Yeah I know the last choice has too many sses...  Updated to add quotes to the choices.  Hope that doesn't change the decision of anyone who already voted.

Or additional "s" excludes him from the poll? 

Musical visionary

Stellar songwriter

Excellent vocalist

Marvelous multi-instrumentalist

Unique composer

The whole package, all in one wicked awesome dude.

Jeffro wrote: Jon Anderson - Prog related?? Is there another Jon Anderson I'm not aware of?

I guess he's basing it off of his solo career?

Same ... but the number of votes for Laurie does not add up!

Same ... but the number of votes for Laurie seems so sad ... I'm almost sure that the majority of JT fanboys have not heard Laurie and have any idea who/what she is ... and yeah, she may be "strange" and "weird" but when it comes to literature and intelligence in concert and what she did with Mr. Nekkid Lunch ... I end up thinking that she is much more cool, than we give her credit ... and then later marrying Lou Reed ... now that is a strange breed/mix for me as Lou was as anti-literature as anyone I have ever met!

Laurie continued doing her shows for many years, and they were impressive to say the least, specially considering how little help she got for equipment and staging until much later when she didn't need it and didn't want it!

In terms of inner perspective, I would say that Laurie is the most important of them all. Jon and Ian might be the most famous, but they are both very vain and sometimes really full of it, and you can tell that they can not live without the dei-fication of their well known stage personna and egos.

Right ... give just as many folks listening to JT to sit and listen to Laurie and watch the numbers change ... then we can re-consider the pomposity of your comment. I simply do not think that someone whose ego is so vastly made by their fame, as is the case in both those Andesons, that they are as important and have that much to say, which is more important than otherwise, specially on a literary/musical basis. 

I'll go listen to Horslips instead of Ian or Jon ... much more satisfying! AND, above all ... much more honest!

Well I took it from the site and I rather agree with it other than Olias of Sunhillow which is a prog masterpiece for sure...

moshkito wrote: Right ... give just as many folks listening to JT to sit and listen to Laurie and watch the numbers change ... then we can re-consider the pomposity of your comment. I simply do not think that someone whose ego is so vastly made by their fame, as is the case in both those Andesons, that they are as important and have that much to say, which is more important than otherwise, specially on a literary/musical basis.

Laurie Anderson's first album came out in 1982. She's had 36 years to make an impact and simply hasn't. Oh look, Laurie Anderson has released another experimental album playing a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. Gosh, I am sure it's spellbinding. Maybe on this one she'll have a small army of dwarves painted like Andy Warhol's soup cans marching across the stage reciting excerpts from Melville's Moby Dick. It will be so avant-garde that she plays a single note - a D minor because it's such a melancholy chord - over and over, through the entire show. Yawn. 

Also, in your flights of arrogantly deluded grandeur, the remnant of a failed writing career and whatever psychotropic drugs you were inhaling in the 60s, you ignore the fact that most of the folks on this site, Prog-archives by name, have heard Laurie Anderson, and do not put her in the same league as Ian Anderson/Jethro Tull or Jon Anderson/Yes. And by a sizable margin. As far as ego, you have a permanent spot on the Sigmund Freud "My ego is so swollen, it ate my Id" Hall of Fame.

moshkito wrote: I'll go listen to Horslips instead of Ian or Jon ... much more satisfying! AND, above all ... much more honest!

I'm not quite sure how one defines "honesty" in music. Does that require more than half of a band's catalog to be out of print? If so, then yes, Horslips is certainly honest. Their first two albums were quite good, but then they just sort of went to hell, didn't they. But hey, thanks for your opinion -- as divorced from reality as it is.

And the other guys? Both Andersons of fame almost 50 or more? And all they show for it these days is not a humble artistry and effort ... is a bunch of psycho-pathetic over eager fans that can not let go of their favorite songs!

The Dark Elf wrote: ... Oh look, Laurie Anderson has released another experimental album playing a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. Gosh, I am sure it's spellbinding. Maybe on this one she'll have a small army of dwarves painted like Andy Warhol's soup cans marching across the stage reciting excerpts from Melville's Moby Dick. It will be so avant-garde that she plays a single note - a D minor because it's such a melancholy chord - over and over, through the entire show. Yawn.  ...

The Dark Elf wrote: ...Also, in your flights of arrogantly deluded grandeur, the remnant of a failed writing career and whatever psychotropic drugs you were inhaling in the 60s ... ...

Unlike your middle class American desire for fame, and fortune, I am already the son of a very well known writer in Portuguese Literature (not exactly Detroit rap!), and having seen what it took ... in every house and every country there is one God and the children are made STRICTLY to go fight in the wars ... PERIOD!

I have no interest whatsoever, in fame and fortune, or some kind of this or that title, or being considered one of the whatevers at PA. It's just one voice, and you have the option of not listening to it, or reading into it, however, you continue to show the same side as the social patterns and norm ... that fame is the mother of all poop!

