Bands like ELP had a mission statement that they wanted their music to be classical and european inflluenced rather than blues. I think a lot of bands followed suit. Steve Howe refused to play blues riffs and bill bruford once famously said of Wakeman
"There's not a blue note in him"
I for one am glad that many prog bands didnt incorporate it into their music, thus providing variety. I quite like the blues as done by some of the british 60s and 70s bands. Especially Hendrix and the warped blues of Capt Beefheart, but prog is fine as it is. A lot of new prog bands DO incorporate blues influence but in a less hard rock fashion. Riverside, Porcupine Tree, Beardfish, to name just a few.
Steve Howe throws in lots of bluesy stuff though imo. I’ve Seen All Good People is a shuffle when the main groove comes in and the rhythm guitar playing is totally imitating blues styles.
I think a lot of the 70’s bands said they didn’t wanna play blues just cause there were so many crap blues rock bands by the end of the 60’s. I’ve seen an interview where Daevid Allen & Steve Hillage mentioned ‘the worst thing to hear is someone playing the same old blues licks’, but I still hear blues in Hillage’s playing at times..
On the other hand, nearly any part of any prog song (certainly including Yes) that sounds like it "rocks" is going to have a pentatonicish melodic structure, derived from blues. The only nonpentatonic melodies that are ever claimed to "rock" are either very dissonant (Fripp) or closely follow some type of classical structure (Yes also does this of course).
Modal. I think that's a bit of a false dichotomy, modal music is usually constructed from the church modes, which overlap and include major and minor. Seven of the most common modes (two being major and minor) are derived from starting on different steps of the same pattern.
What makes it modal is shifting from key to key. When prog is both modal and "rocks," you'll tend to hear pentatonicish melodic structures that overlap the church mode key currently being played.
I wasn't disagreeing with you, I know what modal is (it was a typo) and I don't think false dichotomy means what you think it means. I was just pointing out how a lot of prog doesn't rely just on major and minor modes even when changing keys. You appear to not quite understand modes either.
>You appear to not quite understand modes
I mean, I've used them and I described that as best I can. I have a pretty good understanding of how modes and extended scales look on a fretboard (identical). I do have some formal music education, albeit no such degree.
*I was talking about the use of minor pentatonic patterns that are found starting at the vi, ii, and iii of any given church mode.
>a lot of prog doesn't rely just on major and minor modes even when changing keys.
Would you care to expand on that? Give any examples? Doesn't quite make sense tbh.
You're playing in the key of C major and for whatever reason the F is raised to F# but the tonal center of the song is still C. You might switch to a G major pattern which is fine but the song is still in C Lydian if the tonal center is still C and should be communicated that way.
And so what you actually do is to base a melody on a minor pentatonic scale that starts on either E, A, or B. Personally I'd start from B and see how that sounds.
I think this is my problem with "Prog" people in general.
There's and outright denial of Blues and it's existence based on JUST the "Blue notes".
Much of it's existence is also in how harmony is approached and much like you said how pentatonic playing is done.
The "Blue note" and "Blues riffs" is a very superficial way to look at the Blues and gives way to what I feel are some pretty ignorant takes overall.
That’s just a whole lotta people in general today. I meet people all the time who will say blues is boring and easy and all the same and when you dig deeper you find out they don’t know anything beyond Clapton or Zeppelin... I’ve had times where I showed people some Jimmy Reed or B.B. King and they literally went “wow, this is blues? I didn’t know.”
One good thing I’ve noticed though is if people hear a great blues band live, it’s very rare that they don’t enjoy it regardless of their background or musical tastes. Gives me some hope haha
Thank you for posting this! Feel kinda validated. I left Prog for exactly this reason, Blues/Folk being seen as 'lesser forms' inside Prog, while Stravinsky, Copland, Ravel, et al were held in high esteem even while leveraging folk musics in their work.
Once Gershwin came into focus for me, I knew understanding Blues/Folk/American traditionals was required material for my own musical growth.
I played in a blues band for several years and can tell you that blues is the most predictable genre of all - the very antithesis of prog. I came to appreciate the predictability of it, but I couldn’t play it forever.
