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Progressive rock (also referred to as prog rock or prog) is a subgenre of rock music^[1] that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of "a mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility."^[2] John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of the 1960s as much as take its rightful place beside the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók."^[3]

Progressive rock bands pushed "rock's technical and compositional boundaries" by going beyond the standard rock or popular verse-chorus-based song structures. The Oxford Companion to Music states that progressive rock bands "...explored extended musical structures which involved intricate instrumental patterns and textures and often esoteric subject matter."^[4] Additionally, the arrangements often incorporated elements drawn from classical, jazz, and later world music. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy. Progressive rock bands sometimes used "concept albums that made unified statements, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme."^[2]

Progressive rock developed from late 1960s psychedelic rock as part of a wide-ranging tendency in rock music of this era to draw inspiration from ever more diverse influences. The term was initially applied to the music of British bands such as Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer,^[2] reaching its peak of popularity in the mid 1970s.

Although retaining considerable popularity, progressive rock sales were in the decline by the end of the 1970s as disco and punk rock gained popularity. Elements of the genre are present in 1980s neo-progressive rock as well as 1990s and 2000s progressive metal and new prog.

History[link]

Precursors[link]

Allmusic cites Bob Dylan's poetry, The Mothers of Invention's Freak Out! (1966) and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) as the "earliest rumblings of progressive and art rock",^[2] while progressiverock.com cites the latter as its "starting point".^[5] The Beach Boys' concept album Pet Sounds (1966) and Jefferson Airplane's second album Surrealistic Pillow (1967) were both big influences for many progressive rock bands.^[6][7][8]

From the mid-1960s The Left Banke, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords, wind and string sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (1967), with its Bach inspired introduction.^[9] Freak Out!, released in 1966, had been a mixture of progressive rock, garage rock and avant-garde layered sounds. In the same year, the band "1-2-3", later renamed Clouds, began experimenting with song structure, improvisation, and multi-layered arrangements.^[10] In March of that year, The Byrds released "Eight Miles High", a pioneering psychedelic rock single with lead guitar heavily influenced by the jazz soloing style of John Coltrane. Later that year, The Who released "A Quick One While He's Away", the first example of the rock opera form, and considered by some to have been the first prog epic.^[11]

In 1967, Jeff Beck released the single "Beck's Bolero", inspired by Maurice Ravel's Bolero, and, later that year, Procol Harum released the Bach-influenced single "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Also in 1967, the Moody Blues released Days of Future Passed, combining classical-inspired orchestral music with traditional rock instrumentation and song structures. Pink Floyd's first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, contained the nearly ten-minute improvisational psychedelic instrumental "Interstellar Overdrive".

By the late 1960s, many rock bands had begun incorporating instruments from classical and Eastern music, as well as experimenting with improvisation and lengthier compositions. East of Eden, for example, used Eastern harmonics and instruments such as a sumerian saxophone on the album Mercator Projected in 1969.^[12] Some, such as the UK's Soft Machine, began to experiment with blends of rock and jazz. By the end of the decade, other bands, such as Deep Purple and The Nice, had also recorded classical-influenced albums with full orchestras: Concerto for Group and Orchestra and Five Bridges. This use of classical music would crystallise in the '70s with Amon Düül II's orchestral score on Made in Germany (1975), Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother (1970), and several works of Frank Zappa.

Early bands[link]

Pink Floyd playing "The Dark Side of the Moon" at Earls Court, 1973

Bands formed by the end of the 1960s included The Moody Blues (1964), Pink Floyd (1966), Soft Machine (1966), Barclay James Harvest (1966), Gong (1967), Genesis (1967), Jethro Tull (1967), The Nice (1967), Procol Harum (1967), The United States of America (1967), Van der Graaf Generator (1967), Yes (1968), Rush (1968), Caravan (1968), King Crimson (1969), Supertramp (1969), and Gentle Giant (1969).^[13]

Although many of these bands were from the UK, the genre was growing popular elsewhere in continental Europe. Triumvirat led Germany's significant progressive rock movement, while Tangerine Dream, Faust, Can and Neu! led the related Berlin School and Krautrock movements. Italian progressive rock is an important sub-genre led by PFM, Le Orme, and Banco, all of which gained significant international recognition. Other notable Italian bands include New Trolls, Area, Goblin, Museo Rosenbach, Il Balletto di Bronzo, Maxophone and Locanda Delle Fate.

Focus and Trace formed in the Netherlands, France produced Ange, Gong, and Magma, the Quebec-based Harmonium were one of the first significant North American progressive bands, and Greece saw the debut of Aphrodite's Child led by electronic music pioneer Vangelis. Spain produced numerous prog groups, including Triana. Scandinavia was represented by Norwegian band Popol Vuh, Swedish band Kaipa, and Finnish band Wigwam.

