January 4, 2024
#473
Gentle reader,
It truly warms my heart when one of you, dear readers, reaches out to me and we become friends. Two people, in this case, are Bruce Woodrow and Bob Berne. The latter lives out west, "The Far West."*
*Still image is from the 2011 Paramount film titled, RANGO. Which featured the voice and talent of Johnny Depp as the title character. If you have not seen it, well, DO SO!
Bob is a very giving guy and he has sent gifts to Bruce and I. The latest sent to me is a CD box set from 1996 by Rhino Records, titled, Supernatural Fairy Tales, The Progressive Rock Era.
This image is of the bottom of the box and lists all the tracks on the five CDs.
What one finds after removing the box top, above.
The box, book and CD liners are all beautifully illustrated by Roger Dean.
I have heard of some of the bands featured in the box set, but some, mostly European, are unfamiliar to me. I do own some LPs or CDs of some of the bands included, however.
There are period black and white photos of each of the bands as well as histories of each including band member's previous and later band membership.
which they played in the selected songs for purposes of this review.
I'm 67 years old now, and have lived in eight decades. That being said, I have heard a LOT of music over all those years. Growing up, it seemed there was always music of some kind playing in the house. Our parents eclectic musical taste rubbed off on all of us.
I loaded this image below at original size so that you can get a better look at the songs and band names within each of the five CDs.
Rhino Records is a US company, so their compiling a group of bands to represent what was largely a European phenomenon was a leap of faith on their part.
The book devotes forty-five pages to images of the band members and in-depth descriptions and histories of each of the bands chosen for this compilation. The author opened with, "The progressive era of rock for the purposes of this compilation is that window in time between the twilight of psychedelia in the late '60s and the development of AOR in the mid-1970s. This was a period when the special configuration of positive ions in the air and minds expanding on the ground converged into a musical kaleidoscope that most likely will never be repeated."
He continues, "For the sake of definition, progressive rock is more than a specific style. Generally it has be characterized as having a classically influenced, symphonic, keyboard-dominated sound." I can attest to that. He goes on, "In a broader sense, however, it was state of mind that was shared internationally by a group of musicians. They all started with the beat, a guitar, and a keyboard, then grafted their own cultural influences onto that foundation. The results were distinctive and varied, but all shared the same open compositional style that allowed this new musical mode to mutate into many different sounds. By the time they were through experimenting, rock had indeed progressed. In addition, the music and society itself had been transformed."
Historically, rock and pop music have made profound changes, over several decades, to society through those (mostly young people) willing to part with their money to buy their favorite artist's LPs and concert tickets. And that such (previously staid) television shows here in the US, such as The Ed Sullivan show, had the courage to invite the likes of Elvis Presley, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to play live to a nationwide audience further cemented such band's place (especially if they were from foreign lands) in the hearts and minds of the "younger generation" of American, much to the consternation of their parents.
The author also wrote, "Different people have different opinions about what went on musically back then. The one thing that stands as definitive is the music that was recorded. Everyone has their favorites, and no doubt some will disagree with those included herein. The point of this set is to illustrate just how broad was the spectrum of music in the genre now known as progressive rock."
They continued by whitling a list of several thousand albums of that era to their top 100. After critically listening (and likely much arguing among themselves) to all 100 band's output, they chose the featured bands and specific songs for this compilation.
Of the bands on Volume One, I knew of, have albums by and liked TRAFFIC, PROCUL HARUM, THE MOODY BLUES, and RENAISSANCE. And some of the band members of the bands, then unknown to me, went on to further fame (and widespread acceptance) on their own. Examples on Volume One are: Steve Winwood and Arthur Brown. Of those on Volume Two, only EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER and HOCUS POCUS was I previously familiar with. On Volume Three, YES, ARGENT, ROXY MUSIC, GENESIS, ELO and, again, ELP are familiar. Volume Four has, GENESIS again (and, of course Phil Collins) YES again, ROXY MUSIC again, and WISHBONE ASH are the only ones I previously knew about and/or have some of their records. Volume Five's bands are all previously unknown to me.
Musical "taste" is usually subjective. Which is why there are, and have always been, SO many different types of music produced for hundreds of years. In listening to the entire set, I heard some songs which immediately appealed to me. Many others however, had the opposite effect.
Do I like this compilation? Absolutely. And I will return to it and listen again and try to determine what others found appealing in the music of so many bands from the Prog Rock era.
Lastly, the following bands which fit within the genre of Rhino Records criteria, were not able to be licensed by their respective labels: KING CRIMSON, PINK FLOYD, SOFT MACHINE and CAMEL. I've heard of the first two, but not the last. In fact, decades ago, I went with my then-girlfriend to see Pink Floyd in concert at the now-deserted Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy (RFK) stadium in Washington, D.C. RFK was once the home of the Politically Incorrectly named American Football team the Washington Redskins.
Here is one of those coincidences that occur in life. Bruce Woodrow, a former racing driver was working as a Corner Marshall for the weekend's races. Decades later, thanks to him reading and liking what I write, he reached out to me and we became friends. Real face-to-face, hugging friends. Small world.
Thank you SO much for taking the time to read my humble blog. Feel free to leave a comment below or on Facebook.
Scott Robb
January 4, 2024
#473