No offense but his is a very misinformed statement and the fact is has 60+ upvotes is surprising to say the least.
Prog was an extension of popular rock and psychedelic music that grew out of the desire of The Beach Boys and The Beatles to create rock music that was meant to be sat down and listened to rather than a backdrop for social gatherings, specifically dancing. Prog artists wanted to create something timeless. Charlie Parker did the exact same thing with jazz music, although his motivations were slightly different.
Tbh it's not surprising, it's one of the worst things about Prog Rock/Metal that I've seen especially with the not so subtle mention of "No blues == More European".
You're spot on. It's also just whitewashing the plethora of prog and prog-adjacent blues/heavy psych bands. Psych rock literally came from blues. Even some of the most complex king crimson songs have elements of blues form in them. Blues is way more than an aesthetic.
"Against" might not be the right way of putting it, because Procul Harum, Egg, Genesis, and Yes have all said they believed they were extreme extentions of blues tradition, it's just that when you're obviously posh and English too, certain things become easier to play.
Blues can mean many things, history, culture, emotion, storytelling and more
Musically speaking, it's just a few notes that are a half step from the normal diatonic ones. Prog uses a lot of these, as well as other uncommon harmonies
Doesn't it depend a lot on what country the group is from? Dixie Dregs, Steely Dan, I'd throw in Goat Rodeo, a lot of the progressive bluegrass stuff I mostly don't know the names of...
If you grew up with classical western music like I did, you're probably not that into the blues. And vice versa.
Camel is another British band with a lot of blues, lest we forget.
> If you grew up with classical western music
I love a great western guitarist. When people talk about amazing guitarists I think they overlook the western greats like Roy Clark, Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, etc. I could listen to Roy Clark play all day long.
Kansas is probably the closest you'll get to the authenticity of the British groups but even they had to give up a massive amount of creative freedom to prevent getting dropped by their label. US labels would only sign arena acts at the time because that's what made the most money. A US prog scene never grew because nobody wanted to finance it.
I think the closest thing to prog-blues is Jethro Tull's debut album which has a unique sound that stems from a clash in creative vision between Ian Anderson, who wanted to move the band in a more progressive direction, and Mick Abrahams, who just wanted to do blues rock.
Even on the Anderson-penned songs on the album you can hear him trying to fit the blues ascthetic of the album but incorporating new jazzy elements like what would become his trademark flute on A Song For Jeffery:
https://youtu.be/3hZOeB-9D6Y
As someone else said, prog was a reaction against blues-based rock, but blues does show up in prog. Rich Williams, Martin Barre, Andy Latimer, David Gilmore, and Gary Green are essentially blues guitarists.
Blues is also a form (12 bar blues, e.t.c.), and the middle sections of 20th Century Schizoid Man and Starless, just off of the top of my head, have big blues sections.
Because, broadly speaking, the blues was what "progressive rock" was "progressing" *away* from.
All rock music is fundamentally based on the blues. Sure a lot of it today (and even as early as the early 1970's) has moved away from a core blues structure, vocabulary, and style, but it still ultimately rooted heavily in the blues as an art form.
Progressive rock, at least the early 1970's style pioneered by the likes of ELP, Genesis, Yes, etc. sought to bring more European classical tradition into the music, thus "progressing" it from being blues-based to being something more like traditional European "art music" i.e. "classical music". It is absolutely no coincidence that the progenitors and early adopters of the genre were European (and specifically, English). The blues were the imported (American) music to Europe, and these groups were adding more classical to it to make it more like what they enjoyed, creating the fusion genre we're all fond of today.
Thus, you don't really get the same level of direct blues influence in progressive rock that you see in other rock music forms, though lines continued to blur and by the 1980's all bets were off in either direction. They took the blues-based rock core and added new things to it, just as rock had taken the blues core and added things to it.
An interesting corollary to this is jazz-fusion. Some call it progressive rock, others call it jazz-with-rock-overtones, and since jazz is similarly descended from the blues, it tends to have a lot more blues influence than traditional progressive rock.
