 | | Far and away the longest lasting and the most successful of the '70s progressive rock groups, Yes proved to be one of the lingering success stories from that musical genre. |
 | | Spock's Beard began in 1992 when brothers Neal (lead vocals) and Al Morse (guitar) teamed up with drummer Nick D'Virgilio. |
 | | If there is one group that embodies progressive rock, it is King Crimson. Led by guitar/Mellotron virtuoso Robert Fripp, during its first five years of existence the band stretched both the language and structure of rock into realms of jazz and classical music, all the while avoiding pop and psychedelic sensibilities; the absence of mainstream compromises and the lack of an overt sense of humor ultimately doomed the group to nothing more than a large cult following, but made their albums among the most enduring and respectable of the prog rock era. |
 | | Camel never achieved the mass popularity of fellow British progressive rock bands like the Alan Parsons Project, but they cultivated a dedicated cult following. |
 | | Emerson, Lake & Palmer were progressive rock's first supergroup. Greeted by the rock press and the public as something akin to conquering heroes, they succeeded in broadening the audience for progressive rock from hundreds of thousands into tens of millions of listeners, creating a major radio phenomenon as well. |
 | | Over the course of their decades-spanning career, Canadian power trio Rush emerged as one of hard rock's most highly regarded bands; although typically brushed aside by critics and rarely the recipients of mainstream pop radio airplay, Rush nonetheless won an impressive and devoted fan following, while their virtuoso performance skills solidified their standing as musicians' musicians. |
 | | Genesis started life as a progressive rock band, in the manner of Yes and King Crimson, before a series of membership changes brought about a transformation in their sound, into one of the most successful pop/rock bands of the 1980s and 1990s. |
 | | Though he initially came to wider attention (at least in the U.K.) with No-Man, his long-running collaboration with Tim Bowness throughout the '90s, singer/guitarist Steven Wilson gained as much of a reputation for Porcupine Tree. |
 | | Formed at the dawn of the progressive rock era in 1969, Gentle Giant seemed poised for a time in the mid-'70s to break out of its cult-band status, but somehow never made the jump. |
 | | Born April 25, 1958, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Derek William Dick (aka Fish) was the dramatic lead vocalist for prog rock band Marillion until beginning a solo career in 1988. |
 | | The technically proficient guitar playing of John Petrucci elevated Dream Theater to the upper echelons of contemporary heavy metal. |
 | | David Gilmour gained international fame for his incisive, atmospheric guitar work and vocals with Pink Floyd, and eventually became the leader of the group during their late period as well as pursuing a successful solo career and working with some of the most respected names in British rock. |
 | | Pink Floyd is the premier space rock band. Since the mid-'60s, their music relentlessly tinkered with electronics and all manner of special effects to push pop formats to their outer limits. |
 | | As indicated by its name, the Alan Parsons Project was not a band so much as a concept overseen by the titular Parsons, a successful producer and engineer. |
 | | Steve Hackett is best known as the guitarist with Genesis during their best years as both a progressive and commercial band, across ten albums of their history. |
 | | Jethro Tull was a unique phenomenon in popular music history. Their mix of hard rock; folk melodies; blues licks; surreal, impossibly dense lyrics; and overall profundity defied easy analysis, but that didn't dissuade fans from giving them 11 gold and five platinum albums. |
 | | Born as John Roy Anderson on October 25, 1944, in Lancashire, England, Jon Anderson would grow up to become one of the most recognizable voices in progressive rock. |
 | | The history of Renaissance is essentially the history of two separate groups, rather similar to the two phases of the Moody Blues or the Drifters. |
 | | As the leader of Genesis in the early '70s, Peter Gabriel helped move progressive rock to new levels of theatricality. |
 | | Sweden played a crucial part in the progressive rock revival of the 1990s, but amid dark-sounding King Crimson-influenced bands like Anekdoten and Anglagard, the positive-thinking Yes-enlightened act the Flower Kings felt almost out of place. |
 | | The group Yes has had a long and complicated history. By 1989, there were two different factions, one led by bassist Chris Squire that owned the rights to the name "Yes," and this one, featuring singer Jon Anderson, drummer Bill Bruford, keyboard player Rick Wakeman, and guitarist Steve Howe. |
 | | Drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment) had a brainstorm that gave birth to the band Transatlantic. |
 | | Formed in the 1980s, IQ is comprised of Martin Orford, Paul Cook, Mike Holmes, Peter Nicholls, and John Jowitt. |
 | | Caravan was one of the more formidable progressive rock acts to come out of England in the 1960s, though they were never much more than a very successful cult band at home, and, apart from a brief moment in 1975, barely a cult band anywhere else in the world. |
 | | Although the ELP acronym remained the same, Emerson, Lake and Powell otherwise failed to recreate the creative or commercial excitement of the earlier progressive rock trio which featured drummer Carl Palmer instead of Cozy Powell. |
