Who are "The Beatles" of Prog?

 

I do not think that The Beatles were that much more important in "music", than anything else out there. For the time span, and specially in the 50's, film, literature and a lot of art, got around.  But what The Beatles, and they are not the only ones, did the most, was help break the control of the arts by an upper class crust ... that still thought that "popular music" (or popular anything!) was not a valid artistic concept or idea.

 

What they brought about ... go look at the two worst business decisions EVER done, on the Internet! Thus, what The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and othes brought about was that there was a business in the "popular arts" that were not quite considered before.  Their becoming famous helped bring out so much media about the popular music, that 10 years later, the previously important arts were not even selling 1/5th the amount of the stuff out there, and today, classical music is less than 1/10th of the music bought and sold out there, not to mention that you will never find a Lollapaloosa of Classical music anywhere either!

 

For your question, I think, the time, the place, the politics, and the arts, were way more important than any of the bands that we can think of. To say that Genesis or Pink Floyd were important, is like saying that you never saw "Tonite We All Love in London" and realize all the movie folks, literature folks, art folks and everyone else being around, getting to know each other and in many ways sharing ideas and fun along the way. That is far more important to Genesis, than the Beatles were! Why? Because it validates the time, the place, and the work you want to do.

 

Robin  Williamson has said that in many ways the psychedelic thing, or anything else was a media creation, because there are many folks in that midst that are true artists, and they will do what they do, and not care what else is going on. That means that the individualistic personality, is important to make something come alive, and I believe, trully, that this was the secret behind "progressive", and not anything else. Yes, no one can ignore The Beatles, or any other music at the time, but that like saying that you, or I, can not have opinions, because we were all born later, or worse ... not a part of the click ... how cliche and boring that is, PA! Don't you agree?

This--plus they are the only real prog band that consistently crafted good hit short pop songs like the Beatles.

Back to Procol Harum, seeing as how they made one of the biggest selling singles with "A Whiter Shade Of Pale", they really must have had some influence on their millions of listeners. Also very innovative, seeing as that single was before "Sgt. Pepper" and they released the first ever real prog-rock epic in my mind (In Held Twas In I), etc. Moody Blues is up there too.

I don't really go along with this completely.  While there's no doubt about the impact Beatles had on rock, in terms of shaping the genre in its early days, they were hardly the only band or artist of great significance.  Rolling Stones were probably more important from the point of view of popularising rock as a kind of driving, angry music which Beatles seldom were in the pre-Rubber Soul days.  Bob Dylan popularised the idea of rock as a vehicle to register protest or at least weigh in on issues of social significance.  In terms of the one big bang event that shaped prog in its archetypal 70s form, it would have to be King Crimson and their ITCOTCK album.