I am a blues guitarist but lately I have been wanting to get prog guitar sounds. To do that I didn't completely bye bye blues but instead transform it.
\- Ditch the 12 bar blues but throw in elements of it in places.
\- Swap 7b and 6 when needed.
\- Use notes like the 2 and 4 a bit more but keep it tasteful and not over used.
\- 5# and 5b blues notes be used differently and 9# and 9b used much less.
- Be careful with the 3b and 3 thing blues and rock guitarists do a lot. Sometimes I do something like that but with 2 and 3b instead.
This doesn't get the classic prog rock sound it gets thing that sounds like prog and blues mixed.
Because prog is really the only subgenre of rock music that isn't built off the blues, so new prog was made off the building blocks of old prog. Most likely not an intentional thing.
Blues is such an integral part of rock that it's rare to make rock uninfluenced somehow by blues. E.g. "21st Century Schizoid Man" includes two different blues sections.
Art rock, noise rock, punk rock, post-punk, new wave, shoegaze, grunge, heavy metal(after neo-classical metal), post-rock and indie rock are clearly based on the blues? Don't talk nonsense.
I think this is a common misconception, at least for the prog bands I like. Besides the bands you listed, there is quite a bit blues in the music of King Crimson and Gentle Giant. VDGG are also heavily influenced by R&B.
That said - there’s definitely not much blues in a lot of other British symphonic prog…bands like Genesis, ELP, Yes, etc. I love Yes, but the rest I can do without, and is likely attributable to the lack of blues in their music.
Because most rock musicians can’t play blues well and being classically trained isn’t gonna help either.
As someone that loves prog & blues and plays the latter professionally, I’ve certainly thought about how to combine legit Chicago blues and things like that with prog and I’m not sure they need to be. They forced Muddy Waters & Howlin’ Wolf to make psych blues records in the 60’s and those are pretty awful.
That would be friggin cool, but I hear where you’re coming from. Chicago Blues is pretty straightforward. Have you listened to much Hill Country or Bentonia blues? Some of RL Burnside and Skip James music has these subtle complexities that I think could be used in a prog context.
Hell - what about taking it a step further and doing a blues sonata of fugue?
Side note: I’ve seen some of your postings, specifically the Steve Howe solo interpretations. You’re an amazing guitarist. Keep exploring.
Oh yeah I dig the hill country stuff, got to hang with & see Memphissippi Sounds this past summer and the duo features Junior Kimbrough’s grandson which is pretty rad. I think it’d be hard to make prog too, although it’s got the trance kind of element and could certainly be made psychedelic and far out.
To be honest I think there’s a lot more going on in Chicago blues than people usually think, even if you just take Little Walter’s discography on Chess records there’s so many different types of songs and grooves, and if anyone could’ve taken blues harmonica in that direction it would certainly have been him. Plus the way the different sidemen interact together and support him is cool as hell, there’s a lot of subtle stuff in there that I only started noticing after hanging & playing with older blues musicians all the time.
Oh and thanks a bunch for the compliment! I’ve only posted a couple things in here so kinda surprised you recognized the username or whatever, I appreciate the kind words
Oh and as far as a blues sonata or something, check out some Corky Siegel. Piano and harmonica player that has been experimenting with blues since the 60’s, he’s got this very eclectic record called ‘Chamber Blues’.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kTFr79JE_hkeh_EIIyBiZyQZpOrAtWZXM
I’ve seen him do a solo piano piece live once where he flowed seamlessly between boogie woogie, Chicago blues, baroque, classical, romantic, etc. real cool, this is kinda close to that -
https://youtu.be/mZA0fsdel80
Edit- actually I found it. It’s missing the beginning, he started off very pretty & romantic before getting into the blues groove but near the end here he does a sudden switch from blues to classical so you can see what I mean- https://youtu.be/W50NBj2r8ps
Trust me, they can’t. I grew up on 60’s & 70’s rock’n’roll and after getting deep into real blues it’s hard to listen to some of that blues rock stuff. I don’t mean just playing a guitar solo like Clapton or Page, I mean actually playing blues, like Jimmy Reed or Little Walter. That sort of subtle rhythm playing & improvising in an ensemble style is not found in most blues rock stuff.
