When Yes supported Cream at their farewell concert in 1968 it was an important step for Prog Rock. For most people this music, that was to take hold of the rock world in the early 70s, was about as far away from the Blues as you can get. Yes issued double albums with tracks that lasted for the whole side of an LP, opened their live shows with extracts from Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird Suite’ and took themselves awfully seriously. If the Blues was originally music to dance too, Prog Rock was music to listen to in the confines of your own home, probably wearing very expensive headphones.
Besides Yes there was ELP (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), Colosseum, Manfred Mann’s Earthband, King Crimson, Pink Floyd and The Moody Blues. But scratch any Prog rock legend, as well as many lesser lights, and there’s a Bluesman lurking not too far below the surface.
In 1968 Jon Anderson, calling himself Hans Christian as a struggling solo artist for Parlophone, released a single entitled ‘The Autobiography of a Mississippi Hobo’. Yes’ drummer, Bill Bruford, played with the Savoy Brown Blues Band. Carl Palmer’s first band was The King Bees, from which he graduated to Chris Farlowe’s Thunderbirds. The Pink Floyd connection is well known through their name, but they also cut an acetate in 1965 of ‘I’m A King Bee’ and recorded ‘Jugband Blues’ on their second album in June 1968. The list is endless, but the fact is that this curiously British musical style has its roots firmly in the Delta.
But, as it’s name suggests, the Prog rock practitioners saw themselves as progressing, and that is what the 70s were all about, musical progression. The Blues, despite being very popular in some quarters, was seen as a somewhat arcane musical form by the majority, while some even had the nerve to say it was predictable. . .watch this space!
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