I don't see The Beatles as being a prog band, or any other type of genre; they are one of only a handful of artists that you just cannot pigeonhole at all, IMHO, as their musical breadth was so great in such a short space of time (Frank Zappa is another that springs to mind, but he made far more recordings anyway over a far greater time-span). What I think they did do (that Phil Collins quote is pretty accurate, IMHO) was to open their ears to other types of music beyond the standard blues/soul/R & B bedrock of pop/rock music of that time (what Edward Macan and Bill Martin often refer to as 'the blues orthodoxy'), so an album like 'Rubber Soul' which remains an extremely varied album now, must have been a revelation back then, IMHO. But the creation of progressive rock as an entity is part of a much broader movement than to pin it on one band, IMHO.
The Who's 'A Quick One While He's Away' is very noteworthy, as Certif1ed has already pointed out. Whilst its actually short compared to, say, a track like The Rolling Stones' 'Goin' Home' and Love's 'Revolution'- lengthy pieces recorded around that period- unlike those tracks, it does have a structure rather than a 'jam'/improvisational feel. It almost seems to have been conceived as a joke/filler- Pete Townshend has related the story of how that particular album had around 7 minutes left to fill on it and (I think) Kit Lambert told him to write one long track made up of several short songs linked together.
That obviously had an impact on Townshend, who seemed besotted with the concept of the 'rock opera', expanding it onto full (often double) albums thereafter with 'Tommy', the 'Lifehouse' project (that was unfinished at the time but parts of it made it onto 'Who's Next' and in later years Townshend did return to it), 'Quadrophenia' and even last year's 'Wire And Glass' project (not one I found to be very successful, really...). Whilst I'd dispute the claim that The Who invented the rock opera, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that they popularised it- certainly earlier albums like The Pretty Things' 'SF Sorrow' and Nirvana's 'The Story Of Simon Simopath' barely made a ripple in commercial terms compared to The Who's opuses. From there, you can link through to the subsequent conceptual adventures of many a prog/rock act, IMHO.
I'd nominate Procol Harum's 'In Held 'Twas In I' as being crucial too- in 1968 when this was recorded, it was years ahead of the game, IMHO. It went one step further than 'A Quick One...' being much longer and even more intricate yet it has some of the same characteristics. This predates the second side of 'Abbey Road' (as wonderful as that is...'Abbey Road' would be one of my desert island discs, no question about it). Genesis' 'Supper's Ready' is quite similar to this in many ways...but more of them later.
That whole UFO club scene of bands like Pink Floyd and Soft Machine (and Tomorrow with Steve Howe of Yes) went even further in terms of experimenting with the sounds of instruments. I find those Pink Floyd albums in that 1968-70 period fascinating; some of what's on them is superb and some of it is truly horrendous but you can hear a band striving for greatness that they would eventually achieve with 'Echoes', 'Dark Side Of The Moon' etc. Meanwhile, that Soft Machine CD 'Middle Earth Masters' has Mike Ratledge getting some unearthly sounds from his organ in a style I'd only heard around that time from Keith Emerson, who was probably less radical than Ratledge.
Nevertheless, The Nice perhaps most explicitly brought in classical music to rock; there had been novelties like that Kim Fowley-squired 'Nutrocker' (that ELP did as an encore in years to come) and the rock versions of stuff like 'Hall Of The Mountain King' but The Nice generally steered clear of novelty (IMHO) in their treatment of classical works and that goes onto Emerson, Lake And Palmer. Were ELP the first rock band to attempt a full-scale rock version of a classical piece, albeit with their own additions/alterations, with 'Pictures At An Exhibition'? Having said that, The Moody Blues' 'Days Of Future Passed' began life as a Decca-squired project to have them doing a rock version of Dvorak's 'New World Symphony', so the ideas had clearly been around for a while.
These direct attempts at 'classical/rock' crossover can't be ignored either, IMHO. I have reservations about this; far too few of them actually deliver, as you get the orchestra doing a fairly ponderous 'prelude'/'overture' then the band doing a bit then the orchestra... ad nauseam. See The Moody Blues' 'Days Of Future Passed', Deep Purple's 'Concerto For Group And Orchestra', The Nice's 'Five Bridges'...I've not heard many successful attempts at this- some live albums are actually quite enjoyable, like the Caravan one and the Procol Harum one. But I don't think this sort of thing works, frankly. The Beatles were a different matter because songs like 'Eleanor Rigby', 'A Day In The Life' etc. had orchestrations integrated into the music.
There was also the sort of 'deconstructing' of pop/musical standards that Vanilla Fudge were doing in America, and Yes in the UK. I did once read a quote from John Wetton where he theorised that it was from doing this that a lot of the prog bands cut their teeth; doing epic cover versions of other people's material and then realising that they could write their own material in the same manner. But this does, admittedly, tie to The Beatles in a sense- Yes certainly do, with their excellent cover of 'Every Little Thing' and Vanilla Fudge's melodramatic takes on 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'Ticket To Ride'.
Genesis seem a bit ostracised from this; I'd often felt that they are kind of outsiders from the scene in some ways as a lot of the major prog bands had been in the R & B/psychedelic scene for a while beforehand, but Genesis had not. Nevertheless, their 'From Genesis To Revelation' is an interesting period piece, orchestrations and all. I think it was Tony Banks, however, who acknowledged King Crimson's 'In The Court Of The Crimson King' as being the main influence in setting the tone for their own sound, and Anthony Phillips has also nodded to acts like Fairport Convention and Family as being hugely influential on their sound. 'Trespass' bears witness to that claim, IMHO. They also did that 'getting it together in the country' thing that (I think) Traffic had done before them....
I realise this post is an almighty ramble and I dare say there are some crass generalisations but it's a topic I do have much interest in. There was a thread about the British band Clouds a while back that really was fascinating where we covered a lot of the same ground.
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