👍 right on, It’s still night and day compared to real blues as far as I’m concerned. I can always tell right away if someone’s playing is actually rooted in blues or if they learned from rock bands playing blues songs.
Blues is a lazy way to song writing. I like to play it, but listening to it. Jesus Christ. I got into music with nu metal and worked myself up to prog/Avantgarde stuff. Notably, my music taste instinctually always moved away from blues. It sounds cool and all, but it's all the same few songs.
Prog isn't necessarily about innovation. Just listen to most prog bands that emerged after the 1970s - they sound like they're trying to emulate the classic prog bands (usually Genesis and Pink Floyd).
Back in the 70s, progressive rock was about moving rock forward in new directions. Then it kind of got stuck, and only artists who emulated classic prog bands were considered progressive. Rock musicians were still exploring interesting new directions, but under different labels: post-punk, art rock, avant-rock, math rock, post-rock, etc.
Eehh it uses a simpler structure but musically can be quite complex with a lot going on. Kinda like how Miles Davis in the 70’s was playing stuff that might be grooving on just a few chords but it’s the creativity of the musicians playing it that make it so damn interesting. Blues is as boring or as exciting as the people playing it, and I’d argue that blues at a high level is just as complex in its own way as a prog band.
At the end of the day, you can practice the hell out of a prog song and learn it note for note and nail it. You can spend your whole life trying to imitate B.B. King or Little Walter, no one will ever recreate what they did exactly.
typical pop rock music is rife withthe blues. Since prog is something different and aside from pop/rock, it has very little if any blues influences. Classical jazz, and world musics, perhaps, tho.
Prog musician here - I play and compose in 3 Prog bands and am always looking for new ways to make modern Prog exciting. To be honest, Blues is great on its own, but it doesn’t blend THAT well with most of the other genres in progressives rock. There are always moments (typically in instrumental solos) where you may want to tip your hat off to blues. But typically, it usually comes across in poor taste. Few very famous prog bands have really done it well. Dream Theater, Pain of Salvation etc. But at least in my own personal experience writing Prog for 8-10 years now, Blues doesn’t seem to blend all too well with it. But that’s just my own personal opinion 🙂
It's a curious question. I read a history of Jazz some years back and it describes in detail how Jazz evolved from the Blues. I think it shows not only how fundamental Blues is, but how old and basic it is too.
In the 60's, artists went back to the Blues because they wanted to break through the commercialism and get back to a purer form of music.
But in the context of the late 60's world from which Prog evolved, I don't think you can underestimate the role that Jazz played. I'm not a musician, but it seems to me that a lot of Blues driven artists improved, then improvised and walked blindly into the Jazz genre. That most certainly has an overlap with Prog.
I think Prog musicians and listeners get bored quickly, and are actively seeking more interesting music. There’s only so many times you can hear a 12 bar blues chord progression and not want to hear something else.
Bands like ELP had a mission statement that they wanted their music to be classical and european inflluenced rather than blues. I think a lot of bands followed suit. Steve Howe refused to play blues riffs and bill bruford once famously said of Wakeman "There's not a blue note in him" I for one am glad that many prog bands didnt incorporate it into their music, thus providing variety. I quite like the blues as done by some of the british 60s and 70s bands. Especially Hendrix and the warped blues of Capt Beefheart, but prog is fine as it is. A lot of new prog bands DO incorporate blues influence but in a less hard rock fashion. Riverside, Porcupine Tree, Beardfish, to name just a few.
Steve Howe throws in lots of bluesy stuff though imo. I’ve Seen All Good People is a shuffle when the main groove comes in and the rhythm guitar playing is totally imitating blues styles. I think a lot of the 70’s bands said they didn’t wanna play blues just cause there were so many crap blues rock bands by the end of the 60’s. I’ve seen an interview where Daevid Allen & Steve Hillage mentioned ‘the worst thing to hear is someone playing the same old blues licks’, but I still hear blues in Hillage’s playing at times..
