Back to the OP's intent, "Can the early 70s prog sound be cloned nowadays?"  

HackettFan wrote: Svetonio wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: (...)   P.S. By the same pretzel logic, the genre "progressive rock" occurred between 1969-1979 exclusively by musicians from London and Canterbury (and perhaps Luton) because they and only they had direct access to the European classical/folk motifs and middle/upper class British snobbery with the intent to strip rock of its blues background and graft this European classicism onto it. Americans need not apply and anyone starting their performing careers past 1980 ain't prog. Sorry, find another name. I couldn't agree more. British were invented Symphonic rock as a sub-genre of Progressive rock as well; that was really great and only a madman can deny that, but Progressive rock was invented by Frank Zappa with Freak Out! the album i.e. the Progressive rock was invented in America; it's just a fact of the history of rock'n'roll. p.s. Btw, as there are some people who will say that Freak Out! is "not prog", I can only to remind them of that bullsh*t dilemma whether the symph rock is really prog or not because it relies on Classical music. (...) I agree with the fundamental historical assessment, but it's more a philosophical issue, really.  (...)

LOL If something is a historical fact, as it is the case with the Mothers of Invention's debut album which is the first Progressive rock album ever and without a question, that can not be a "philosophical issue" at the same time.

Edited by Svetonio - February 26 2015 at 18:16

Svetonio wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: (...)   P.S. By the same pretzel logic, the genre "progressive rock" occurred between 1969-1979 exclusively by musicians from London and Canterbury (and perhaps Luton) because they and only they had direct access to the European classical/folk motifs and middle/upper class British snobbery with the intent to strip rock of its blues background and graft this European classicism onto it. Americans need not apply and anyone starting their performing careers past 1980 ain't prog. Sorry, find another name. I couldn't agree more. British were invented Symphonic rock as a sub-genre of Progressive rock as well; that was really great and only a madman can deny that, but Progressive rock was invented by Frank Zappa with Freak Out! the album i.e. the Progressive rock was invented in America; it's just a fact of the history of rock'n'roll. p.s. Btw, as there are some people who will say that Freak Out! is "not prog", I can only to remind them of that bullsh*t dilemma whether the symph rock is really prog or not because it relies on Classical music.

Yep, I, for one, didn't call Zappa Prog until I came to PA. I've happily adapted, now Zappa is Avant/RIO and I'm happy with that. I agree with the fundamental historical assessment, but it's more a philosophical issue, really. It doesn't make too much sense in this context to identify Prog with a particular genre, Symphonic Prog, and then say, all Prog nowadays is copying the genre. Then if they are not copying the genre, are we to say, oh, they're doing something original yes, but it's not Prog.

I personally feel that the racial tension in the 60's and 70's was completely out of bounds and way, way off into left field with riots frequently when I went to high school. It was actually very moronic for anyone to even consider holding some grudge or having inner hatred for another human being based on the color of their skin. In the Blues..we have Hoodoo songs which are really interesting, but we also have songs about women. Songs that tell a story about how a man cannot see his woman because she has been taken away by a slave owner. The Blues is like the "old testament" written by this race of people. How appreciative I am for it's existence..even though they experienced pain and suffering more than we could ever realize, the Blues Master's music gained the interest of the British and they created all the INTERESTING Rock music as a result.British guitarists in particular had a way of phrasing and making sounds that many American guitarists in the 60's were baffled by ...or even the thought itself...and it became the ultimate experience for me. This was in the 60's and people in America were just beginning to understand George Harrison's guitar playing. In America...we had The Ventures, Chet Atkins, B.B. King, Mike Bloomfield, several other important players, but beyond that mention of names and their legacy, hardly anyone understood how something so original could suddenly appear and to be giving them a real challenge. Like when Eric Clapton first appeared in America on the front cover of the John Mayall's Bluesbreakers album...which that was like giving the local guitarists in town some fire to practice more, have a REAL reason to do it, and work feverishly at playing at least one song from the album and not caring about how long it would take for the process to be complete.

Supposedly Jimmy Page didn't credit the Blues masters on Led Zeppelin albums. I don't know enough about it, but have heard it through working musicians for years. I tend to believe that a minority of British musicians from the London Blues scene were like that and that the majority of them were sincere and respected the Blues masters for who they were. Keith Richards was insulted when he came to America and witnessed one of his heroes, Muddy Waters ...painting the ceiling of a recording studio. I can't possibly sum up the difference in the amount of people who were prejudice in the U.S. and England, but I do know that the British welcomed the Blues masters and I do know that in the 60's it felt like a majority of people in the U.S. were acting out discrimination towards the Black community. I recall an attitude in the Blues masters during the late 60's. It was sometimes obvious on films and recordings where a Blues master would be yelling at a British musician...for example..."No! No! No!..that's not the way I play it!" "Always go to the top!" or Chuck Berry yelling at Keith Richards...."Don't touch my guitar!" "Don't go near my guitar!" "You're talkin" about playin" things right and you're not getting" this right!" "You need work!"...and then Eric Clapton or Keith Richards would be saying "Okay, your right mate" It seemed like a situation where the British were reaching out and the Blues masters were saying "It's a little too late now guys, we are in our 60's and 70's now." "We've been to hell and back and now you want to feed us candy" I don't know for sure, but it certainly seemed like that. Then there was B.B. King saying that no one gave him the chills like Peter Green...so it's difficult to say how a majority of them felt. Many of the Blues masters had health problems during the London Blues scene and couldn't tolerate much. I also remember traveling in the early 80's and seeing the Rock n' Roll king Chuck Berry walking in the venue and saying to the owner..."I want my four thousand now!" "Not after the show!" "Either pay me now, or I leave!"...so maybe the Blues masters and the Rock n' Rollers were hasty for reasons unknown to many of us. I also recall traveling the road and meeting British musicians who laughed at their own scene and stressed that I should be more into American music as if nothing else mattered. That was a big blow for me considering I grew up on the British Invasion and here were skilled British musicians traveling the U.S. making a joke out of The Beatles, Eric Clapton (Cream), and most of the stuff I worshipped. It was a letdown to be honest because at the time..I was bored with American music and found British Rock to be an escape for me. In the meantime, America..ironically didn't seem to accept Black music as much as the British overall. I traveled for 30 years and everytime I crossed paths with a British musician, they just simply didn't want to hear about the music of their country and were quite dismissive of it and further tried to persuade me to appreciate American music. Do you find that to be strange and awkward?  

