The Best Progressive Rock Albums of the 1970s

Gong, Hyde Park, London, 1974. By TimDuncan — Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3896819

I became a prog rock fan in the late 1970s during high school (as the genre was giving way to corporate AOR and then punk), then did progressive rock shows on two college radio stations in the early-mid 1980s.

This is a personal list. I’m sticking almost entirely to 1970s albums, plus a couple of essentials from 1969 and couple of live albums from that period that were released later. I’m also omitting two genres that some people include under prog: German electronics (e.g. Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk) and European jazz-rock fusion (e.g. Nucleus, Embryo, Area). Starred albums (*) aren’t available on Spotify at this writing but are available on CD or vinyl, and in some cases YouTube.

First start with the basics — the most essential albums from the British bands that defined the genre. No descriptions are necessary because these albums are covered so much elsewhere. And if I left something out it’s because I don’t like it as much as the ones I mentioned. (So, no Lamb, no Lizard, no Tales, no Tarkus, no Wall.) By all means check out these bands’ other albums.

• Yes: The Yes Album (71), Fragile (71), Close to the Edge (72), Relayer (74).
• Genesis: Nursery Cryme (71), Foxtrot (72), Selling England by the Pound (73), A Trick of the Tail (76).
• King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King (69), Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (73), Starless & Bible Black (74), Red (74), USA (75). The 72–74 incarnation with John Wetton and Bill Bruford was heavily into onstage improvisation, so other live albums from 72–74 such as The Night Watch (97) are also essential.
• Emerson Lake & Palmer (ELP): Emerson Lake & Palmer (70), Trilogy (72), Brain Salad Surgery (73).
• Pink Floyd: Ummagumma (69), Meddle (71), Dark Side of the Moon (73), Wish You Were Here (75), Animals (77). Floyd had great early albums in the 60s, too, of course.

Now here are some UK bands that aren’t as well known. First there is the so-called Canterbury Scene from the southeast of England, a lush family tree of bands spawned by a prep-school R&B band called the Wilde Flowers in the mid-60s. This is prog-rock with a lighter, more whimsical and absurdist touch:

• Soft Machine: Third (70), Bundles (75). The first Canterbury band to release a record. Two very different albums from different eras. The groundbreaking, enormously influential double-LP Third has a horn section and influences from John Coltrane and Terry Riley. Bundles is spacy fusion, the breakout album for liquid-lightning guitarist Allan Holdsworth. Soft Machine’s first two albums from the 1960s are also very different: psychedelic rock a la Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd, both highly recommended.
• Caravan: In the Land of Grey and Pink (71), Waterloo Lily (72)*, For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night (73)*. The other Ur-Canterbury band. Hippies-in-the-English-countryside music, the UK’s closest analog to the Grateful Dead. Grey and Pink features Richard Sinclair’s laconic, quintessentially English vocals and cousin David’s fuzztone organ. Waterloo Lily gets jazzier with keyboardist Steve Miller (no relation to the “Joker” guy). Plump includes a tune from Soft Machine’s Third album.
• Gong: Camembert Electrique (71), Flying Teapot (73)*, Angel’s Egg (73), You (74), Shamal (76). Zany absurdist space-hippie French/English band with its own mythology and commune, founded by ex-Soft Machine guitarist/vocalist Daevid Allen. Teapot, Egg, and You are known collectively as the Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy and feature lead guitarist Steve Hillage; the music progresses throughout, from the wacky psychedelia on Teapot to the epic space jams on You. Shamal was recorded after Allen left the band and sounds totally different but tasty in an eclectic-fusion sort of way.
• Egg: The Polite Force (71). Organ/bass/drums trio that sounds nothing whatsoever like ELP, featuring peripatetic keyboard player Dave Stewart (not to be confused with the Eurythmics guy). Adventurous yet cerebral and understated: the album-side epic is called simply “Long Piece № 3.”
• Khan: Space Shanty (72). Band led by guitarist/vocalist Steve Hillage (former student at the University of Kent in Canterbury, later of Gong) and Dave Stewart on keyboards. Prog meets heavy rock, the sound that Kansas would develop further in the U.S. a few years later. A little-known gem.
• Matching Mole: Matching Mole’s Little Red Record (72)*. The band’s name is a pun on the French for “Soft Machine.” Featuring Soft Machine drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt and future Hatfield and the North guitarist Phil Miller. Spacy and hedonistic. The missing link between Softs’ Third and…
• Hatfield and the North: Hatfield and the North (74), The Rotters Club (75), Hatwise Choice (2005). Canterbury “supergroup” with ex-members of Gong (drummer Pip Pyle), Matching Mole (guitarist Phil Miller), Egg & Khan (keyboard player Dave Stewart), and Caravan (bassist/vocalist Richard Sinclair). Quintessential Canterbury band, really captures the flavor of the genre. Idiosyncratic, cheeky, complex but not flashy, and ever so English. Rotters Club is possibly the ultimate Canterbury album. Hatwise Choice is a collection of live tracks from 1973–75 radio appearances and concerts, with much material that never appeared on either of the studio albums.
• National Health: National Health (78)*, Of Queues and Cures (78)*. Essentially a later edition of Hatfield and the North with different bass players, including John Greaves from Henry Cow. Jazzier, more compositionally sophisticated, distinctively brilliant.
• Bruford: Feels Good to Me (78), One of a Kind (79). After King Crimson broke up in ‘74, drummer extraordinaire Bill Bruford helped start National Health, where he met Dave Stewart (and left before Health’s first album to go on tour with Genesis). Here he leads a band with Stewart and guitarist Allan Holdsworth. Canterbury-style but more fusion-y. Feels Good features American avant-garde vocalist Annette Peacock.
• Robert Wyatt: Rock Bottom (74). The Soft Machine and Matching Mole luminary drummer/vocalist lost the use of his legs in a tragic accident; this unique and deeply personal album resulted and helped launch a distinguished, idiosyncratic solo career.
• Steve Hillage: Fish Rising (75), L (76), Rainbow Dome Musick (79). Guitarist/vocalist from Khan and Gong. Fish Rising features Dave Stewart and members of Gong; sounds like Gong and Khan. The proudly metal-delic L is produced by Todd Rundgren with Utopia as backup band. Rainbow is not really prog — it is deep ambient — but it’s included here because it’s just so darn good.

Other great British prog artists:

• Beggar’s Opera: Act One (70), Waters of Change (71). Virtually unknown Scottish band, an exemplar of early British prog. On Act One they rockify the classics and beat ELP at their own game. On Waters of Change they mature into a tasteful style. Guitarist Ricky Gardiner went on to play with David Bowie and Iggy Pop.
• Van der Graaf Generator: Pawn Hearts (71). Goth-Prog. Dark and intense, featuring Peter Hammill’s fatalistic vocals. VdGG’s only true prog outing. Keyboard-and-reeds-driven sound, although this album includes guitar, courtesy of King Crimson’s Robert Fripp.
• Gentle Giant: Three Friends (72), Octopus (72), Free Hand (75). Rhythmically complex prog with woodwinds and medieval/renaissance influences. Intricate ensemble playing; few solos.
• Nektar: A Tab in the Ocean (72), Remember the Future (73). Psych-prog-hard-rock, strongly melodic. Often considered to be a German band because they were British expats living in Hamburg.
• Henry Cow: Legend* (a/k/a Leg End) (73), Unrest (74)*, In Praise of Learning (75)*, Henry Cow Concerts (76)*, Western Culture (79)*. Severe chamber jazz and improv driven music with contemporary classical and Zappa influences, and loose ties to the Canterbury contingent. Highly influential; spawned the radical, politically oriented Rock in Opposition (RIO) movement of the late 70s and 80s. Guitarist Fred Frith and drummer Chris Cutler became avant-garde luminaries. Robert Wyatt guests on the live album.
• Art Bears: Hopes and Fears (78)*. Debut album by post-Henry Cow splinter group, recorded alongside the sessions that became Cow’s Western Culture album. Essentially another Cow album with less improv and more of Dagmar Krause’s astringent vocals. Harsh and beautiful at the same time.
• Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells (73), Incantations (78). The wunderkind plays virtually all the instruments on these pastoral tours de force. Tubular Bells was the big hit but the double LP Incantations is the sleeper, featuring angelic vocalist Maddy Prior from folk-rockers Steeleye Span.
• Pierre Moerlen’s Gong: Gazeuse! (76), Expresso II (78). First of many Gong spinoffs. Drummer/percussionist Moerlen takes the multi-percussion accents of Angel’s Egg and You and steers it in a fusion-y direction, featuring guitar star Allan Holdsworth (Soft Machine, Tony Williams Lifetime). Gazeuse! was released in the U.S. as Expresso.
• Planet Gong: Live Floating Anarchy 1977 (77)*. After Gong front man Daevid Allen left the band, he and his partner, vocalist Gilli Smyth, teamed up with the heavily Gong-influenced band Here & Now to form Planet Gong. The resulting live album revisits Allen’s original early-70s wacky-space-hippie Gong sound with an aggressive edge. Call it prog-punk, maybe.
• Jethro Tull: Some people consider Tull to be a prog band; I don’t. But Thick as a Brick (72) and the underappreciated Minstrel in the Gallery (75) have prog appeal.
• Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII (73). Concept album with one track for each wife. First and best of the on-again-off-again Yes keyboard wizard’s many, many solo efforts.
• Chris Squire: Fish Out of Water (75). Yes bassist’s first solo album. More straightforward rock than Yes, but a fine effort with Bill Bruford on drums and other prog luminaries guesting. Lush orchestrations and, of course, plenty of Squire’s trademark Rickenbacker.
• Camel: Camel (73), Mirage (74), The Snow Goose (75), Moonmadness (76), A Live Record (78). Mostly instrumental, beautiful prog with occasional jazzy touches, featuring Peter Bardens’s symphonic keyboards and Andy Latimer’s Clapton-influenced guitar. Hugely influential despite relative lack of fame. Live album features Caravan and Hatfield bassist/vocalist Richard Sinclair and King Crimson reed player Mel Collins.
• Hawkwind: Space Ritual (73). Longtime space-metal guerrillas who picked up where Pink Floyd left off with Ummagumma. This double live mind-melter is all the Hawkwind prog fans need. Play LOUD.
• Gryphon: Red Queen to Gryphon Three (74). British folk & Renaissance influences, recorders and krumhorns along with the guitars and synths. Opening act for Yes in the mid-70s. Red Queen is straight prog and all instrumental, unlike their other more acoustic (and also fine) albums.
• Spirogyra: Bells, Boots and Shambles (73)*. Progressive folk outfit’s charming, quirky third and last album sounds like low-key early Genesis without electric instruments, with the added delight of co-vocalist Barbara Gaskin (later with Hatfield and the North). Not to be confused with the American fusion-lite band Spyro Gyra.
• Steve Hackett: Voyage of the Acolyte (75), Spectral Mornings (79). Ex Genesis guitarist, best Genesis solo work for prog fans. The atmospheric Voyage (recorded while he was still in Genesis) sounds like early Crimson meets Mike Oldfield and features Mike’s sister Sally as well as Phil Collins on vocals. Mornings features Hackett’s touring band and has a punchier, rockier sound. Hackett’s gleaming guitar on ample display throughout.
• Brand X: Unorthodox Behaviour (76), Moroccan Roll (77). Side project for Genesis drummer Phil Collins. Sleek, understated, virtuosic jazz-rock fusion, like Return to Forever driving an E-Type Jaguar. Percy Jones’s rubbery fretless bass is a special delight, and Collins’s drumming is at its peak.
• 801: 801 Live (76). Side project of Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera; one of the best live prog albums ever made. Supergroup with Brian Eno on keyboards and vocals, Bill McCormack (Matching Mole) on bass, and Francis Monkman (Curved Air) on keyboards. Mostly covers of Manzanera’s and Eno’s material outside of Roxy, plus amazing space-rock version of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.”
• The Enid: In the Region of the Summer Stars (76), Aerie Faerie Nonsense (77). Heavily arranged pseudo-classical music, all instrumental, influenced by 20th c. British composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams. Keyboardist Robert John Godfrey, ex-Barclay James Harvest, is the focal point.
• Robert Fripp: Exposure (79). The King Crimson guitarist/ideologue’s first solo album, recorded between Crimson incarnations, features a formidable roster of his production clients and other collaborators. A grand tour of personal soundscapes ranging from meditative Frippertronics tape-loop guitar to art-song ballads to Crimson-style prog-metal. Vocals by Peters Gabriel and Hammill, as well as Darryl Hall (yes, as in Hall & Oates) and Terre Roche of the folk trio The Roches. Get the 2006 edition with bonus tracks that had to be left off the original for contractual reasons.
• U.K.: U.K. (78). Late-70s prog supergroup: Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson, National Health, Genesis), John Wetton (Family, Uriah Heep, Crimson, Roxy Music), Eddie Jobson (Curved Air, Roxy, Frank Zappa), and Allan Holdsworth (Soft Machine, Tony Williams Lifetime, Gong). Mid-70s Crimson meets ELP with fusion touches. Like a thoroughbred at Ascot.