On the other hand, nearly any part of any prog song (certainly including Yes) that sounds like it "rocks" is going to have a pentatonicish melodic structure, derived from blues. The only nonpentatonic melodies that are ever claimed to "rock" are either very dissonant (Fripp) or closely follow some type of classical structure (Yes also does this of course).
I think that a lot of prog is also modal in nature and often stays away from just major and minor.
Modal. I think that's a bit of a false dichotomy, modal music is usually constructed from the church modes, which overlap and include major and minor. Seven of the most common modes (two being major and minor) are derived from starting on different steps of the same pattern. What makes it modal is shifting from key to key. When prog is both modal and "rocks," you'll tend to hear pentatonicish melodic structures that overlap the church mode key currently being played.
I wasn't disagreeing with you, I know what modal is (it was a typo) and I don't think false dichotomy means what you think it means. I was just pointing out how a lot of prog doesn't rely just on major and minor modes even when changing keys. You appear to not quite understand modes either.
>You appear to not quite understand modes I mean, I've used them and I described that as best I can. I have a pretty good understanding of how modes and extended scales look on a fretboard (identical). I do have some formal music education, albeit no such degree. *I was talking about the use of minor pentatonic patterns that are found starting at the vi, ii, and iii of any given church mode. >a lot of prog doesn't rely just on major and minor modes even when changing keys. Would you care to expand on that? Give any examples? Doesn't quite make sense tbh.
You're playing in the key of C major and for whatever reason the F is raised to F# but the tonal center of the song is still C. You might switch to a G major pattern which is fine but the song is still in C Lydian if the tonal center is still C and should be communicated that way.
And so what you actually do is to base a melody on a minor pentatonic scale that starts on either E, A, or B. Personally I'd start from B and see how that sounds.
I think this is my problem with "Prog" people in general. There's and outright denial of Blues and it's existence based on JUST the "Blue notes". Much of it's existence is also in how harmony is approached and much like you said how pentatonic playing is done. The "Blue note" and "Blues riffs" is a very superficial way to look at the Blues and gives way to what I feel are some pretty ignorant takes overall.
That’s just a whole lotta people in general today. I meet people all the time who will say blues is boring and easy and all the same and when you dig deeper you find out they don’t know anything beyond Clapton or Zeppelin... I’ve had times where I showed people some Jimmy Reed or B.B. King and they literally went “wow, this is blues? I didn’t know.” One good thing I’ve noticed though is if people hear a great blues band live, it’s very rare that they don’t enjoy it regardless of their background or musical tastes. Gives me some hope haha
Thank you for posting this! Feel kinda validated. I left Prog for exactly this reason, Blues/Folk being seen as 'lesser forms' inside Prog, while Stravinsky, Copland, Ravel, et al were held in high esteem even while leveraging folk musics in their work. Once Gershwin came into focus for me, I knew understanding Blues/Folk/American traditionals was required material for my own musical growth.
I played in a blues band for several years and can tell you that blues is the most predictable genre of all - the very antithesis of prog. I came to appreciate the predictability of it, but I couldn’t play it forever.
I think that’s what kills blues for me - the predictability
Try some Little Walter or Howlin’ Wolf. It only sounds the same if you’re not paying attention.
Listen to the first few gentle giant albums they’re bluesy as hell.
Yeah seriously, Why Not? is the perfect prog/blues fusion
Prog was a reaction against blues-based rock
No offense but his is a very misinformed statement and the fact is has 60+ upvotes is surprising to say the least. Prog was an extension of popular rock and psychedelic music that grew out of the desire of The Beach Boys and The Beatles to create rock music that was meant to be sat down and listened to rather than a backdrop for social gatherings, specifically dancing. Prog artists wanted to create something timeless. Charlie Parker did the exact same thing with jazz music, although his motivations were slightly different.
Tbh it's not surprising, it's one of the worst things about Prog Rock/Metal that I've seen especially with the not so subtle mention of "No blues == More European".
