HAPPY THE MAN

Being a prog fan (like the label "prog" really existed then!) in the D.C. area at this time. I really thought these guys were just a bunch of Yes, Genesis, King Crimson wanna be's. And guess what? I was right! As far as I was concerned, Kit's keyboards were only thing worth listening to. At least he was current with the jazz-fusion styles going on at the time and not trying to be a Rick Wakeman/Keith Emerson clone. I remember being a drummer, everybody kept telling me "Hey! You need to checkout this guy Mike Beck! He's got percussion instruments hanging all around him!" So when I saw them at my high-school, I just went "So what?!" He hardly used any of his instruments! Palmer, Bruford and even Peart at the time were way ahead of this guy! Thank God at least later they got smart and got Cocco (a drummer I knew and respected then, and certainly blew the skins off Beck) to help out. But unfortunately they crumbled during their peak with him. Oh well. During this early stage with them, they were sort of a joke as far as I was concerned. But they did evolve in the right direction. They got more jazzier and improvisational as they went along. I look at these guys in a sad way. Very talented, but very prentious and very unoriginal. What I call the fusion group that just got away. Again, Oh well.