I wouldn't pay to see either Anderson, and waste gas on the way. Their days of value are long gone, and they sound old and tired to me. And I haven't. Because I would rather see other things that are far better, and more representative of "progressive", than stuff that is no longer even a smudge of what the definitions are these days!

It's comments like this that cause other posters to question your sanity. Where in god's name do you think that somehow Laurie Anderson somehow displays "humble artistry" and either Ian or Jon do not? Because they've been at it for 50 and Laurie is going on near 40 years? And because people prefer Yes or Jethro Tull music over Laurie Anderson's, they are somehow "psycho-pathetic"? Who exactly do you think you are to make such an asinine statement? It's rather like saying if people prefer Bach to Stravinsky, the Bach fans are pathetic because Johann was around a couple centuries longer than Igor. Johann is so Baroque!

moshkito wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: ... Oh look, Laurie Anderson has released another experimental album playing a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. Gosh, I am sure it's spellbinding. Maybe on this one she'll have a small army of dwarves painted like Andy Warhol's soup cans marching across the stage reciting excerpts from Melville's Moby Dick. It will be so avant-garde that she plays a single note - a D minor because it's such a melancholy chord - over and over, through the entire show. Yawn.  ... Oh, I'm sure that a lot of metal, prog and Ian's material is much more exciting to my loins, hoping to regain a reasonable erection just like the old days! For your delectation, and dishonest comment, I gave up drugs way back when, at the time that some of my favorite musicians died from it. And then a California politician said ... let them smoke dope and I will win all the elections ... so if you think that this supposedly over sized something or other (I'm not, just about 20 pounds over!), is over done, it wasn't the drugs ... it was the music, the arts, the movies, the literature and a lot of other stuff that you do not seem to show respect for. That does not mean that what Laurie just did recently is better or worse, but maybe a throw back to the Andy Warhol days (I hated them!!!!!) that had a camera turned on for lots of minutes while 2 people slept! That kinda told me, what the real art was all about, and a lot of "prog", "progressive" and some of the running comments by many folks, are ALMOST the exact same thing. Copycat and cookie cutter comments, and then you detest mine which are not cookie cutter and are not copycat. AND, unlike many of the comments, yours included, I explain mine. You don't!

moshkito wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: ...Also, in your flights of arrogantly deluded grandeur, the remnant of a failed writing career and whatever psychotropic drugs you were inhaling in the 60s ... ... Unlike your middle class American desire for fame, and fortune, I am already the son of a very well known writer in Portuguese Literature (not exactly Detroit rap!), and having seen what it took ... in every house and every country there is one God and the children are made STRICTLY to go fight in the wars ... PERIOD!

Evidently, talent skips a generation among the Portuguese. Either that, or you are simply the Eric Trump of Portuguese poetry. Your reference to "middle-class Americans" merely proves my point that you are pretentious windbag full of flatulent pomposity.

Get your finger out of your ear, Jon! 

Speaking of Jon.  I am cruising through 1994 and this one just came up.  

Still blown away by Olias of Sunhillow.  He has never been able to top that one. 

Well, I haven't been in any bar fights since the late 1990s. May I use my SIG Sauer P320?

I learned a long time ago, working with actors, that these doors are not set in stone, and are not designed by anyone, and do not have a history of its own, and neither do they have dragons to scare you.

The rest is all about your ability to concentrate and work your own doors of perception, so you know what and how you have to do something or other. There is no road map, or instructions that really help ... just someone that can help you "bring out" these intuitive moments and then work them on a stage.

If you really want to "learn" something about intuition and the CARE and ATTENTION required for it, check out "THE TIGHTROPE" about Peter Brook's group in Paris, and one of the exercises that he creates for his troupe so they can teach themselves concentration and develop that intuitive force ... something that the majority of actors, singers and musicians, replace with a slick trick or look, and make us think that it is far out and neat, when it is just the camera angle and the color scrim in the background ... the rest is easy ... it's not about me ... it's about you, since you have to be comfortable on the stage in order to do a better job in selling your characterization and singing, or performance. 

This is the main reason, why, for me, many times, someone like Ian, or Jon, since his last wonderful piece of work that showed his true colors instead of fame, are not that valuable or important to me at all ... Peter Hammill and Kate Bush are far better "actors" with their words, and I like to consider them the Gielgud level of work ... but for me, this is hard to describe in a rock music forum where most of the discussions are about their "favorites" and most folks don't even know, or understand, why they like the folks they do. That is called, in other circles, "blind faith", and it is not the magical or artistic way to develop and take your art too far ... maybe a couple of gold nuggets here and there, but it all ends there ... in person, their "gold" is long gone and vanished sometimes.

When you are ready for a detailed discussion, let me know ... and this is what my posts, for the most part, aside from a couple of little errors now and then in stating them, are about ... an attempt at getting at the "truth" of it all ... and some lyrics, simply do not have that truth for me, or anyone ... it's imaginary, and as much as I like fantasy (cartoon like mostly!), in general, to me, that is highly frustrating and meaningless in the end.

As Jim Morrison, would scream ... "WAKE UP ... has this dream ended?"

It never ends for me, and is what I live for!