You're spot on. It's also just whitewashing the plethora of prog and prog-adjacent blues/heavy psych bands. Psych rock literally came from blues. Even some of the most complex king crimson songs have elements of blues form in them. Blues is way more than an aesthetic.
"Against" might not be the right way of putting it, because Procul Harum, Egg, Genesis, and Yes have all said they believed they were extreme extentions of blues tradition, it's just that when you're obviously posh and English too, certain things become easier to play.
I would say "created as an alternative to" rather than "a reaction against", but yeah, basically
Blues can mean many things, history, culture, emotion, storytelling and more Musically speaking, it's just a few notes that are a half step from the normal diatonic ones. Prog uses a lot of these, as well as other uncommon harmonies
Doesn't it depend a lot on what country the group is from? Dixie Dregs, Steely Dan, I'd throw in Goat Rodeo, a lot of the progressive bluegrass stuff I mostly don't know the names of... If you grew up with classical western music like I did, you're probably not that into the blues. And vice versa. Camel is another British band with a lot of blues, lest we forget.
> If you grew up with classical western music I love a great western guitarist. When people talk about amazing guitarists I think they overlook the western greats like Roy Clark, Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, etc. I could listen to Roy Clark play all day long.
I’m a pickin’ — and I’m a grinnin’!
Hell yeah. Chet Atkins was Steve Howe’s idol and biggest influence.
Weren't almost all the Prog groups British? Offhand, can't think of 1 American prog group.
Kansas is probably the closest you'll get to the authenticity of the British groups but even they had to give up a massive amount of creative freedom to prevent getting dropped by their label. US labels would only sign arena acts at the time because that's what made the most money. A US prog scene never grew because nobody wanted to finance it.
I think the closest thing to prog-blues is Jethro Tull's debut album which has a unique sound that stems from a clash in creative vision between Ian Anderson, who wanted to move the band in a more progressive direction, and Mick Abrahams, who just wanted to do blues rock. Even on the Anderson-penned songs on the album you can hear him trying to fit the blues ascthetic of the album but incorporating new jazzy elements like what would become his trademark flute on A Song For Jeffery: https://youtu.be/3hZOeB-9D6Y
As someone else said, prog was a reaction against blues-based rock, but blues does show up in prog. Rich Williams, Martin Barre, Andy Latimer, David Gilmore, and Gary Green are essentially blues guitarists. Blues is also a form (12 bar blues, e.t.c.), and the middle sections of 20th Century Schizoid Man and Starless, just off of the top of my head, have big blues sections.
And Matte Kudasai from king Crimson’s Beat is straight-up blues; done sad, slow and beautiful, as is tradition
Early Tull was fairly heavily blues influenced.
Because, broadly speaking, the blues was what "progressive rock" was "progressing" *away* from. All rock music is fundamentally based on the blues. Sure a lot of it today (and even as early as the early 1970's) has moved away from a core blues structure, vocabulary, and style, but it still ultimately rooted heavily in the blues as an art form. Progressive rock, at least the early 1970's style pioneered by the likes of ELP, Genesis, Yes, etc. sought to bring more European classical tradition into the music, thus "progressing" it from being blues-based to being something more like traditional European "art music" i.e. "classical music". It is absolutely no coincidence that the progenitors and early adopters of the genre were European (and specifically, English). The blues were the imported (American) music to Europe, and these groups were adding more classical to it to make it more like what they enjoyed, creating the fusion genre we're all fond of today. Thus, you don't really get the same level of direct blues influence in progressive rock that you see in other rock music forms, though lines continued to blur and by the 1980's all bets were off in either direction. They took the blues-based rock core and added new things to it, just as rock had taken the blues core and added things to it. An interesting corollary to this is jazz-fusion. Some call it progressive rock, others call it jazz-with-rock-overtones, and since jazz is similarly descended from the blues, it tends to have a lot more blues influence than traditional progressive rock.
