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PROTO-PROG

A Progressive Rock Sub-genre


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Proto-Prog definition

The denomination Proto Prog comes from the combination of two words, Proto from the Greek The earliest,. and Prog which as we know is a short term for Progressive Rock, so as it's name clearly indicates, refers to the earliest form of Progressive Rock or Progressive Rock in embryonary state.

These bands normally were formed and released albums before Progressive Rock had completely developed (there are some rare Proto Prog bands from the early 70's, because the genre didn't expanded to all the Continents simultaneously

The common elements in all these bands is that they developed one or more elements of Prog, and even when not completely defined as part of the genre, they are without any doubt, an important stage in the evolution of Progressive Rock.

Generally, Proto Prog bands are the direct link between Psyche and Prog and for that reason the Psychedelic components are present in the vast majority of them, but being that Progressive Rock was born from the blending of different genres, we have broadened the definition to cover any band that combined some elements of Progressive Rock with other genres prior to 1970.

Some of these bands evolved and turned into 100% Prog, while others simply choose another path, but their importance and contribution in the formative period of Prog can't be denied, for that reason no Prog site can ignore them.

Iván Melgar - Morey

Proto-Prog Top Albums


Showing only studios | Based on members ratings & PA algorithm* | Show Top 100 Proto-Prog | More Top Prog lists and filters

4.49 | 1231 ratings
ABBEY ROAD
Beatles, The
4.50 | 719 ratings
QUADROPHENIA
Who, The
4.36 | 1390 ratings
DEEP PURPLE IN ROCK
Deep Purple
4.38 | 1141 ratings
REVOLVER
Beatles, The
4.35 | 1393 ratings
MACHINE HEAD
Deep Purple
4.35 | 1272 ratings
SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND
Beatles, The
4.43 | 725 ratings
WHO'S NEXT
Who, The
4.33 | 836 ratings
THE DOORS
Doors, The
4.25 | 649 ratings
STRANGE DAYS
Doors, The
4.27 | 535 ratings
THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE: ARE YOU EXPERIENCED
Hendrix, Jimi
4.17 | 921 ratings
MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR
Beatles, The
4.16 | 1016 ratings
THE BEATLES [AKA: THE WHITE ALBUM]
Beatles, The
4.09 | 478 ratings
THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE: ELECTRIC LADYLAND
Hendrix, Jimi
3.98 | 913 ratings
RUBBER SOUL
Beatles, The
4.01 | 686 ratings
TOMMY
Who, The
3.99 | 608 ratings
L.A. WOMAN
Doors, The
4.03 | 384 ratings
THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE: AXIS - BOLD AS LOVE
Hendrix, Jimi
3.88 | 958 ratings
BURN
Deep Purple
4.14 | 218 ratings
TWELVE DREAMS OF DR. SARDONICUS
Spirit
4.06 | 236 ratings
THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN
Brown Band, The Arthur
3.93 | 394 ratings
NOW WHAT?!
Deep Purple

Latest Proto-Prog Music Reviews


 Strange Kind Of Woman/I'm Alone by DEEP PURPLE album cover Singles/EPs/Fan Club/Promo, 1971
4.08 | 26 ratings

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Strange Kind Of Woman/I'm Alone
Deep Purple Proto-Prog

Review by ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer

4 stars Their record company was keen on the money they could generate with Purple. That's why you couldn't have "Black Night" on "In Rock".

"Strange King of Woman" is the same story. This song will have a HUGE version on "Made In Japan". With a fantastic "call & response" between Ritchie & Ian. So close to the departure of the former. Blackmore was unbearable to Gillan and force to quit soon after their MIJ tour (which I witnessed in Brussels in March 73. I was 14.

And in December, I will see one of the first appearance of Mark III. Same place. But not as crowded than their previous show in March.

It was really overcrowded. Such a concert could NEVER take by now because of so many risks taken..

A similarity with "Black Night", is that the B-side (I'm Alone") is also a very good, powerful and energetic song.

A solid 4* for this excellent single.

