The crucible had been simmering since The Mothers' Freak Out.
Though not truly a progressive album, it was the first to take classical and
jazz elements and pair them with the avant-garde, all with a rock core. Kind of like stone soup. Trout Mask Replica also plays a role, but the Mothers and
Captain Beefheart were American and lived, nonetheless, in Laurel Canyon. The
progressive ideology would never truly take hold for American musicians. There
was a different sensibility. America would propel Jethro Tull to the No. 1
position with one long song on two album sides (wtf?) (Thick as a Brick), yet with the
exception of progressive light (like
Pepsi Light - bands like Kansas and Styx), progressive rock simply wasn't an American forte.
To pinpoint it, it was Days of Future Past and the Moodys
that set the scene, the result of a combination of new technology (in short, the
Mellotron, which crudely emulated choral and orchestral sounds) and
desperation, leading to an increasing number of British bands expanding rock's
canvas musically and lyrically without the slightest consideration of the pop
hit mainstream. The next more vital step was found in King Crimson's
stunning 1969 debut, In the Court of the Crimson King, which inspired
others, such as fellow Londoners Yes, to release Close to the
Edge less than a year after their breakthrough album Fragile, or Meddle
by Pink Floyd, containing the 18 minute futuristic opus "Echoes."
L.A. was (and is) less a metropolis than an eclectic collection of odd
communities. Maybe it was the weather; maybe the hubbub or the big city
sensibility, but London was something different, a place where progressive rock
fit. The Laurel Canyon scene, even Morrison and Zappa, weren't mystical at all,
and conversely, by the early 70s there was nothing even vaguely hippie about London. Traffic's The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, built around
the 11 minute hypnotic title song featured electronically synthesized
saxophone, while Jackson Browne's L.A. instrumentals were pure jazz or pure country
and no less tony or classic than those from Burt Bacharach or Pet Sounds. Trilogy from Emerson
, Lake , and Palmer and Foxtrot from the Peter Gabriel-led Genesis had
critics raving and cash registers ringing, and all of it would culminate in the Spring of 1973 with the incomparable Dark Side of the Moon,
an iconic masterpiece which long ago threw off any binds imparted by
categorization as progressive rock, but not before Close to the Edge and Seventh
Sojourn each racked up #1 international sales.
By 1973 there was indeed a musical schism, a fork in the
rocky road. It was Laurel Canyon for L.A., but for London it was the Strand. More
so, in the U.K., the factions began themselves to split (which wouldn't happen in the U.S. until CBGBs). Bowie and Mark Bolan
would veer off with Roxy Music and Mott the Hoople, while Gentle Giant and Tull,
ELO and ELP would take a madrigal pathway forged by KC. And, although it was an American invention that sprang from the blues and evolved into bands like MC5 and The 13th Floor Elevators, Heavy Metal was a far more British construct, relishing in bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin.
In literature it was as if the Americans took over
from the British, as if, after Dickens, there was little left to say (except by Orwell or Forster or Huxley). America would take the reins and from out
of Huck Finn came everything, everyone: Fitzgerald, Parker, Hemingway, Flannery
O'Connor, Steinbeck, Cheever. It was the American century. It wasn't that way in music. It didn't end with the
Beatles. The Beatles instead were another British beginning.