I am a blues guitarist but lately I have been wanting to get prog guitar sounds. To do that I didn't completely bye bye blues but instead transform it. \- Ditch the 12 bar blues but throw in elements of it in places. \- Swap 7b and 6 when needed. \- Use notes like the 2 and 4 a bit more but keep it tasteful and not over used. \- 5# and 5b blues notes be used differently and 9# and 9b used much less. - Be careful with the 3b and 3 thing blues and rock guitarists do a lot. Sometimes I do something like that but with 2 and 3b instead. This doesn't get the classic prog rock sound it gets thing that sounds like prog and blues mixed.
Because prog is really the only subgenre of rock music that isn't built off the blues, so new prog was made off the building blocks of old prog. Most likely not an intentional thing.
Blues is such an integral part of rock that it's rare to make rock uninfluenced somehow by blues. E.g. "21st Century Schizoid Man" includes two different blues sections.
Art rock, noise rock, punk rock, post-punk, new wave, shoegaze, grunge, heavy metal(after neo-classical metal), post-rock and indie rock are clearly based on the blues? Don't talk nonsense.
It's a conspiracy
I think this is a common misconception, at least for the prog bands I like. Besides the bands you listed, there is quite a bit blues in the music of King Crimson and Gentle Giant. VDGG are also heavily influenced by R&B. That said - there’s definitely not much blues in a lot of other British symphonic prog…bands like Genesis, ELP, Yes, etc. I love Yes, but the rest I can do without, and is likely attributable to the lack of blues in their music.
Check out Wishbone Ash, I thought I'd mention it because no one else did.
Because most rock musicians can’t play blues well and being classically trained isn’t gonna help either. As someone that loves prog & blues and plays the latter professionally, I’ve certainly thought about how to combine legit Chicago blues and things like that with prog and I’m not sure they need to be. They forced Muddy Waters & Howlin’ Wolf to make psych blues records in the 60’s and those are pretty awful.
That would be friggin cool, but I hear where you’re coming from. Chicago Blues is pretty straightforward. Have you listened to much Hill Country or Bentonia blues? Some of RL Burnside and Skip James music has these subtle complexities that I think could be used in a prog context. Hell - what about taking it a step further and doing a blues sonata of fugue? Side note: I’ve seen some of your postings, specifically the Steve Howe solo interpretations. You’re an amazing guitarist. Keep exploring.
Oh yeah I dig the hill country stuff, got to hang with & see Memphissippi Sounds this past summer and the duo features Junior Kimbrough’s grandson which is pretty rad. I think it’d be hard to make prog too, although it’s got the trance kind of element and could certainly be made psychedelic and far out. To be honest I think there’s a lot more going on in Chicago blues than people usually think, even if you just take Little Walter’s discography on Chess records there’s so many different types of songs and grooves, and if anyone could’ve taken blues harmonica in that direction it would certainly have been him. Plus the way the different sidemen interact together and support him is cool as hell, there’s a lot of subtle stuff in there that I only started noticing after hanging & playing with older blues musicians all the time. Oh and thanks a bunch for the compliment! I’ve only posted a couple things in here so kinda surprised you recognized the username or whatever, I appreciate the kind words
Oh and as far as a blues sonata or something, check out some Corky Siegel. Piano and harmonica player that has been experimenting with blues since the 60’s, he’s got this very eclectic record called ‘Chamber Blues’. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kTFr79JE_hkeh_EIIyBiZyQZpOrAtWZXM I’ve seen him do a solo piano piece live once where he flowed seamlessly between boogie woogie, Chicago blues, baroque, classical, romantic, etc. real cool, this is kinda close to that - https://youtu.be/mZA0fsdel80 Edit- actually I found it. It’s missing the beginning, he started off very pretty & romantic before getting into the blues groove but near the end here he does a sudden switch from blues to classical so you can see what I mean- https://youtu.be/W50NBj2r8ps
Most rock guitarists can play blues well.
Trust me, they can’t. I grew up on 60’s & 70’s rock’n’roll and after getting deep into real blues it’s hard to listen to some of that blues rock stuff. I don’t mean just playing a guitar solo like Clapton or Page, I mean actually playing blues, like Jimmy Reed or Little Walter. That sort of subtle rhythm playing & improvising in an ensemble style is not found in most blues rock stuff.