 Shazam by MOVE, THE album cover Studio Album, 1970
3.65 | 70 ratings

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Shazam
The Move Proto-Prog

Review by Lobster77

4 stars This album has some really fantastic moments when it flirts with other genres, like the rising proto-metal opening riff of "Hello Susie", the classically influenced, quasi-Genesis-esque second half of "Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited" and the sublime raga rock that overtakes the final few minutes of "Fields of People" (which bears a slight resemblance to the coda of "Baba O'Riley" to my ears). I also like the idea of the little snatches of conversation that punctuate the album, since they give the album a semblance of self-awareness that differentiates it from how most progressive rock bands of this era approached their music. All that said, there's just not quite goodness here for me to consider it a classic - more specifically, there are two real clunkers here in the form of "Beautiful Daughter", which is half as long as the second shortest song here yet somehow feels longer than every other song except the disc's other misfire, the shambling blues of "Don't Make My Baby Blue", which at times sounds like the vocals were imported from a completely different song.

4.0

 Move by MOVE, THE album cover Studio Album, 1968
3.21 | 42 ratings

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Move
The Move Proto-Prog

Review by Lobster77

3 stars The Move are well known for having had Jeff Lynne in their ranks but he would not join the band until after their second album. In fact, they would get considerably heavier and more rock oriented moving forward, which I wouldn't expect from Mr. Lynne due to his more pop oriented work with ELO after he left The Move. Anyway, this is good. I find it to be slightly overrated though, especially considering the people who have decided to call this a lost psych pop classic. It is mostly in a pop/rock vein with some psych and baroque influences, especially in the B-side. The A-side is decidedly less psychedelic and sounds a lot more like beat music to my ears, a sound that was about 2 years past it's sell by date at this point. Some of the A-side reminds me of what the Who were doing in 66/67. Anyway, I like most of this but I think it would be woeful to call this a psych pop masterpiece.
 Perfect Strangers by DEEP PURPLE album cover Studio Album, 1984
3.55 | 696 ratings

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Perfect Strangers
Deep Purple Proto-Prog

Review by Hector Enrique
Prog Reviewer

4 stars As fate would have it, the members of Deep Purple's famous Mark II, immersed and scattered in different projects (Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover with Rainbow, Jon Lord with Whitesnake, Ian Gillan with his solo project and the failed attempt of 'Born Again' with Black Sabbath, and Ian Paice with Gary Moore's band), agreed that it was time to iron out their differences and give a second life to the band's most emblematic line-up. And what seemed impossible happened eleven years after 1973's "Who Do We Think We Are", the last joint work, with the release of "Perfect Strangers" (1984), the Englishmen's eleventh album.

A proposal that, although it no longer has the power and carefree nature of musicians with more than a decade of experience behind them, follows a balanced and well-balanced line, in which two of the singles that supported its release stand out: the intriguing and lascivious "Knocking At Your Back Door" with the tense introductory atmosphere that Lord creates with his Hammonds, and the thick and mysterious half-time of the orientalised "Perfect Strangers" and its nods to Zeppelin's 'Kashmir'; and the melancholic power ballad "Wasted Sunsets" with Blackmore's hurtful guitar solo and Gillan's best vocal performance on the album.

The rest of the songs, oriented towards an agile hard rock adapted to the demands of the convulsive and changing decade of the eighties, maintain a very good level, in which the sound base built from Glover's bass and Paice's spirited drums full of cymbals sustain the riffs and guitar solos that Blackmore intersperses with Lord's arresting keyboard playing on the lively "Under the Gun", "Nobody's Home", "Mean Streak" and "A Gypsy's Kiss".

Finally, "Hungry Daze", with its dancing riffs of Arabic airs and an experimental sci-fi interlude, provides the differentiating touch to an album as unexpected as it was celebrated, which reached fifth place in the UK and seventeenth in the US charts and revived Deep Purple's career.

P.S. The remastered 1999 version includes "Not Responsible" and Blackmore's very interesting and extended experimental jam "Son of Alerik" (B-side of the single 'Perfect Strangers'), which is well worth a listen.

3.5/4 stars

 Come Taste the Band by DEEP PURPLE album cover Studio Album, 1975
3.24 | 599 ratings

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Come Taste the Band
Deep Purple Proto-Prog

Review by Hector Enrique
Prog Reviewer

4 stars The departure of Ian Gillan and Roger Glover in 1973 had struck at the inner core of Deep Purple, and when Ritchie Blackmore also stepped aside after the release of "Stormbringer" to form Rainbow, it looked like the end of the band. However, the surviving members decide that there are still more battles to fight, and they call upon the talented Tommy Bolin, an overflowing and overwrought American guitarist, who at only 24 years of age gets involved in the new and risky adventure of the English band, "Come Taste the Band" (1975), Deep Purple's tenth album and the only one of the Mark IV.