 | | Fusing the complexity of British prog rock with an American heartland sound representative of their name, Kansas were among the most popular bands of the late '70s; though typically dismissed by critics, many of the group's hits remain staples of AOR radio play lists to this day. |
 | | When they appeared in the early '80s, Asia seemed to be a holdover from the '70s, when supergroups and self-important progressive rockers reigned supreme. |
 | | Born Christopher Russell Edward Squire, in Wembley, England, on March 4, 1948, Chris Squire's main claim to fame is as the bassist for prog rock super heroes Yes. |
 | | Best remembered for their bizarre chart smash "Hocus Pocus," Dutch progressive rock band Focus was formed in Amsterdam in 1969 by vocalist/keyboardist/flutist Thijs van Leer, bassist Martin Dresden, and drummer Hans Cleuver. |
 | | One of the better British progressive bands of the early '70s, the Strawbs differed from their more successful compatriots -- the Moody Blues, King Crimson, Pink Floyd -- principally in that their sound originated in English folk music, rather than rock. |
 | | Procol Harum is arguably the most successful "accidental" group creation -- that is, a band originally assembled to take advantage of the success of a record created in the studio -- in the history of progressive rock. |
 | | A sort of instrumental prog-rock/prog-metal supergroup, Liquid Tension Experiment features Dream Theater's John Petrucci (guitar) and Mike Portnoy (drums), keyboardist Jordan Rudess (who has worked with the Dixie Dregs and has since joined Dream Theater), and bassist extraordinaire Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, and many others). |
 | | Born in Perivale, Middlesex, England, Rick Wakeman's interest in music manifested itself very early, and from the age of seven on he studied classical piano. |
 | | Starcastle (along with Styx, Fireballet, and Kansas) were part of a belated stateside response to British progressive rock. |
 | | Supertramp followed an unusual path to commercial success in the 1970s, fusing the stylistic ambition and instrumental dexterity of progressive rock with the wit and tuneful melodies of British pop, and the results made them one of the most popular British acts of the '70s and ‘80s, topping the charts and filling arenas around the world at a time when their style of music was supposed to have fallen out of fashion. |
 | | The progressive metal outfit Ayreon is essentially just Dutch multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Arjen Anthony Lucassen (formerly of the more mainstream metal band Vengeance), plus a revolving-door cast of collaborators and guest musicians that changes from project to project. |
 | | With nearly as many lineup changes as one of their influences, Yes, Arena was one of the dominant neo-prog groups of the 1990s. |
 | | Although they're best known today for their lush, lyrically and musically profound (some would say bombastic) psychedelic-era albums, the Moody Blues started out as one of the better R&B-based combos of the British Invasion. |
 | | An eye-opening trip to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury during the summer of 1967 inspired British-born drummer Chris Judge Smith to compose a list of possible names for the rock group he wished to form. |
 | | Throughout his career, guitarist Robert Fripp has continually pushed the boundaries of pop music, as well as pursuing many avant-garde and experimental musical ideas. |
 | | Stardom was handed to him with Something/Anything?, but Todd Rundgren rejected it. He wanted to explore new musical territory instead, and his adventures led him to form Utopia in 1974. |
 | | Featuring members of Yes, King Crimson, Roxy Music, and Soft Machine, U.K. was one of the most prominent progressive rock supergroups of the late '70s. |
 | | A band from another time, Ozric Tentacles served as the bridge from '70s cosmic rock to the organic dance and festival culture that came back into fashion during the '90s. |
 | | The word "supergroup" has often been used to describe O.S.I., one of the best-known progressive metal/progressive rock acts to emerge in the United States in the 2000s -- and considering who has been leading O. |
 | | One of the most dramatically accomplished of all the bands lumped into Britain's late-'60s prog explosion, Curved Air was formed in early 1970 by violinist Darryl Way, a graduate of the Royal College of Music, and two former members of Sisyphus, keyboard player Francis Monkman and drummer Florian Pilkington-Miksa. |
 | | Echolyn's style has been termed updated progressive rock, due to the band's classically trained, highly professional members -- vocalist Ray Weston, guitarist/vocalist Brett Kull, keyboard player Chris Buzby, bassist Tom Hyatt and drummer Paul Ramsey. |
 | | Roger Waters was a primary creative force in Pink Floyd from 1965 to 1983. He first met Syd Barrett, who would become the band's lead singer and guitarist, during his school days when both attended a Saturday art class. |
 | | Jordan Rudess has the distinction of taking classical piano training at the Juilliard School of Music at nine years old. |
 | | Often compared to Yes for their melodicism and Gentle Giant for the complexity of their compositions, Happy the Man added their own high-caliber musicianship, a sense of symphonic drama, odd time signatures, spacy sound, and occasional whimsy to their brand of progressive rock. |
 | | Drawn together by a shared love of metal and prog rock, Riverside were founded in 2001 in Warsaw, Poland, by Mariusz Duda (vocals, bass, guitar), Piotr Grudzinski (guitar), Piotr Kozieradzki (drums), and Jacek Melnicki (keyboards). |
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