length obviously increasing with the number of composers!

It was written and recorded in bits and they just kept on going with absolutely no idea where they were heading until they finally got the end. Engineer Glyn Johns did a marvellous job of sticking it all together and making it sound as if they'd done it all in one take!

I interpret this as support of option 2 (bonding together of shorter songs) being closest to the source of inspiration  although it was more the process than the actual goal.

Masque wrote: I`m not sure, though I do have a killer version of that song , perfprmed by Transatlantic  on their first CD , heard it ? its good

Heard it. The Transatlantic version rocks more than the original as Roine Stolt's guitar often takes over the original piano and choir parts. The original is much more emotional largely due to the shifts between soft, piano dominant sections and the harder, guitar dominant sections that create the moods the piece is known for. The new version also lacks the sitar - unfortunately - but then again i'm not interested in a true copy, I just prefer the original.

I tried to play the original and version simultaneously and discovered that some sections are totally revamped but the sections more or less always begin and end at the same time in the two versions. They end at the exact same time! The poetry intro (0-1½ min) - not identical but similar in mood and musical expression in the two versions - launches into a hefty Spock's Beard-like section (1½-3½ min) in the new version while the original uses soft mode sitar and piano. After that the Transatlantic version continues to deviate from the original but links up with the original after 6 minutes and then - very unoriginally - slowly dissolves into psychedelic noise before yet again matching the original around the 9 min mark.

The new version lacks the moods of the original but is very succesful in recreating a modern version that reflects the more guitar dominant music of today.

In conclusion,  a majority of 35% believe the concept album is responsible for the first prog epic, Procol Harum’s ‘In Held Twas In I’. 24% incline to long psychedelic jams and 18% to interconnected songs (no track breaks) while 12% chose the classical symphony as the source of inspiration and the remaining 11% various other sources.

A possible common feature of these forms of music is the desire to enhance the effect of drugs - the classical symphony excepted, supposedly. Consequently, drugs appear to have played a major role in the development of the prog epic.

However, one question remains to puzzle me: how does the prog epic logically follow from the concept album? “I heard this concept album, therefore lets go make a prog epic”! I cannot find the logic in this unless the inspiration came from a concept album without pauses between songs like Moody Blues’ DoFP. This would leave the prog epic as a short version concept album. Another thread on this subject is underway shortly.