An injection of vitality is what Bolin brings with him to a very tired band at that time, differentiating himself from Blackmore's corrosive and toxic guitar playing for more versatile and uninhibited ones, as in the explosive "Comin' Home", in the aggressive "Dealer" (great slide guitar) and "Drifter", and in the Zeppelin-like "Love Child", songs full of refreshing hard rock where the young guitarist displays his virtuosity in a carefree way, and shows a surprising point of maturity in the powerful "You Keep On Moving" accompanied by the melancholic hammonds of a Jon Lord, strangely relegated, and the marked bass of Glen Hughes in an apt duet singing with David Coverdale, surely the best song on the album.

On the other hand, the influences that Hughes and Coverdale shared from long ago, are manifested in the extremely funky "Gettin' Tighter", in the motown sonorities of "I Need Love", and in the soul of "This Time Around", songs that, in spite of having a solvent performance by the band and an excellent production work, move away from the characteristic sound of the glorious Purplelian hours.

And precisely because of that and the reluctance to accept a guitarist different from the iconic 'man in black', "Come Taste the Band" failed to transcend and faded away, undeservedly in my opinion, amidst fan disinterest. Discouraged, the band split up in mid-1976 and sadly, towards the end of the same year, Bolin died under the effects of an overdose of drugs and alcohol.

Deep Purple thus enters a long and uncertain hiatus, only interrupted in 1984 with the reunion of Mark II for "Perfect Strangers".

3.5 stars

 Last Concert in Japan by DEEP PURPLE album cover Live, 1977
2.16 | 90 ratings

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Last Concert in Japan
Deep Purple Proto-Prog

Review by A Crimson Mellotron
Prog Reviewer

2 stars The dedication to Tommy Bolin does not, unfortunately, change the fact that 'Last Concert in Japan' is one of the weakest releases of the entire Deep Puprle canon, a 1977 live album capturing the last gig of the Mark IV lineup in Tokyo, is a muddy recording that does not really present any of the appeal of this particular iteration of the band, and if their then-last studio album had been a fine exercise in funk-rocking, this live release seems to have almost nothing to do with 'Come Taste the Band', the album supposedly supported on that tour. The final product here is a dreadful recording of an obviously poor concert, with Bolin virtually missing, his playing is by far one of the most abysmal guitar recording to have ever appeared on a Purple album, with Glenn Hughes later claiming that the band's axe-man had been "out of shape" that very evening, confirmed by the really bad recording. He is, of course, covered up excellently by Jon Lord, who seems to steal the show in Tokyo, even getting a solo spot that goes under the name of 'Woman from Tokyo' on the official tracklist.

And this is where the other major source of confusion comes from as half the selected setlist is made up of songs that were not recorded by this lineup of the band. The hefty but unsuccessful trials of 'Smoke on the Water' (which is relatively acceptable here) and the really tasteless playthrough of 'Highway Star' prove why such recordings should not have been included on the live album. Below-par performances of other classic tracks recorded by the MKIII lineup grace the setlist, like 'Burn' and 'You Keep On Moving', while Bolin even gets to play a song off of one of his solo albums, completely irrelevant here. The only decent recordings seem to be the ones of 'Love Child' and 'Lady Luck', quite expectedly. Just a very poor and confusing live album, far off the excellence and liveliness of 'Made in Europe', for example, released some years prior; perhaps this project should have been abandoned by Deep Purple as it hardly serves them any favour in documenting them as a solid and exciting live force.

 Deep Purple by DEEP PURPLE album cover Studio Album, 1969
3.65 | 730 ratings

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Deep Purple
Deep Purple Proto-Prog

Review by Lobster77

5 stars The third and final album from Deep Purple mark 1 lineup was different from the first two in that it was virtually all original material. The only cover being a slow Donovan track Lalena. The original material had a more progressive rock feel as on Taliesyn than the poppy sound of Shades. The opening cut Chasing Shadows is a Lord/Paice composition and not only showcases Ian Paice's undoubted claims to be one of rocks premier drummers but also makes you wonder why Jon Lord never contibuted more to the lyric writing department. The second track Blind, a Lord solo composition, adds strength to this argument and is in my opinion hugely underrated. Why Didn't Rosemary is quite possibly Rod Evans finest contribution to Purple with both interesting lyrics and a good delivery. Bird Has Flown is another interesting composition, a different version was recorded as a B side and is possibly better than the album version. There is also a version with an Ian Gillan vocal recorded sometime later which is also worth tracking down. The main cut on the album though is the epic closer April. A spectacular rock opera track with orchestra and a particularly pleasing vocal it serves as a perfect appetiser to the Concerto.