Rock Progressivo Italiano: Italians “got” prog more than any other country outside the UK. This is just a sampling of many excellent bands:

• Le Orme: Collage (71), Contrappunti (74). Venice’s answer to ELP, centered on Antonio Pagliuca’s keyboards.
• Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM): Storia di Un Minuto (72), Per Un Amico (72), Chocolate Kings (75). Named after a bakery in Rome. Incredibly lyrical and virtuosic, influenced by early Crimson and Jethro Tull, but Italian through and through. Chocolate Kings is from a later period, harder-rocking, English lyrics, Peter Gabriel-influenced vocals. Per Un Amico in particular is one of the greatest prog albums, anywhere, ever.
• Il Balletto di Bronzo: Ys (72). Naples-based psychedelic band embraced prog with a vengeance on their 2nd album. Epic, daring, dissonant and spacy. If you think a hybrid of ELP and Magma sounds intriguing, you’ll love this.
• Banco del Mutuo Soccorso (a/k/a Banco): Io Sono Nato Libero (73), Banco (73), Come In Un’Ultima Cena (English-language version: As In a Last Supper) (76). The second great Roman prog band. Intense and compelling, operatic vocals, Genesis and Gentle Giant influences but also italiano al cento per cento.
• Museo Rosenbach: Zarathustra (73). Widescreen, romantic. Probably the purest expression of Rock Progressivo Italiano.
• Picchio dal Pozzo: Picchio dal Pozzo (76). Amazingly mature and sophisticated debut from this Genoese Zappa and Canterbury influenced band (the album is dedicated to Robert Wyatt). Sounds a bit like National Health yet preceded Health’s debut by two years. The follow-up, Abbiamo tutti i suoi problemi (80), just misses the 1970s but is also highly recommended. Camere Zimmer Rooms (2001) assembles previously unreleased material mainly from 1977–78 sessions.

Krautrock (Germany): lots of great albums by brilliant artists like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel, Cluster, Neu!, Faust, and Kraftwerk are not really prog-rock. But Germany also had many great prog bands:

• Amon Duul II: Yeti (70), Tanz der Lemminge (71). Wild, chaotic and hippie-spacy, from a band that arose out of a Munich commune. A German analog to Gong.
• Can: Ege Bamyasi (72), Future Days (73). The albums by this highly influential band that would appeal most to prog fans. Jaki Liebezeit’s drumming — jazz meets motorik — alone is worth the price of admission.
• Hoelderlin (Hölderlin): Hölderlins Traum (72). Named after a German Romantic poet. This debut album was an attractive folk-prog hybrid a la Genesis meets Fairport Convention, featuring vocalist Nanny de Ruig, who left shortly afterwards.
• Novalis: Banished Bridge (73), Sommerabend (76), Flossenengel (79). The other band named after a German Romantic poet, whose works appear in their lyrics. Their output was uneven and sometimes more mainstream rock, but Novalis’s best work is among Germany’s finest symphonic prog. Beautifully melodic, Crimson and Floyd influences.
• Eloy: Inside (73), Floating (74). Not to be confused with ELO. Heavy and spacy at the same time. Call them Deep Floyd or Pink Purple. Hawkwind fans should dig it.
• Agitation Free: Second (73)*. Allman Brothers meets Grateful Dead in Prog-Land.
• Triumvirat: Illusions on a Double Dimple (74)*, Spartacus (75)*. Jürgen Fritz’s Emersonian keyboards and Helmut Köllen’s Lake-y vocals and bass filled the void for ELP fans when the real thing went on hiatus in ’74. Recommended for ELP junkies.
• Grobschnitt: Ballermann (74), Jumbo (English version 75, German version 76), Rockpommel’s Land (77), Solar Music Live (78). Spacy symphonic prog with wacky and silly touches. For Genesis and Camel fans, a gateway drug to Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze.
• Galaxy (a/k/a Waniyetula): Nature’s Clear Well (78)*. Melodic, lush, pristinely-played, sparklingly produced songs about death, misery and futility. Would have done better if it had been released in ’75 when it was recorded.
• Anyone’s Daughter: Adonis (79). Genesis-influenced symphonic prog, notwithstanding band name taken from a Deep Purple song.