Peak in popularity and decline[link]

Yes performing in Indianapolis in 1977

Progressive rock's popularity peaked in the mid-1970s, when prog artists regularly topped reader polls in mainstream popular music magazines in Britain and America, and albums like Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells topped the charts.

By this time, several North American progressive rock bands had been formed. Kansas, which had actually existed in one form or another since 1971, became one of the most commercially successful of all progressive rock bands. Pop star Todd Rundgren moved into prog with his new band, Utopia. Toronto's Rush, who formed in 1968, became a major band, with a string of hit albums beginning in the mid-1970s. In Australia, a number of progressive rock bands made their mark in the late 60s, including Tamam Shud, Tully and Khavas Jute. In Japan, Osamu Kitajima's 1974 progressive rock album Benzaiten, featuring Haruomi Hosono, utilized electronic music instruments such as a synthesizer and drum machine.^[14] Back in Britain, Electric Light Orchestra, who formed in 1970 as a progressive offshoot of "The Beatles sound", saw their greatest success during the mid-1970s.

Bruce Eder claims that "the rot" in progressive rock "started to set in during 1976, the year Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP) released their live album Welcome Back My Friends".^[15] Eder claims that this album was "suffering from poor sound and uninspired playing" which "stretched the devotion of fans and critics even thinner." He claims that "the end [of progressive rock] came quickly: by 1977, the new generation of listeners was even more interested in a good time than the audiences of the early 1970s, and they had no patience for 30 minute prog-rock suites or concept albums based on Tolkienesque stories." He asserts that by the late 1970s and early 1980s, "ELP was barely functioning as a unit, and not producing music with any energy; Genesis was redefining themselves ... as a pop-rock band; and Yes was back to doing songs running four minutes ... and even releasing singles."^[16]

Drummer Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake & Palmer performing at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Feb. 3, 1978

In 1974, four of the biggest bands in progressive rock —Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP), Genesis and King Crimson— each either ceased performing or changed personnel. Members of Yes and ELP left to pursue solo work, as did Genesis's lead singer Peter Gabriel, who left his band (though Genesis would continue with Phil Collins as lead vocalist). Lead guitarist Robert Fripp announced the end of King Crimson after the Red album was released. When, in 1977, Yes and ELP re-formed, they enjoyed success without retaining their previous popularity.

From 1975 to 1976, progressive bands elaborated their stage shows, thus moving away from their original ethos of "music first".^[17]

In the late 1970s, Great Britain was going through difficult times due to a poor economy, frequent strikes and shortages. With its exotic, literary topics, much of progressive rock was dismissed by British youth.^[17] Punk rock, a simpler and more aggressive style of rock that emerged in this era, and disco, which also emerged during this period, helped move critical opinion and popular support in the UK away from progressive rock, ending the genre's reign as a leading style there.^[18][19]

However, established progressive bands still had a strong fan base. Indeed Genesis, ELP, Supertramp, Yes, Queen, and Pink Floyd each regularly released albums that attained the top ten and were followed by with massive tours, the largest yet for some of them.

By the end of the 1970s and 1980s, progressive rock had fallen into disrepute. It was dismissed as overblown, pretentious and elitist. Fans were embarrassed to publicly admit they liked an act associated with the genre and record stores stocked progressive rock acts in the back of the store sans labels.^[17][18]

Despite this supposed opposition between the two styles, bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Japan, Cabaret Voltaire, Ultravox, Oingo Boingo, Simple Minds, and Wire, all showed the influence of prog, as well as their more usually recognised punk influences.^[20]

Progressive rock fans[link]

The genre had a period of great popularity in the United States during the 1970s. The vast majority of progressive rock concert attendees were male. Audiences were reserved in their behavior tending to sit and intently concentrate on the performance. This contrasted with more overt and emotional reactions of audiences of other rock music genres.^[17]

1980s revitalization[link]

In the 1980s King Crimson featured (from left to right) Robert Fripp (visible in mirror), Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, and Bill Bruford.^[21]

The early 1980s saw a revitalization of progressive rock, as established acts renewed themselves and new artists appeared. The period's progressive music has been called "neo-progressive rock". Many 1980s progressive bands were influenced by minimalism, world music, and the New Wave. The digital synthesizer became a prominent instrument.