During the recording of this album Blackmore/Lord and Paice decided that Rod Evans was struggling with the heavier material and needed replacing. Nick Simper too was declared surplus to requirements and they were subsequently replaced by Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, thus giving birth to one of the greatest ever band in the history of rock. In fact Gillan and Glover were already on board before this album was officially released in the UK.

Rod Evans is often given a bit of a rough deal by fans and press alike presumably because of the so called Deep Purple scam of 1980. However, it is worth pointing out that he was a vital member of the legend that is Deep Purple and his part in the building of that legend should not be forgotten. The early success of Hush in US was due more to his 60's pop crooner delivery than the musical talents of Blackmore and Lord. Without that early success there is no guarantee that Blackmore/Lord/paice would have stuck at it through three commercially unsuccessful albums. It was unfortunate for Evans that whilst Blackmore Lord and Paice were waiting to embrace the heavier sound with open arms he was much more at home with the soon to be outdated sixties sound. It is somewhat ironic that his final Purple album was probably his best individual performance and that his next musical project "Captain Beyond" is still regarded by many as a prog classic. The same can be said of Simper and "Warhorse". With regard to the 80's scam looking back at it now it is difficult to see what the fuss was about. He was after all an original member of the band and there was no other Deep Purple around at the time. I am being purely mischevious here but you would think that a good lawyer would be able to argue that there is as much validity in a Deep Purple which features Rod Evans as the only original member as one which features only Ian Paice from the original line up. As if that would ever happen...

4.99

 Deep Purple by DEEP PURPLE album cover Studio Album, 1969
3.65 | 730 ratings

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Deep Purple
Deep Purple Proto-Prog

Review by Hector Enrique
Prog Reviewer

4 stars Using as cover a section of the triptych painted in oil on boards "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch of the XV century, Deep Purple published in the epilogue of the sixties the last chapter of the trilogy that marked the point and apart of their first stage, simply titled "Deep Purple" (1969).

An album that maintains that explorer and psychedelic spirit sprinkled with traces of classical music of its predecessor "The Book of Taliesyn", in themes that include African percussive elements by the hand of Ian Paice in the tribal "Chasing Shadows", Jon Lord's warm harpsichord notes on the baroque "Blind", Rod Evans' Greg Lake-esque Crimsonian singing on the delicate cover of the Scottish Donovan "Lalena", and schizoid studio tricks using reverse tapes on the brief instrumental "Fault Line"; and also shows Ritchie Blackmore very involved in the composition with a rich display of riffs and distorted guitar solos interspersed with Lord's hammonds, especially in the funky "The Painter", in the bluesy "Why Didn't Rosemary? " (with an alternative thematic approach to Roman Polasky's creepy film "The Rosemary's Baby"), and in the thick, lingering cadence of the narcotized "The Bird Has Flown".

And if there is a song that could summarize the first stage of the band, that would be the mini-suite "April": the interest in experimental atmospheres in the medieval and beautiful introduction of church organs and acoustic guitars, Lord's persistent concern for incorporating classical components with the arrangement of violins in between, and the incipient hard rock still to take off that appeared in the final stretch of the long track.

Given the scarce commercial repercussion of the album and convinced that the band would not have much more future in the cloudy paths of psychedelia and sixties sonorities, Blackmore and Lord then incorporated Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, dispensing with Rod Evans and Nick Simper in the search of hardening their sound, more in accordance with the powerful style piloted by the overwhelming Led Zeppelin. Thus ended the appreciable formative stage of Deep Purple.