Benelux: The Netherlands in particular produced some of the best prog anywhere.

• Supersister (Netherlands): To the Highest Bidder (71), Pudding en Gisteren (72). The Netherlands’ Canterbury-style band, led by keyboardist/vocalist Robert Jan Stips. Whimsical tone; electric piano and flute instead of organ and sax/guitar give it a lighter sound.
• Focus (Netherlands): Moving Waves (a/k/a Focus II) (71), Focus 3 (72). One of the most important prog bands from the Continent. Sort of like a progressive Allman Brothers featuring Jan Akkerman and Thijs van Leer as the Dutch Duane & Gregg, and classical in place of country music influences. Akkerman is one of the giants of prog guitar.
• Jan Akkerman (Netherlands): Profile (72). The great guitarist’s second solo album, recorded in ’69 before he joined Focus. The epic slash-and-burn jam on side one bisects a line from “Whipping Post” to Coltrane. It’s complemented by the Renaissance lute and other softer material on side two. If you like this one, check out Two Sides of Peter Banks (73), featuring jousts between Akkerman and the underappreciated original Yes guitarist.
• Finch (Netherlands): Glory of the Inner Force (75).* Yes meets Focus. All instrumental. Joop van Nimwegen’s Steve Howe and Jan Akkerman influenced guitar pyrotechnics dominate.
• Cos (Belgium): Viva Boma (75). Belgium’s answer to the Canterbury sound. Matching Mole and Hatfield influenced with a touch of Zeuhl (see France below). Pascale Son’s bewitching vocals are icing on the cake.
• Aksak Maboul (Belgium): Onze Danses pour Combattre la Migraine (77). Keyboard/reeds player Marc Hollander from Cos leads this series of 17 (not 11) charming, quirky miniatures in Henry Cow style but (mostly) more accessible.

France: French prog didn’t have as much of a national identity as German or Italian prog did. These bands all had widely divergent styles despite the occasional exchange of players among them:

• Gong: See above. Gong started off in France and moved to England during the Radio Gnome period. The band’s ever-shifting lineup included mainstay sax/flute player Didier Malherbe and various other French musicians.
• Magma: Magma (a/k/a Kobaïa) (70), 1001° Centigrades (a/k/a Magma 2) (71), Kohntarkhosz (74), Magma Live (a/k/a Magma Hhai) (75)*, Udu Wudu (76), and if you can sit through it, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh (73). A world unto itself, the vision of drummer Christian Vander. Heavy Storm-Trooper-Death-March stuff, with Carl Orff, Coltrane, and Wagner influences; lyrics sung in a German/Polish/Klingon sounding language called Kobaïan that Vander invented himself. The fusion-inflected live album is the best entry point for the uninitiated. An acquired taste but worth the effort. Spawned a mini-micro-genre called “Zeuhl.”
• Zao: Z=7L (73)*, Shekhina (75), Kawana (76)*. Magma splinter group. Keyboardist Francois “Faton” Cahen and reeds player Jeff “Yoch’ko” Seffer from the original Magma, plus explosive drummer Jean-My Truong. Zeuhl/jazz sound, takes up where Magma’s 1001° Centigrades left off. Z=7L features Mauricia Platon’s declamatory vocals; Shekhina features a string quartet; Kawana gets funky.
• Weidorje: Weidorje (78). Splinter group from a later version of Magma, with Bernard Paganotti’s growling-tiger bass and Patrick Gauthier’s atmospheric keyboards. Zeuhl without the Kobaïan. Magma junkies will like.
• Moving Gelatine Plates: Moving Gelatine Plates (71)*, The World of Genius Hans (72)*. France’s Canterbury-style band. Soft Machine and Zappa influences. Henry Cow probably listened to this in preparation for their 1973 debut album. Cow fans will certainly love it.
• Clearlight: Forever Blowing Bubbles (75). Space-rock from keyboardist Cyrille Verdeaux with a rotating cast of French (and a few British) prog luminaries. This second album resembles what Gong would have sounded like had they continued on past Angel’s Egg and You (oh, wait, they did, sort of).
• Heldon: Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale (“A Dream Without Reason”) (76), Interface (77), Stand By (79). Hard-edged, gripping, uncompromising guitar-and-electronics with King Crimson/Fripp/Eno, British Industrial, and Krautrock influences, masterminded by Sorbonne philosophy professor Richard Pinhas.
• Pulsar: The Strands of Future (76)*, Halloween (77)*. Exciting all-instrumental space-rock outfit from Lyon that colored its Tangerine Dream-style electronics Pink and Crimson.

Nordics:

• Tasavallan Presidentti (Finland): Tasavallan Presidentti II (71), Lambertland (72). Imagine if Chicago (the band) had cousins in Helsinki in the early 70s that didn’t sell out. Jukka Tolonen is the Nordic Terry Kath (i.e., an underrated monster guitarist).
• Samla Mammas Manna (a/k/a Zamla Mammaz Manna) (Sweden): Måltid (“Mealtime”) (73). Probably the most Zappa-esque album ever recorded by anyone not named Frank Zappa. Otherwise this was the Nordics’ Canterbury-style band, at least on this album. Zamla later joined fellow Zappaphiles Henry Cow in the RIO movement.
• Wigwam (Finland): Being (74)*. Prodigious talents Jukka Gustavson (keyboards) and Pekka Pohjola (bass) listened to Traffic, Tull, Zappa, classical, and jazz, then made this wonderful album entirely their own. Eclectic, playful, and deep.
• Terje Rypdal (Norway): Whenever I Seem to Be Far Away (74), Odyssey (75). Visionary guitarist influenced by John McLaughlin, Miles Davis, and contemporary classical. These all-instrumental albums on ECM are darker and heavier than usual for the label. Be sure to seek out the full-length version of the double-LP Odyssey with the brilliantly intense track “Rolling Stone,” criminally omitted from the single-CD release.

Central/Eastern Europe: not much music made it through the Iron Curtain (in either direction) in the 1970s, but there are a few standouts that eventually became available in the West:

• SBB a/k/a Szukaj Burz Buduj (“Search Breakup Build”) (Poland): Nowy Horizont (“New Horizon”) (75), Pamiec (“Memory”) (76), Ze Słowem Biegnę Do Ciebie (“With the Word I Run to You”) (77). Symphonic prog reminiscent of Genesis and PFM but with a bluesy tinge. (SBB originally stood for Silesian Blues Band.)
• Blue Effect a/k/a Modrý Efekt (present-day Czech Republic): A Benefit of Radim Hladík (a/k/a Modrý Efekt & Radim Hladík) (75)*, Svitanie (“Dawn”) (77). Focus and Camel influenced, starring Radim Hladík’s ferocious guitar.
• Tako (present-day Serbia): Tako (78)*. Another Focus and Camel influenced band, with a few nods to Floyd ca. Wish You Were Here and Tull via Đorđe Ilijin’s synths and flute. Heavy and serious.
• Mess (Estonia): Sven Grünberg’s Proge-Rock-Group [sic] (a/k/a Mess) (75). Remarkable collection of tracks recorded while Estonia was under Soviet rule, not released until 1996 after collapse of the USSR. A bit like Camel guesting on Yes’s Relayer, with some truly alien synth sounds, vocals in Estonian. Get past the murky recording quality and enjoy.