In 1981, guitarist Fripp and drummer Bill Bruford re-formed King Crimson with two Americans, the guitarist and singer Adrian Belew and the bassist Tony Levin; Belew had worked with art rockers Frank Zappa and David Bowie, while Levin had worked with Peter Gabriel. Beyond having new electronic instruments —such as Bruford's electronic drums, Levin's Chapman Stick, and Belew and Fripp's MIDI guitar synthesizers— the re-formed King Crimson featured tightly interconnected minimalist instrumentals, a sound that borrowed from gamelan as well as the dance music of the New Wave. Gamelan and minimalism also influenced Brian Eno (who had worked with Fripp and Bowie, following his work with Roxy Music) and Talking Heads (who had worked briefly with Fripp and extensively with Eno and Belew).^[21]

Marillion performing in 2007

Some progressive rock stalwarts changed musical direction, simplifying their music and making it more commercially viable. Containing members of major prog-acts from the 1970s, the supergroup Asia debuted with a mainstream rock-oriented album. Asia's commercial success demonstrated popular demand for a more radio-friendly British progressive rock, which could combine progressive rock with hard rock, also following the North-American Top-40 bands such as Styx, Journey, and Rush. Genesis performed short catchy singles that were heard by and appealed to a larger audience during the 1980s, as did Yes with its comeback album entitled 90125, which featured their only US number-one single, "Owner of a Lonely Heart".

A new generation of neo-progressive bands appeared, such as Marillion, UK, Twelfth Night, IQ, Pendragon, Quasar, and Pallas. Neo-prog continued to remain viable into the 1990s and beyond with bands like Arena and Jadis.

1990s and 2000s[link]

Porcupine Tree performing in 2007

The progressive rock genre enjoyed another revival in the 1990s. A notable impetus to this revival was the 1991 foundation of the Swedish Art Rock Society, an association created to rescue the values of classic progressive rock, with Pär Lindh as chairman.^[22] This society was a catalyst for new Swedish bands such as Anekdoten, Änglagård, Landberk and Pär Lindh Project, which joined the scene between 1992 and 1994. These bands became part of progressive rock's "Third Wave", spearheaded by Sweden's The Flower Kings, the UK's Porcupine Tree, Norway's White Willow, and from the United States, Dream Theater, Spock's Beard, Echolyn, Proto-Kaw (a reincarnation of an early lineup of Kansas), and Glass Hammer. Arjen Anthony Lucassen's Ayreon project, featuring the backing of an array of talent from the progressive rock genre, produced a series of innovative prog-metal concept albums starting from 1995.

Several of the bands in the prog-metal genre —U.S. bands Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, and Dream Theater, as well as Sweden's Opeth— cite pioneer progressive hard-rockers Rush as a primary influence, although their music also exhibits influences from more traditional metal and rock bands such as Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Tool (U.S.) have cited pioneers King Crimson as an influence on their work.^[23] King Crimson opened for Tool on their 2001 tour and expressed admiration for the group while continuing to deny the "prog" label.^[24]

Dream Theater performing in 2008

Progressive rock has also served as a key inspiration for genres such as post-rock, post-metal, avant-garde metal, power metal, neo-classical metal and symphonic metal. Former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy has acknowledged^[25] that the prominent use of progressive elements and qualities in metal is not confined to bands conventionally classified as "progressive metal". Many underground metal styles^[26] (especially extreme metal styles, which are characterised by extremely fast or slow speed, high levels of distortion, a technical or atmospheric, epic orientation and often highly unusual melodies, scales, vocal styles, song structures and, especially in death metal, abrupt tempo, key and time signature changes; folk metal is known for often employing uncommon instruments and other unusual elements) and some seminal bands such as Watchtower, Death, Celtic Frost^[27] (a band having pioneered several styles) or The 3rd and the Mortal remain poorly known even to genre fans.

Former members of the pioneering post-hardcore band At the Drive-In, Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, went on to form The Mars Volta, a successful progressive band (often tagged as Progressive Alternative or progressive post-hardcore) that incorporates jazz, funk, punk rock, Latin music, and ambient noise into songs that range in length from a few minutes to more than thirty. They achieved some crossover success with their 2005 album Frances the Mute, which reached number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart after the single "The Widow" became a hit on modern rock radio. Coheed and Cambria are another band known for their lengthy solos and off-the-beaten-path songwriting direction, in which each song corresponds to an important event in the graphic novel and novel series, The Amory Wars, which was written by lead singer/guitarist Claudio Sanchez. Other successful mainstream rock bands, including Radiohead, Muse and 30 Seconds to Mars,^[28] have been cited in the mainstream press as inheritors of the progressive rock mantle, along with Pure Reason Revolution, The Mystery Jets, Nude, Warpaint, and Mew.^[29]