3.5/4 stars

 The Book of Taliesyn by DEEP PURPLE album cover Studio Album, 1968
3.22 | 634 ratings

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The Book of Taliesyn
Deep Purple Proto-Prog

Review by Hector Enrique
Prog Reviewer

3 stars "The Book of Taliesyn" (1968), a title whose origin comes from a medieval manuscript attributed to the Welsh poet Taliesyn (6th century), is the second chapter of Deep Purple's formative trilogy, and where, despite its still very rudimentary production, the great potential of the duo Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord, protagonists of this work, can be glimpsed, after the primitive and agitated pounding rock of "Listen, Learn, Read On", spirited and generous virtuoso displays as in the instrumental "Wring That Neck", a combination of jazz and blues marked by the incontinent interplay of guitars and keyboards, and replicated in the middle section in the country pop of the festive cover of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman".

On the other hand, "The Book of Taliesyn" also has an important experimental component taken from the psychedelic sixties aesthetics, in tracks like "Exposition", the hyperventilating instrumental intro of the interesting adaptation of the Beatles' classic "We Can Work It Out", in the intriguing "Shield" with Ian Paice incorporating percussive world music sounds, and ventures even further combining it with baroque renaissance elements so admired by Lord who explores with mellotrons, church organs and a violin arrangement in the relaxed "Anthem", and where the robust voice of Rod Evans hits with an Elvis-style imposition, surely the best and most progressive track of the album.

And the cover composed by Phil Spector, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich for Ike & Tina Turner, "River Deep, Mountain High", is the band's excuse to indulge in another experimental lysergic dalliance based on a tenebrous wind blowing and with some nods to The Doors, concluding an album that has few intersections with Deep Purple's seventies works, but is nonetheless extremely interesting.

3/3.5 stars

 Deep Purple in Rock by DEEP PURPLE album cover Studio Album, 1970
4.36 | 1390 ratings

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Deep Purple in Rock
Deep Purple Proto-Prog

Review by Lobster77

5 stars This may be Deep Purple's greatest album, and if not it still certainly has their masterpiece on it: the brilliant epic Child in Time, a ten-minute musical journey featuring my favorite guitar solo of all time. Blackmore plays with such emotion on this track, not to mention speed and technicality, it just amazes me. Gillan's vocals are so awe-inspiring it is hard to believe. It is not natural how well he sings here. The dueling guitar/organ solo in Speed King is quite fine too. My second favorite track, however, would have to be Hard Lovin' Man, which also includes a brilliant solo by Blackmore.

Rightfully proclaimed one of the first true heavy metal albums, In Rock is one heavy mother. Blackmore moves to the front of the mix, while Lord creeps further below (but still with a strong presence). Let us not forget Gillan's first (and one of his best) appearances. Another must get.

All in all, one of the greatest hard rock albums of all times. It is a landmark of rock 'n roll music. 5.0

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Proto-Prog bands/artists list

Bands/Artists Country
ANDROMEDA United Kingdom
APPALOOSA United States
BAKERLOO United Kingdom
THE BEATLES United Kingdom
BRAINBOX Netherlands
THE ARTHUR BROWN BAND United Kingdom
THE COLLECTORS Canada
COVEN United States
THE CROME SYRCUS United States
DEEP PURPLE United Kingdom
THE DOORS United States
EARTH OPERA United States
THE ECLECTIC MOUSE United States
FLAMING YOUTH United Kingdom
FORD THEATRE United States
GATTCH Slovakia
GILES GILES & FRIPP United Kingdom
THE GODS United Kingdom
THE GUN United Kingdom
H.P. LOVECRAFT United States
HANSSON & KARLSSON Sweden
HAPSHASH AND THE COLOURED COAT United Kingdom
JIMI HENDRIX United States
IRON BUTTERFLY United States
IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY United States
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE United States
KALEIDOSCOPE United Kingdom
LES MALEDICTUS SOUND France
MÁQUINA! Spain
THE MASTERS APPRENTICES Australia
THE MOVE United Kingdom
NIRVANA United Kingdom
PAN & REGALIZ Spain
PÄRSON SOUND Sweden
THE PRETTY THINGS United Kingdom
QUIET WORLD United Kingdom
SALAMANDER United Kingdom
THE SHIVER Switzerland
SILVER APPLES United States
SPIRIT United States
SPOOKY TOOTH United Kingdom
SWEETWATER United States
TOMORROW United Kingdom
TOUCH United States
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA United States
VANILLA FUDGE United States
THE WHO United Kingdom

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