1- PROTO-HISTORY - 1960s

PROTO-HISTORY: Not Yet “Prog,” But Almost! (1966-1969)

Sometimes called Proto-Prog (“proto”: first-formed, primary), this pre-genre describes the groups and musicians who were the first to blend classical and/or artistic elements with Rock music: some of them only in the arrangements, though others went further.

The mid-1960s “British Invasion” groups, in an apparent attempt to surpass one another in “vanguardism,” began to utilize instruments and stylistic elements drawn from both the British music hall and European art music (commonly known as “classical” music, even when that is not a 100% accurate term) traditions. They were the logical step in musical evolution after the psychedelic explosion. The doors of perception were opened by psychedelic rockers such as PINK FLOYD on “The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn” and THE BEATLES on “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper” who dared to explore further and break boundaries.

The earliest traces of progressive rock can be seen in the wake of FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION’s “Freak Out!” (early complex, even disturbing, project), The BEATLES’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and other late 60s albums that incorporated elements of classical music, unconventional song structure, and/or overarching thematic concepts.

With its parodies of pop music, its dissonances, its avant-gardism, its odd effects, and its unpredictable arrangements, FRANK ZAPPA’s “Freak Out!” explored all the conventions of popular music.

FRANK ZAPPA
& THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION
[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
Freak Out!
- August 1966 -

The real ground-breaking, however, took place “across the pond” in April 1967, when The BEATLES released “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” – a blend of early rock ballads and music never heard before – to an unsuspecting and enraptured public. Along with its predecessor (“Revolver”), the most famous rock album of all time is a starting point that is impossible to disregard.

The BEATLES
[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- April 1967 -

Psychedelic rock at its best, PINK FLOYD’s “Piper At The Gates Of Dawn” represents the finest that British psychedelia has to offer: simple, but weird and catchy, short psychedelic songs and some long early “progressive” hymns blended by the genius of Syd Barrett and the other then-members of PINK FLOYD (Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright). The outsized instrumental “Interstellar Overdrive” is the first true example of what will later become known as “Space Rock.”

PINK FLOYD
[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
- August 1967 -

Progressive rock is generally accepted as having appeared in the United Kingdom around the second half of 1967. It was manifested in post-psychedelic bands that evolved into a new hybrid genre, born of the mixing of rock music with classical and neo-classical elements by composers such as Bach, Mozart, Copland, Bartok and Stravinsky – in other words, an early form of Symphonic Prog. The main exponents of this were The NICE (featuring Keith Emerson on keyboards), The MOODY BLUES (“Days Of Future Passed”), and the Baroque-inspired PROCOL HARUM (“A Whiter Shade Of Pale” – literally “Bach and Rock”). KING CRIMSON’s “In The Court Of The Crimson King” (1969) is the first fully-developed example of this new genre, and the album that defines the true starting point for Symphonic Prog.

At the same time, a different strain of Progressive Rock developed in the region of Canterbury, where bands such as SOFT MACHINE and CARAVAN blended psychedelic elements with jazz influences (such as John Coltrane and Miles Davis) instead of classical music, as in the case of Symphonic Prog.

Unlike more melodic bands, VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR’s debut, “Aerosol Grey Machine” (originally a Peter HAMMILL solo project), brought a new and fresh stream, much more complex than the other bands of the period. This album represents a fresh new sound, tormented by its own demons (VDGG’s roots are “hard prog”), which seems to be something of a leftover from the Psychedelic years rather than the normal evolution that might have been expected.

Although the following albums are not yet productions of “progressive rock” as that term is used these days, they are nevertheless the first discs of “art rock” – or, if one prefers, the first “tests” intended to raise rock music to a higher level of artistic credibility. By experimenting with sound texture, electronics, modern instruments, and new studio techniques, and “importing” sounds and ideas from a variety of global musical sources, these groups “opened up the doors” of rock…for better and for worse - but mostly for better!

[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
PROCOL HARUM
Procol Harum – September 1967

A fusion of rock, blues and classical influences with unforgettable surreal lyrics. An important album: less British psychedelia, more the basis of progressive rock. With Matthew Fisher on organ and Robin Trower on guitar.

[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
THE MOODY BLUES
Days of Future Passed – November 1967

Psychedelic rock is combined with the orchestral arrangements of the London Festival Orchestra (conducted by Peter Knight) to sound like the band’s own orchestra, using the band’s signature Mellotron string sounds, flutes, timpani and multiple “vox” (vocals). “Days of Future Passed,” an ambitious and unique conceptual album, is a classical symphonic pop album (or proto-prog release) of the 60s that, on its own, created a road towards the symphonic rock movement. The concept of the album is a reasonably clever one, tracing “a day in the life,” from dawn (“Dawn Is A Feeling”) to night (the classic “Nights In White Satin”). “Days…” is essential listening for anyone interested in the Mellotron’s history, and is a good document of its era to boot.

[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
THE NICE
Ars Longa Vita Brevis – February 1968

With this second release of a trio, Keith Emerson presents the basis of his vision of progressive rock: an amalgam of rock and traditional music which is certainly pretentious, but which lacks neither ambition nor quality. This is one album to discover if you like EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER.

[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
GILES GILES & FRIPP
The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles Giles & Fripp – September 1968

Before the famous album “In The Court Of The Crimson King,” Robert Fripp and the Giles brothers had recorded an insane disc on which one finds anything and everything, but also some of the first steps to what would later become KING CRIMSON. Recommended, especially for the curious.

[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
CARAVAN
Caravan – October 1968

A subtle mixture of jazz and psychedelic rock, this album from the “Canterbury” school is among the first to have given direction to the concept of progressive music.

[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
THE SOFT MACHINE
Volume Two – April 1969

English humor, dissonances, avante-garde, jazz, and Robert Wyatt as well. A melting pot in the form of musical chaos perpetually on the fringe.

[INSERT ALBUM HERE]
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
The Aerosol Grey Machine – September 1969

The dark and very emotional voice of Peter HAMMILL, his stories, “mystical sciences,” and the very personal music of the group constitute an alloy with an important place in the history of progressive music. This album, far below the standards of the next albums, was to become the most elusive of all of VDGG’s releases.

Around this time, other groups were starting to build unique, sophisticated and inventive “sounds,” including EMERSON LAKE & PALMER, GENESIS (then fronted by Peter Gabriel), GENTLE GIANT, JETHRO TULL, KING CRIMSON, PINK FLOYD and YES. They became the “kings” of this musical realm in both composition and performance by pioneering a style of popular music developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, primarily by British rock musicians. Forty years later, innumerable “progressive” groups would name these bands when laying claim to the “heritage” of progressive rock.

At this point, the “skates” of Progressive Rock are solid. The curtain can then fall on the Sixties. Indeed, one has already entered the Seventies.