USA: Various American bands in the 70s were influenced by British prog. Several attracted local followings and released albums that were good but not essential, such as Babylon (Florida), Ethos (Indiana), Fireballet (New Jersey), Mirthrandir (ditto), Pentwater (Chicago), Lift (Atlanta), and Jasper Wrath (Connecticut). Here are my most recommended choices:

• Frank Zappa: these albums in particular by the iconoclastic genius would appeal most to prog fans: Uncle Meat (69), Hot Rats (69), Waka/Jawaka (72), Grand Wazoo (72), Roxy & Elsewhere (74), One Size Fits All (75), Studio Tan (78), Sleep Dirt (79), You Can’t Do That Onstage Anymore Vol. 2 (Live in Helsinki 1974) (88), and posthumous live albums such as Wazoo (2007) and Roxy By Proxy (2014). Meat and Rats in particular were seminally influential on the Canterbury scene and in Europe.
• Chicago: Chicago II (a/k/a Chicago) (70). Set aside this band’s eventual reputation for cheesy ballads; this is a prog album, and a fine one at that. Which also happened to include three smash hit singles. Two of which are movements in the 13-minute masterpiece suite “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon.”
• Kansas: Song for America (75), Leftoverture (76). This band went far beyond “Dust in the Wind”; they assimilated British prog back into American rock & roll and achieved a distinctive style. The title track of Song for America is possibly the best prog track to come out of the States in the 1970s.
• Yezda Urfa: Boris (75)*, Sacred Baboon (76). The Great Lost American Prog Band of the 70s. Boris is self-released demos, extremely rare LP (original copies sell for north of $2000), available on YouTube. The superb Sacred Baboon was not released until 1989. Insanely talented multi-instrumentalists from Indiana. Influenced by Gentle Giant with a side order of Yes but definitely American. Impressive and sophisticated, with writing to match the playing and welcome touches of humor.
• Starcastle: Starcastle (76), Fountains of Light (77). When Yes went on hiatus after Relayer in 1975, this sextet from central Illinois filled the vacuum with their Yes Lite sound, complete with Anderson, Wakeman, and Squire emulations. Glossy and melodic; recommended for Yes junkies.
• Happy the Man: Happy the Man (77), Crafty Hands (78). Washington DC area band, mostly instrumental, heavily arranged, Gentle Giant and Camel influenced. Keyboardist Kit Watkins joined Camel later on. “Service with a Smile” from Crafty is another vote for best American prog track of the 70s.
• The Muffins: Manna/Mirage (78)*, Open City (94). America’s Canterbury-style band; call them Soft Cow. Another DC-area outfit, jazzy and improv-y. Became backing band for Henry Cow guitarist Fred Frith when he went solo. Open City is a collection of demos and live recordings from 1977–80. Challenging but rewarding.
• Cathedral: Stained Glass Stories (78). Perhaps the best overall synthesis of British prog by an American band in the 70s. Influenced mainly by Yes and Genesis at their proggiest — think Relayer and Foxtrot. Rough recording quality adds to the period charm and probably only hints at what this fearsome Long Island outfit was like live.
• Christopher Guest: the genius behind so many “mockumentary” films masterminded the two best parodies of 70s prog ever created: “Art Rock Suite” (nods to Yes, Genesis, Crimson, Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Moody Blues, Camel, and who knows what else) from National Lampoon’s Goodbye Pop (75), and “Stonehenge” (shades of Tull and Moodies) from the immortal This Is Spinal Tap (84).

Canada:

• Rush: A Farewell to Kings (77), Hemispheres (78). The best of Rush’s late-70s prog-metal phase. And don’t forget the fantastic Moving Pictures though it was released in 1981.
• FM: Direct to Disc (a/k/a Head Room) (78). The proggiest album ever to come out of Canada. A trio of multi-instrumentalists from Toronto plays two killer side-long suites live in the studio with no overdubs. Krautrock synths, spacy violin, jazzy drumming. Originally issued on limited edition LP, now on streaming services. A real overlooked gem.

OK, that’s it for now…