New prog (also known as nu prog or post-prog)^{[29][30][31][32]} is a term that appeared around the mid-2000s to describe a number of alternative and experimental bands who incorporated elements from progressive rock or had an expansive, musically diverse, approach to their music in a way that has been identified to be progressive, but using a more musically contemporary template. Notable musical groups described as post-prog or new prog included 30 Seconds to Mars;^[33] Anathema;^{[citation needed]} Coheed and Cambria;^[34][35] Mew;^[36][29] Muse;^[28] Mystery Jets;^[29] Oceansize^[37], Pure Reason Revolution;^[38] and The Mars Volta.^[39]

The first decade of the 2000s saw progressive rock gain popularity in eastern Europe, especially in Russia, where the InProg festival was founded in 2001 and bands like Little Tragedies, EXIT project, Kostarev Group and Disen Gage achieved relative success in the Russian rock scene and were also noted outside Russia. Other notable north and eastern European bands are the Danish band Prime Time,^[40] the Turkish band Nemrud, the Latvian band Olive Mess, the Finnish band Jeavestone and the Polish band Riverside. In Asia, some progressive rock bands such as the Uzbek band FromUz^[41] were also founded.

Festivals[link]

Renewed interest in progressive rock in the 1990s led to the development of festivals. ProgFest, organized by Greg Walker and David Overstreet in 1993, was first held in UCLA's Royce Hall,^[3] and featured Sweden's Änglagård, the UK's IQ, Quill and Citadel. A festival called CalProg is held every year at Whittier, California in Los Angeles.^[42] NEARfest held its first event in 1999 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and has held annual concerts ever since.

Since 2003, many artists from the progressive scene have appeared at Gouveia Art Rock^[43] in Portugal: Van der Graaf Generator, Peter Hammill, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin, Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM), Richard Sinclair, Amon Düül II, Present, Univers Zero, Daevid Allen, Mike Keneally, Isildurs Bane, California Guitar Trio, and Miriodor.

Other festivals include the annual Rites of Spring Festival (RoSfest)^[44] in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, The Rogue Independent Music Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, Baja Prog in Mexicali, Mexico, ProgPower USA in Atlanta, Georgia and ProgPower Europe in Baarlo, Netherlands. Progressive Nation was held in 2008, featuring progressive metal bands Dream Theater, Opeth, Between the Buried and Me, and Three. Progressive Nation 2009 was held the following year featuring Zappa Plays Zappa, Bigelf, and Scale the Summit touring across the United States and Canada, as well as an additional international tour.^[45]

See also[link]

Progressive rock portal

• List of musical works in unusual time signatures
• Progressive folk music
• Timeline of progressive rock

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Lucky, Jerry. The Progressive Rock Files. Burlington, Ontario: Collector's Guide Publishing, Inc (1998), 304 pages, ISBN 1-896522-10-6 (paperback). Gives an overview of progressive rock's history as well as histories of the major and underground bands in the genre.
• Lucky, Jerry. The Progressive Rock Handbook. Burlington, Ontario: Collector's Guide Publishing, Inc. (2008), 352 pages, ISBN 978-1-894959-76-6 (paperback). Reviews hundreds of progressive rock bands and lists their recordings. Also provides an updated overview, similar to The Progressive Rock Files.
• Macan, Edward. Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. Oxford: Oxford University Press (1997), 290 pages, ISBN 0-19-509887-0 (hardcover), ISBN 0-19-509888-9 (paperback). Analyzes progressive rock using classical musicology and also sociology.
• Martin, Bill. Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock. Peru, Ill.: Carus Publishing Company (1998), 356 pages, ISBN 0-8126-9368-X (paperback). An enthusiastic analysis of progressive rock, intermixed with the author's Marxist political views.
• Snider, Charles. The Strawberry Bricks Guide To Progressive Rock. Chicago, Ill.: Lulu Publishing (2008) 364 pages, ISBN 978-0-615-17566-9 (paperback). A veritable record guide to progressive rock, with band histories, musical synopses and critical commentary, all presented in the historical context of a timeline.
• Stump, Paul. The Music's All That Matters: A History of Progressive Rock. London: Quartet Books Limited (1997), 384 pages, ISBN 0-7043-8036-6 (paperback). Smart telling of the history of progressive rock focusing on English bands with some discussion of American and European groups. Takes you from the beginning to the early 1990s.

Further reading[link]

• Hegarty, Paul; Halliwell, Martin (25 August 2011). Beyond and before: Progressive rock since the 1960s. Continuum. pp. xii+328. ISBN 978-0-8264-4075-4, ISBN 978-0-8264-2332-0 (paperback). 

