ONE LIVE BADGER

According to the reviewers here, you'd think this was a R&B-influenced jam band that sounded somewhat like Traffic. And I agree. As to the debate as to whether Badger was really a progressive band, I can see it from two points of view: first of all, if (fill in blank with band) is listed on Prog Archives, Badger should be too. (Maybe Journey or Styx could fit here.) Here's a band that opened for Yes, was co-founded by Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye and Jon Anderson collaborator David Foster, and whose debut album had four 7- minute songs. Roger Dean even painted the cover!

On the other hand, if you had to classify Badger in just one subcategory of rock, it wouldn't be progressive rock. Other bands to which Badger has been compared (fairly, in my view) are the Allman Brothers and the Doobie Brothers. And while comparisons to Traffic are also fair, Badger lacks several elements of Traffic that make Winwood and company progressive, like their instrumental diversity and the subtlety and complexity of their arrangements.

Anyway, like a number of bands, both listed and not listed on Prog Archives, Badger has some prog aspects, and to a large extent these are delivered by Tony Kaye, who sounds better on some of these numbers than he did with Yes. His synthesizer solo on "Fountain" is the highlight here, although several organ solos, such as on "On My Way Home," are nearly as good. But I can only rate this album on its own merits - - it doesn't make sense to me to reduce its rating because it doesn't meet my definition of progressive rock. And on its own merits - - as an early-70s hard-rock live album by a jam band, One Live Badger is OK. If you like this kind of music, though, there are many, many better places to start: the Allman Brothers, Argent, Chicago, the Doobie Brothers, Procol Harem, Santana, Traffic, etc.

So I'm rating this two stars: a nice, though inessential, addition to the collection of a Yes and/or Tony Kaye fan, but probably of little interest to anyone else.