Steeleye Span - any prog credentials?

You are reading things in there I never said nor intended to imply, but that is the nature of interpretation and assumption. 

 

The definition of "prog" is nebulous at best and can be bent to fit a myriad of different styles of music, folk being one of them - how far you push that definition depends upon your own personal pain threshold - mine is quite high, I can perceive "Prog" in some bands that would cause many to physically wince at the mere mention of.

 

Of course it would be unwise to compare Steeleye Span to Genesis or ELP and only a muppet would think of such a comparison. To ascertain whether fit into a our definition of "prog" one would have to compare them to bands that we classify as Progressive Folk (Pentangle, Quintessence, Third Ear Band, etc), the Folk Rock bands we classify as Prog Related (Fairport Convention, Magna Carta, etc.) and Folk (Rock) bands that have no discernible Prog connection or relationship (Albion Band, Jack The Lad, ...erm, The Pogues?). Of course that would be our interpretation - neither right nor wrong, just an opinion.

There is a world of distinction between Progressive the noun and progressive the verb. The genre of "Progressive Rock" took is name from the verb "to progress" but it does not mean that artists have to progress anything to be Progressive (n), similarly artists who are progressive (v) in their chosen field of music are not automatically making Progressive (n) Rock music. However there are artists who are progressive (v) and Progressive (n). We define Progressive Rock as a noun - i.e. a name for a genre of music, not progressive Rock, which would be a description of music that progresses; by that same inference, we define Progressive Folk as the name of a specific form of Folk music (and not exclusively Folk Rock), not as a description of all Folk music that has progressed away from the traditional form of the original Folk genre.

 

To be specific about Steeleye Span - they were not the first Folk band to go electric and they did not progress (v) the Folk Rock or Electric Folk genres as far as other bands either before or since. Personally (in as much as I am a fan of the Span) I don't believe they pushed the Folk genre into new directions or doing anything radically differently at the time, but were following conventions set by bands like The Pentangle and Fairport Convention and made "standard" Electric Folk, in most cases just recording electrified songs from traditional sources such as the Child Ballads or the Roud Folk Song Index and did not develop the structure or composition of those songs in the same way that other more progressive (v & n) bands had done (with the possible exceptions of King Henry, Thomas The Rhymer and Fighting For Strangers - but a few progish songs out of nearly 200 does not a Prog (n) band make ).