Michael Doughty

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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2011)

Peter 'Pete' Frame (b. 10 November 1942, in Luton, Bedfordshire) is a music journalist, who produced outlines of the history of rock bands for various magazines (Sounds, NME, Melody Maker and Rolling Stone).^[1] He founded the English Alternative rock magazine ZigZag in April 1969 and acted as its editor,^[2] from its beginning until February 1973, and again from March 1976 until July 1977.^{[citation needed]} He was also an A&R man for B&C Charisma Records, and manager of Starry Eyed and Laughing.^{[citation needed]} Two collected volumes of his Rock Family Trees have been published. He is also author of Rockin' Around Britain.

In October 2007 his 500-page book - The Restless Generation - How rock music changed the face of 1950s Britain - was published by Rogan House.

Television series[link]

The Rock Family Trees books were used as the basis for the BBC Television series Rock Family Trees in the 1990s.^[3] The series was narrated by John Peel.

Series one[link]

• The Fleetwood Mac story - broadcast 24 June 1995. Featuring the formation and spin offs of Fleetwood Mac.
• The Birmingham Beat - broadcast 1 July 1995. Featuring The Moody Blues, The Move and Electric Light Orchestra
• Deep Purple people - broadcast 8 July 1995. Featuring the formation and spin offs of Deep Purple.
• New York Punk - broadcast 22 July 1995. Featuring The New York Dolls, Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Jayne County and Patti Smith.
• The British R'n'B boom - broadcast 29 July 1995. featuring Manfred Mann, Cream, Graham Bond Organisation. The Yardbirds and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
• The new Merseybeat - broadcast 5 August 1995. Featuring Echo & The Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, Big in Japan, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, OMD and Ian Broudie.

Series two[link]

• California Dreamin' - broadcast 4 September 1998. Featuring American folk rock of the 1960s including The Lovin' Spoonful, The Mamas and Papas and Barry McGuire.
• Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath - broadcast 11 September 1998. Featuring the formation and spin offs of Black Sabbath.
• The Mersey Sound - broadcast 18 September 1998. Featuring Merseybeat acts The Beatles, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Gerry and the Pacemakers and The Searchers.
• Banshees and other creatures - broadcast 25 September 1998. Featuring bands to evolve from the English Punk scene including Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Sex Pistols, Public Image Ltd, Adam and the Ants and The Cure.
• The Prog rock years - broadcast 2 October 1998. Featuring Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Asia.
• And God created Manchester - broadcast 9 October 1998. Featuring The Buzzcocks, Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Article from 2003 containing an interview from 1999
• The Restless Generation at the Rogan House website
• Official Home of Rock Family Trees

Further reading[link]

• Frame, Pete. The Complete Rock Family Trees. Omnibus Press 1993. ISBN 978-0-7119-0465-1
• Frame, Pete. The Beatles and Some Other Guys. Omnibus Press 1997. ISBN 978-0-7119-3665-2
• Frame, Pete. More Rock Family Trees. Omnibus Press 1998. ISBN 978-0-7119-6879-0
• Frame, Pete. Rockin' Around Britain. Omnibus Press 1999. ISBN 978-0-7119-6973-5
• Frame, Pete. The Restless Generation. Rogan House 2007. ISBN 978-0-9529540-7-1

This article about a British journalist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Curved Air are a pioneering British progressive rock group formed in 1970^[1] by musicians from mixed artistic backgrounds, including classic, folk, and electronic sound. The resulting sound of the band was a mixture of progressive rock, folk rock, and fusion with classical elements. Along with High Tide and East of Eden, Curved Air were one of the first rock bands after It's a Beautiful Day and The United States of America to feature a violin. Considered (according to AllMusic) "one of the most dramatically accomplished of all the bands lumped into Britain's late-'60s prog explosion",^[2] Curved Air released eight studio albums (the first three of which broke the UK Top 20) and had a hit single with "Back Street Luv" (1971) which reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart.^[3]

Band history[link]

Sisyphus[link]

The group evolved out of the band Sisyphus^[4] which was formed by Darryl Way (who studied violin at Dartington College and the Royal College of Music) and Francis Monkman, a member of the Royal Academy of Music.^[5][6] While wandering an outlet store of the Orange Music Electronic Company, Monkman was intrigued by the sound of Way testing out his first electrically amplified violin, and the two "got to talking."^[7] They discovered they had a lot in common, and in 1969 invited pianist Nick Simon who, along with bassist Rob Martin and drummer Florian Pilkington-Miksa, completed the line-up of Sisyphus.^[5] "Darryl and Nick were very much into Spirit. One could cite them as a formative influence for Curved Air", Monkman later remembered.^[5] Much of the early Curved Air songs were written for Sisyphus, among them "Young Mother in Style" and "Screw".^[5]