The Dark Elf wrote: (...)   P.S. By the same pretzel logic, the genre "progressive rock" occurred between 1969-1979 exclusively by musicians from London and Canterbury (and perhaps Luton) because they and only they had direct access to the European classical/folk motifs and middle/upper class British snobbery with the intent to strip rock of its blues background and graft this European classicism onto it. Americans need not apply and anyone starting their performing careers past 1980 ain't prog. Sorry, find another name.

Edited by Svetonio - February 26 2015 at 04:28

M27Barney wrote: I have no problem with Steve Wilson sort-of capturing the 70's symphonic prog essence on "Raven" - the CD is excellent from start to finish. There is a helluva lot of elitism on this site, I would have to admit to TOTAL ignorance of American Blues , but so what? I do listen to main-stream classical music now and again - but I would welcome all prog act's getting in on the 70's retro gig if more music like "Raven" was produced!

cstack3 wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: P.S. By the same pretzel logic, the genre "progressive rock" occurred between 1969-1979 exclusively by musicians from London and Canterbury (and perhaps Luton) because they and only they had direct access to the European classical/folk motifs and middle/upper class British snobbery with the intent to strip rock of its blues background and graft this European classicism onto it. Americans need not apply and anyone starting their performing careers past 1980 ain't prog. Sorry, find another name. Exactly.   Why is it called "neo-prog" on PA?  I don't like the term "prog," neither did originators like Peter Banks and others.  John Wetton said it best: <span style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.0499992370605px;">Everyone who wants to be progressive, in inverted comas, want to use mellotrons, Marshall amps and Rickenbacker basses, you know, it's all back to 1973, which is hardly progressive. So it's very much regressive. But it seems that progressive has become a generic term for a style of music which involves time changes, classical moods... </span> <span style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.0499992370605px;"> </span> http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_John_Wetton_in_Big_Bang_Magazine Can't go back to the 1970s. Folks keep trying, but the energy and inspiration isn't there. Neither is the talent.

Yep!

Edited by Blacksword - February 25 2015 at 23:41

This is the blues.  The other guys, by and large, are posers.  

The Dark Elf wrote: cstack3 wrote: dr wu23 wrote: cstack3 wrote: Can the early 70s prog sound be cloned nowadays? Probably....wheel up a Mellotron, a Rickenbacker bass, some warbling lads singing harmony in counter-tenor, and let fly!  The same could be asked of "Can the original blues sound be cloned nowadays?" Living in Chicago, I am forced to tolerate any number of all-white, "cool blues" musicians who attempt to portray themselves as offering the "real deal."   F 'em.  I saw Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers in the early 1970s, when he played to a 100% white college age audience.  At one point, he shouted "Have you ever had the blues??"  All the white kids started to cheer and clap, and he snarled "You ain't NEVER had the blues!!"  I understood what he meant - the original blues musicians had to deal with alcoholism, drug addiction, VD, violence, robbery.....it was not an easy life.  To try to rip that off by strapping on a Stratocaster and playing "Sweet Home Chicago" is a bit repellant to me.  Same for early 70's prog.  We musicians can play something that sounds like it, but we aren't the British/German/Dutch children who were born right after WWII in ruined nations....nor do we have the same societal pressures such as revulsion over the Viet Nam war, potential nuclear annihilation etc.   I've written music and played it for people who said "You sound like Yes!" or "You sound like early Genesis," to which I might reply "You ain't NEVER had the prog!!"  I haven't, I've just been an outside observer.     Hmm......then I guess all the great blues that Clapton,  Beck, Page, Duane Allman,  Vaughan, and the rest played over the years is just so much bullsh*te.....back to the drawing board. Sorry, I don't consider that stuff "blues."  Blues was an art-form that was uniquely American, rooted in the post-slavery culture of the South and migration of blacks to the North in order to find economic and social freedom.   The Brits copied the blues, morphed them, even ripped them off wholesale, but it ain't the blues according to my playbook.  Blues-rock is more like it.   Sorry C., I'm going to have to say nonsense to your line of reasoning. By your logic, blues is a dead language, like Latin. It went on life-support by the mid-50s when R&B supplanted blues as the favorite genre among black listeners and died altogether by the 70s with the advent of funk.   But blues didn't die, and the master bluesmen who fell into obscurity before 1960 were saved by white American and Brit guitarists who worshipped the greats and revived their careers. Hundreds of careers. And to say that great and consummate white musicians like Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Johnny Winter, Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Ray Vaughan (all members of the Blues Hall of Fame, by the way) didn't play the blues is absolute bullsh*t. Johnny Winter and Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray and Albert King, Bonnie Raitt and Sippie Wallace -- these were familial relationships. You missed the boat on this one.   It was a new generation of bluesmen who revived the musical form and brought it to the pinnacle of popularity, and in the process saved a lot of musicians who might have died poor and forgotten. The new generation just didn't happen to be black, and actually blacks have nearly abandoned the genre, sadly, as they have jazz. Or did jazz end with John Coltrane?

Edited by cstack3 - February 25 2015 at 21:13