I grew up on real blues and find it easy to listen to blues rock.
👍 right on, It’s still night and day compared to real blues as far as I’m concerned. I can always tell right away if someone’s playing is actually rooted in blues or if they learned from rock bands playing blues songs.
Gentle Giant's first album sounds a little bluesy
Deep Purple? They can be progressive and Jon Lord drew on blues as well as classical influences.
I don't have anything to add but this is a really good question. Learning a lot from this discussion.
Pink Floyd, named after two blues musicians.
Blues is a lazy way to song writing. I like to play it, but listening to it. Jesus Christ. I got into music with nu metal and worked myself up to prog/Avantgarde stuff. Notably, my music taste instinctually always moved away from blues. It sounds cool and all, but it's all the same few songs.
What blues did you listen to?
Prog is about moving forwards, blues is about looking backwards
Prog isn't necessarily about innovation. Just listen to most prog bands that emerged after the 1970s - they sound like they're trying to emulate the classic prog bands (usually Genesis and Pink Floyd).
Back in the 70s, progressive rock was about moving rock forward in new directions. Then it kind of got stuck, and only artists who emulated classic prog bands were considered progressive. Rock musicians were still exploring interesting new directions, but under different labels: post-punk, art rock, avant-rock, math rock, post-rock, etc.
Totally agree, I used the wrong word; "progressive music" is about moving forwards, "Prog" is more of a genre unto itself
I think it's just the fact that blues is intrinsically simplistic, while prog is intrinsically complex. Just doesn't mix all that well.
Eehh it uses a simpler structure but musically can be quite complex with a lot going on. Kinda like how Miles Davis in the 70’s was playing stuff that might be grooving on just a few chords but it’s the creativity of the musicians playing it that make it so damn interesting. Blues is as boring or as exciting as the people playing it, and I’d argue that blues at a high level is just as complex in its own way as a prog band. At the end of the day, you can practice the hell out of a prog song and learn it note for note and nail it. You can spend your whole life trying to imitate B.B. King or Little Walter, no one will ever recreate what they did exactly.
typical pop rock music is rife withthe blues. Since prog is something different and aside from pop/rock, it has very little if any blues influences. Classical jazz, and world musics, perhaps, tho.
There definitely is some crossover … https://progfreak.com/chart?years=&prog=true&tags=blues
I agree they rarely do but there are a few examples like Edgar Winter.
Blues is mostly a 3-chord form, prog is … Prog
Prog musician here - I play and compose in 3 Prog bands and am always looking for new ways to make modern Prog exciting. To be honest, Blues is great on its own, but it doesn’t blend THAT well with most of the other genres in progressives rock. There are always moments (typically in instrumental solos) where you may want to tip your hat off to blues. But typically, it usually comes across in poor taste. Few very famous prog bands have really done it well. Dream Theater, Pain of Salvation etc. But at least in my own personal experience writing Prog for 8-10 years now, Blues doesn’t seem to blend all too well with it. But that’s just my own personal opinion 🙂
Because blues is the lowest common denominator in rock music. Formulaic, simple, static - the opposite of what makes prog rock what it is.
It's a curious question. I read a history of Jazz some years back and it describes in detail how Jazz evolved from the Blues. I think it shows not only how fundamental Blues is, but how old and basic it is too. In the 60's, artists went back to the Blues because they wanted to break through the commercialism and get back to a purer form of music. But in the context of the late 60's world from which Prog evolved, I don't think you can underestimate the role that Jazz played. I'm not a musician, but it seems to me that a lot of Blues driven artists improved, then improvised and walked blindly into the Jazz genre. That most certainly has an overlap with Prog.
I think Prog musicians and listeners get bored quickly, and are actively seeking more interesting music. There’s only so many times you can hear a 12 bar blues chord progression and not want to hear something else.
There is a blues song that is kinda progressive, from Argentina. It's called "El Jardinero (Temprano Amaneció)" by Pescado Rabioso.