Sisyphus was hired to provide accompaniment for Galt McDermott's new play, "Who the Murderer Was," at the Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill Gate, serving as the pit band.^[2] Mark Hanau, an aspiring band manager at the time, saw the show and decided he wanted to manage Sisyphus. He felt that Sonja Kristina, an aspiring folk musician who he had seen in the London stage production of Hair,^[8] was the missing ingredient in the group. On January 1, 1970, Hanau contacted her through Roy Guest. She listened to a cassette of the band's music and was impressed.^[9] Upon Kristina's joining and Nick Simon's departure, the band changed their name to Curved Air, after the album A Rainbow in Curved Air by contemporary composer Terry Riley.^[2] The name was suggested by Monkman who, having played in the first London performance of In C, was a great fan of Riley.^[5] The band's new sound immediately came together, and the five-piece Curved Air was born, Sonja Kristina being both the band's voice and its sex symbol.^[8][10]

From formation to first breakup[link]

After a series of intensive rehearsals in Martin's family home in Gloucestershire,^[12] the five-piece launched a well-received U.K. tour, supporting Black Sabbath at one point.^[13] The band toured with their own sound engineer, Sean Davies (later the producer for Way's post-Curved Air band, Wolf), which allowed them to achieve a better on-stage sound mix than other groups with unusual combinations of instruments.^[11] Curved Air publicist Tony Brainsby fanned the stirring hype, a bidding war for the band ensued,^[11] and in summer 1970 Curved Air signed with Warner Bros., becoming the first British band on the company's roster.^[2] The band received a much-publicized advance of £100,000^[14] and their debut album Airconditioning was released in November to enormous hype surrounding its being issued as the first commercially available LP picture disc.^[4] The album reached number 8 in the UK Albums Chart,^[15] even though an accompanying single, "It Happened Today," failed to chart.

	Curved Air – "Back Street Luv" noicon 18 seconds (of 3:35)
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

With Ian Eyre replacing bassist Martin, the band released "Back Street Luv" which reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart to become the band's most successful single to date.^[15] The Second Album peaked at number 11. A non-LP follow-up single, "Sarah's Concern," went by unnoticed.^[2]

The band played three U.S. tours but never achieved more than a cult following there.^[10] By the end of 1972 Monkman was a self-admitted "nervous wreck" and his colleagues too were on the verge of physical and mental breakdown.^[5] In the course of constant touring drummer Pilkington-Miksa actually became ill and for several months Barry De Souza (Lou Reed, Jeff Beck, Kate Bush), who band members knew from studio work, sat in for him. It was De Souza who played with Curved Air at the 1971 Beat Club German T.V performance of "Back Street Luv", the televised version of which became well known.^[5] In late 1971 the band joined The Faces, Soft Machine, Marc Bolan, David Bedford to do a Christmas radio show for the BBC.^[8]

By the time of the third album release serious musical differences within the band emerged. According to Sonja Kristina's Cherry Red interview (2007), Francis was fascinated with overtones and natural harmonies, and "His other obsession is/was jamming... real 'out there' cosmic rock jamming. And that is not Darryl at all... He's a very disciplined perfectionist, he likes things to be as precise and exquisite as possible. Whereas Francis is completely the opposite way; he just wants to play and things just come out of the cosmos".^[9] As Monkman explained,

Basically Darryl and I respect each others' work, but we don't really see eye-to-eye on most things. And we never really got the co-writing thing together. I wanted to get my first 'epic' together, so it looks like a split forming at the time of the Second Album. In fact, the centre was never really solid after Rob left.

This division was reflected in the arrangement of tracks on Second Album and Phantasmagoria; side A of both albums was occupied by music composed by Darryl Way, while side B was devoted solely to Monkman's compositions, with no true collaboration between the two writers. While working in the studio the band was in a dire condition. "I remember the moment when Clifford Davis, our manager after Mark Hanau, spelled out what we were going to have to do just to get somewhere near even. We felt burned out", Monkman later said. He had to wear earplugs to go on the tube and went to a naturopath three times a week. Phantasmagoria was recorded with bassist/guitarist Mike Wedgwood, who replaced Eyre.^[16] The album's title was drawn from the Lewis Carroll poem of the same title. The album came out in April 1972 and reached number 20 in the U.K.^[15] Curved Air split up, Way formed Darryl Way's Wolf, Pilkington-Miksa joined Kiki Dee's band, and Monkman moved into session work and was later to play in, among others, the supergroup Sky.

