Prog Rock

1970  I was drawn towards bands with a strong keyboard element, which wasn't hard to find in 1970!

The prog rock disco always ended with "America" by Keith Emerson's The Nice. Then there was Deep Purple, with the talented and ambitious Jon Lord, ready to toy with classical influences before Ian Gillan joined on vocals and the monstrous Deep Purple in Rock ditched most of the prog in favour of the rock. But my personal favourite was Argent, led on keyboards by Rod Argent, the classically trained keyboard player who had already found fame with The Zombies, and prolific songwriter Russ Ballard. Enterprising school mates actually persuaded the school to let Argent play live there, which was pretty surreal, but successful, and Caravan followed the following year. I never really liked my school; it was academically strong but socially repressive; or so I thought at the time. In retrospect, having my favourite band playing live in the Great Hall was a pretty liberal gesture by the school authorities.