Good Prog-Rock Songs w/ Female Vocals - Progressive Rock Music Forum

MortSahlFan wrote:

Only had a few albums, but they have some good stuff! Here's one song.

Hi,

I saw them at The Whiskey in Hollywood, and they put on a great show ... and I had that album for almost a year I think it was. Janita Haan made Iggy and the Stooges look like idiots on the playground! Sadly all the fans wanted was Iggy ... and I gladly walked out 20 minutes into it! (I appreciate him a bit more now, but then, it was all show and not enough go for me!)

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

MortSahlFan wrote:

I'm having trouble finding 70s jazzy-prog with female vocalists... I'd love to find a band like Chicago, but with three female singers (as opposed to the three guys during the first handful of Chicago's good stuff).

(Randy Masters) Solar Plexus are closer to something Flora Purim-era Return to Forever with almost Zeuhl-chanting (but not dark, or doom-laden. Closer to KA perhaps). This is from their second album Voices, 1976:

And if you don't know belgian band Cos already, both players and singer Pascale Son are magnificent.

Eccentric Quebecians Toubabou left us with one terrific jazzrock-fusion/world... album.

thief wrote:

Great prog, but vocals are controversial, just look up PA reviews:

Hi,

I'm not sure that at the time, SPECIALLY with having been released by Vertigo at a time when the Grand Father of Progressive Music, put out a whole bunch of albums, and all of then were extremely different and had touches in them that many folks thought were weird and off kilter. AND, many of these albums ended up being huge:

Here's a sampling:

Colosseum - Valentyne Suite

Juicy Lucy - 1st

Black Sabbath - 1st

Cressida - 1st

Magna Carta - 1st

Uriah Heep - 1st

Nucleus - Elastic Rock

Dr. Strangely Strange - Heavy Petting

Patto - 1st

Gentle Giant - 1st

Frumpy - All Will Be Changed

Lighthouse - One Fine Morning

Catapilla - Catapilla

Jade Warrior - Jade Warrior

Ramases - Space Hymns

Aphrodite's Child - 666

Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Framed

Agitation Free - Malesch

Peter Michael Hamel - Hamel

...

AND that is just the first couple of years ... notice that a lot of the bands and folks have quite a bit of jazz influence/material in them. And others are simply way out there.

Some of the comments in the reviews on this band's two albums are done comparing to some of the folks tastes, and sadly, these comments take away something that was being done at the time that was valuable to a lot of the music that was appearing ... there was a lot of improvisation, and experimentation, just like theater, film, literature and other arts ... with the result that TODAY ... these "different" things are considered poor and not valid.

The vocals, by the Meek sisters (so it seems, one in one album and the other in the other album), are not exactly about "lyrics" as we know them, and more than likely simply an ability to FLOW with the music and add words to it ... Damo went on to become famous for it ... but we can't allow a woman to do it! And folks like Flora Purim, and a lot of times Gilly Smith also added to the music without lyrics, and their touches made the music very special for many of us, even if we were not coming up with something silly as some sort of sensual this or that!

Will these "vocals" ever fit a CONVENTIONAL and top ten song on the PA lists with fans! HELL NO. Will they be accepted by many fans? I doubt it ... because the lyrics "don't tell them" what the music is all about, and in my book they fail to see the most important part of a lot of the music listed above ... it wasn't what it all was about ... it was about "experiencing the moment" ... and today's fans simply can not do it, and worse, they won't and sometimes will (instead) make very poor comments about a lot of the improvisations and experiments done all over in the time and place. The only bad side of it, is that we do not have a whole bunch of recordings from the Fillmore that showed how much poetry, visualization stuff was also being done around and with the bands playing ... but we all seem to think that is not worth anything and it is just pure chit covering the empty space between songs.

BTW ... think about one name that was involved in so many of these albums ... Mr. Gomelsky, the Grand Father of Progressive Music that will never get the credit and love he deserves ... but the amount of music he gave us ... is second to NONE.

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

Edited by Nogbad_The_Bad - April 20 2022 at 12:42

Ian

Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on Progrock.com

https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-avant-jazzcore-happy-hour/

^ That wouldn't fit the brief to me, it sounds way more like pop-rock than Prog Rock to me (doesn't strike me as prog). ;) Although my suggestion was Earth & Fire's "Song of the Marching Children" and that album, at least (I noticed the OP later posted the whole album), I have seen described as prog rock lite and is on the pop side.

But as as is said in the opening post, "If YOU think it's prog..."

Just a fanboy passin' through.

Logan wrote:

^ That wouldn't fit the brief to me, it sounds way more like pop-rock than Prog Rock to me (doesn't strike me as prog). ;) Although my suggestion was Earth & Fire's "Song of the Marching Children" and that album, at least (I noticed the OP later posted the whole album), I have seen described as prog rock lite and is on the pop side.
...
But as as is said in the opening post, "If YOU think it's prog..."

Hi,

It's sad for me that what came out almost 50 years ago as being "on the pop side" of things, which I think EARTH & FIRE kinda had in their earlier days, but it went away in their later material. The sad thing is that today, folks compare it to what they are listening to and something like this particular album, sounds rather soft and not as good or valid introduction to "progressive" ... but at the time?

I bet we're not answering that question very well. It wasn't be "best" of the progressive world then where they came from, but it was a very honest and outstanding piece of music that deserved more appreciation, specially when it first came out.

As for "if you think it's prog ... " this is sad ... because that means prog doesn't exist since there would be a hundred billion definitions and favorites that would ruin it all. It's not the "fan" that defines prog, and it should never be, despite them being the ones that buy it. It's about the music itself, and I'm not sure that the fans are the best holders of the truth of what music is, or is capable of being. Specially within a commercial place, where the numbers are the rule and all else is not important. I kinda wish that PA admins would wake up to that some more ... so we could have a more inclusive and important valuation of what "progressive music" really is.

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

Boojieboy wrote:

Renaissance

Illusion

Curved Air

Earth & Fire (especially the first three albums)

Babe Ruth

Kate Bush

All great!

My very favorites would be Curved Air, Illusion. I love the rest, and just found about Babe Ruth a few weeks ago, which I never heard before. I guess some might just consider them funk/jazz/pop that aren't the typical 2:30 song, but I really like them.

Have you heard of Carol of Harvest, Mellow Mood, Savage Rose? There's also Empire with Sidonie Jordan on vocals. Surprised there's barely any views on their official YouTube page, considering Peter Banks was the guitarist and co-founder of YES

And if you like Jane Relf like I do, you should check out Stairway - another project with McCarty. Those Yardbirds spawned a LOT! Despite the death of her brother Keith :(

Here's one really good album. The only one they did.

https://www.youtube.com/c/LoyalOpposition

https://www.scribd.com/document/382737647/MortSahlFan-Song-List

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c57aHqQ5hRU

Try this....

Emme is great

Ian

Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on Progrock.com

https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-avant-jazzcore-happy-hour/

Renaissance takes the cake for the "70s for me.

Sandy Denny was really good, as well.

In the modern era, there are lots of great female vocalists.

Valerie Gracious of Phideaux is my favorite. Julie Kiss of To-Mera also is great.