The new Curved Air[link]

Having retained a good working relationship, Sonja Kristina and Mike Wedgwood formed a new band with Jim Russell (drums), Kirby Gregory (electric guitar), and Eddie Jobson (keyboards, violin). Jobson had come from a band called Fat Grapple, who had been one of Curved Air's support acts on tour.^[8] This new band played a much more conventional brand of rock than Curved Air, with almost none of the classical influences of that group. However, on the suggestion of manager Clifford Davis, they continued using the name Curved Air so as to give them a commercial leg up. Kristina later commented:

What I wanted to do with the band at the time was get more of a rock edge to it, and Kirby's guitar playing really excited me – he was just really wild. And Jim was the same way, a very solid rock drummer. Mike and I really wanted to continue, and it was our manager Clifford Davis who said we would do a better business continuing to call the band Curved Air. So we kept the name and followed along the same pattern as before, as a writer's band. Everybody in the new band contributed material except for Jim Russell, who really wasn't a writer. Before it had mainly been Darryl and Francis, but I had managed to get some of my compositions in.^[8]

The use of the Curved Air name was not enough, however. Whereas all three of Curved Air's albums had broken the UK top 20, the new band's sole album, Air Cut,^[18] failed to even chart. Due to artistic differences with Jobson,^[17] Kirby Gregory and Jim Russell both left the group to form Stretch. Warner Brothers realized that the current Curved Air was in essence not the same band they had signed, and so the remaining trio recorded a demo tape for the label. The demos failed to convince Warner Brothers, and they discontinued the contract.^[8] (These demos were later issued as part of the Lovechild record.) With no contract and only half a lineup, in summer 1973 Curved Air broke up. Jobson replaced Eno in Roxy Music, while Wedgwood joined Caravan.^[2]

Reunion[link]

In 1974 Chrysalis sued the band. "We had broken their contract on the advice of Clifford Davis, who said we could prove that they had not been acting in our best interests, but by then he was no longer our manager!" Monkman explained. In order to discharge an enormous unpaid VAT bill,^[19] in September 1974 the band's mainstays (Kristina, Way, Monkman, and Pilkington-Miksa) reunited for a three-week tour of the UK,^[4] put together by Darryl Way's manager, Miles Copeland III. The reunion interrupted Way's new band, Stark Naked and the Car Thieves, and since the bass slot for Curved Air needed filling, Way brought along the new band's bassist, Phil Kohn.

The reunion tour saw Sonja Kristina playing up her role as Curved Air's sex symbol far more dramatically than she had before. Between the band's previous breakup and the reunion tour she had worked as a croupier at the London Playboy Club^[8] and, influenced by the outfits the job required her to wear, she began wearing "see-through" style costumes which highlighted her sexuality.^[9]

A live album and single were recorded during the reunion tour, and though they failed to chart, they succeeded in paying off the tax bill. With their debts paid, Monkman and Pilkington-Miksa had no more reason to remain in the band. And so, Curved Air broke up for the third time in as many years.^[19]

Stark Naked, the Car Thieves, and Curved Air[link]

However, Darryl Way and Sonja Kristina remained interested in working together, and so Way brought in two more "Car Thieves", guitarist Mick Jacques and drummer Stewart Copeland.^[19] Though more members of this new lineup came from Stark Naked and the Car Thieves than Curved Air (Kristina being the only member not from the former band), they decided to adopt the Curved Air name for the same reasons that the Kristina/Wedgwood-led band had done the same thing.^[19] With Darryl Way at the helm,^[13] this new band often employed the same classical and folk influences as the original band(and even played one or two of the original band's songs at each of their shows), but their core sound was rooted in pop, rhythm and blues, and hard rock. Miles Copeland III, still serving as Curved Air's manager, put the group on his own label, BTM.^[20]

The band kicked off with a European tour, which started poorly.^[19] Way, a notorious perfectionist,^[9][21] grew impatient with the struggling of his bandmates, especially novice drummer Copeland.^[19] Then, for reasons no one could pinpoint, the musicians suddenly "clicked" with each other and the band caught fire, quickly becoming a popular and acclaimed live act.^[19]

Their studio efforts were another story, however. Phil Kohn left and the band, unable to replace him in time for the sessions for Midnight Wire, relied on guest musicians to play both bass and keyboards. Norma Tager, a friend of Kristina’s, penned the lyrics to the "Midnight Wire" songs.^[8] Kohn was shortly replaced by Tony Reeves,^[4] formerly of Colosseum and Greenslade, but the recording sessions for both Midnight Wire and 1976's Airborne were expensive and highly stressful for everyone involved.^[19] Both albums – as well as "Desiree", a single drawn from Airborne – failed to break the charts.

