In 1989 a by now Fishless Marillion got themselves a new lead singer, Steve Hogarth, and a much less Prog-Rocky sound. This was the first single and the first sight of Hogarth on Top of the Pops. No sign of Prog at all.
I saw in the Guardian that Gary Brooker, the voice (and more besides) of Procol Harum has died.
His voice was certainly distinctive, as was Procol Harum’s output: a rock band, yes, but more. And of course one of the progenitors of Prog Rock.
This was Procol Harum’s fourth hit, if that description can be applied to a song that reached no 44. Despite its downbeat sound and slow pace I’ve always thought it one of their best.
Procol Harum: A Salty Dog
This video contains a very good live version – with accompaniment – and an added bonus of An Old English Dream. (On this occasion I’ll ignore his comment about the Euro.)
Procol Harum and the Danish National Concert Orchestra and Choir: A Salty Dog and An Old English Dream
I suppose this track really ought to have been much higher up this list. However, I didn’t want the category to contain any obvious songs from the 60s (hence no Beatles, no Rolling Stones) nor – certainly after a few weeks – repeats of the same artist. When I posted the band’s Shine on Brightly I thought I had already featured Homburg here. (I had, but before I started the Friday on my Mind category.)
A Whiter Shade of Pale is so quintessentially 60s that it’s a bit clichéd as an exemplar from the decade.
But this still sounds so fresh, possibly because of its source material, Bach’s Air on the G String.
The original video/film was surely in black and white. That’s certainly how I remember it. This one must have been colourised.
Anyway here’s where Prog Rock might be said to have begun – at least in the public’s mind.
The Herd’s follow-up to From the Underworld kind of carried on from where that one left off but Paradise Lost was still a very odd concoction, with its intro and coda reminiscent of The Stripper but Prog leanings elsewhere.
(By contrast the band’s third single – which I featured in a different context here – was a straightforward bouncy pop song.)
When a very young Peter Frampton joined The Herd, the group with whom he made his name, they had just been dropped by Parlophone, but simultaneously brought in composers Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, who had written a barrowload of hits for Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich and signed up to Fontana. The songs concocted for the Herd were of a different order to those hits though. Elements of psychedelia and glimmerings of prog rock are here.
I wasn’t much into Yes – not at all in fact – but Chris Squire, their bassist who died recently, seems to have been their main driving force; and they were famous purveyors of Prog Rock.
Christopher Russell Edward “Chris” Squire: 4/3/1948 – 27/6/2015. So it goes.
A bit of Prog devant la lettre I discovered tardily as my first introduction to Marillion was the later Punch and Judy. I soon delved into their back catalogue. This was track two on their first album Script for a Jester’s Tear and had given the band a no 35 hit in the UK in 1983. I like the way the last lines of the verses are different but rhyme with each other (as well as the “poison in your head.”)
He first came to my attention in the 60s as lead singer of Aphrodite’s Child, another of whose members was Vangelis.
I posted their song It’s Five O’Clockhere. It was out of songs and groups like this that Prog Rock developed.
I’ll skip over Roussos’s 70s solo number 1 For Ever and Ever and instead feature a live version of Aphrodite’s Child’s only UK hit, a number 29 no less, Rain and Tears.
Aphrodite’s Child: Rain and Tears
Artemios “Demis” Ventouris-Roussos: 15/6/1946 – 25/1/2015. So it goes.