Citing dissatisfaction with BTM Records' inability to support Curved Air financially, Way departed.^[19] Though Alex Richman from the Butts Band stepped in on keyboards,^[6] the loss of the band's de facto leader was a blow. This line-up's last-ditch attempt at a hit single, a cover version of "Baby Please Don't Go", was another flop. After months of gradually losing steam, Curved Air broke up so quietly that, by Sonja Kristina's recollections, most of the music press wrote off the band's absence as a "sabbatical".^[9] Copeland formed The Police, Reeves returned to work as a producer and played in semi-pro band Big Chief along with Jacques, and Kristina and Way both pursued solo careers. Kristina and Copeland maintained the close personal relationship they'd formed while bandmates and were married in 1982.

Interim[link]

Curved Air as a group were largely inactive for the next three decades, though a handful of retrospective releases and compilations were released during this time. (Warner Bros. Records released the band's first compilation, "The Best of Curved Air", in April 1976, though it naturally only contained material from the band's four Warner Bros. albums.)

In 1984 Darryl Way asked Sonja Kristina to provide vocals to several of his solo recordings, two of which, "Renegade" and "We're Only Human", were released as a single under the Curved Air name. A third track, a cover of "O Fortuna", was released as a Sonja Kristina solo track on the b-side to "Walk on By", but was withdrawn due to objections from the Carl Orff estate.^[8] Yet another track, "As Long as There's a Spark", was originally recorded by Way and Kristina, but released as a Darryl Way solo track, with Way performing the vocals himself. Way and Kristina followed these recordings with a short tour in 1988, again under the Curved Air name.^[2]

In 1990 the original Kristina, Way, Monkman and Pilkington-Miksa quartet gave a one-off reunion concert at the London's Town & Country, supported by Noden's Ictus.^[8] The performance, recorded by Francis Monkman, was captured on the Alive, 1990 album, released in 2000.^[2]

Following the one-off reunion, guitarist Mike Gore instigated a series of jam sessions which involved three fifths of Curved Air's original lineup: Monkman, Pilkington-Miksa, and Martin.^[22] In 1991 several of these jams were recorded, ultimately being released as a Monkman solo album called Jam in 2002.

2008 onwards[link]

In early 2008, the band regrouped.^[23][24] On 4 May 2008, in a message to the Curved Air Yahoo Group, Kristina advised that the new line-up would be herself, Darryl Way (violin), Florian Pilkington-Miksa (drums), Andy Christie (guitar) and Chris Harris (bass). Francis Monkman, who was originally pictured with Kristina, Way and Pilkington-Miksa for the reunion, left the project. "Unfortunately, he didn't have the same vision as the rest of us as to how <the new project> should be approached and wasn't prepared to compromise, so our ways had to part", commented Way. Sonja Kristina confirmed, "Francis was in at the beginning but had extremely different ideas from Darryl about how he wanted this new Curved Air to prepare and develop. Eventually, he withdrew. We continued with Darryl at the helm as our musical director and producer."^[13] The new line-up played in Southern England, Italy and Malta in 2008.

In 2008 a CD/box set Reborn was released, with 12 re-recorded Curved Air tracks and two new songs ("Coming Home" and "The Fury").^[25] Two of the oldies, "Melinda" and "Elfin Boy", were reworked and produced by Marvin Ayres.^[13] As Way explained, the band had two reasons for this: they were never satisfied with the way those tracks were originally recorded and they wanted to have the product that they owned and were in control of. "Reborn was our way of preparing for the live work", Sonja Kristina added.^[13] On Friday, June 13, Curved Air performed at the Isle Of Wight Festival^[26] to a generally positive response.^[27]

For the 2009 dates in Japan on January 16 and 17 at Club Citta, Kawasaki, the guitarist was Kit Morgan who replaced Christie.^[28] On 9 August 2009, Eddie Jobson stood in for Darryl Way at a one-off gig in Chislehurst. For their dates in October 2009, Way was indisposed, and Paul Sax (violin) and Robert Norton (keyboards) stood in for him. "Robert Norton is exceptional – as is Paul Sax, a master violinist -one of the first entrants to the Yehudi Menuhin school – a passionate and brave performer very well qualified to step into Darryl's light. All the band are brilliant players and inspiring people. Chris Harris is literally our root on bass and Kit Morgan the fire on guitar. Great chemistry and communication", Sonja Kristina commented.^[29] This lineup (Kristina, Pilkington-Miksa, Harris, Morgan, Sax and Norton) continues to gig as Curved Air. The band played at the London High Voltage Festival 2011 (July 23–24), alongside Spock's Beard, Jethro Tull, Dream Theater, and Queensrÿche, among others.^[30]

A live album consisting of recordings from the previous UK tour, Live Atmosphere, was released on 2 April 2012.

Band members[link]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]