Championing The Parts Of The Sum

As any progressive rock fan knows, we have been treated to more than our fair share of suites, one-song album sides, and concept albums. And we love them, one and all. But it also tickles me prog pink to hear either a performer or a radio station (be it terrestrial or streaming) recognize the individual songs from say, the first side of a Tarkus or Recycled or The Myths and Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table.

Let’s take this last first.

Last fall I caught Rick Wakeman during what he claimed was the beginning of his “Final Solo Tour” run, playing at a theatre near my home in suburban New Jersey. This marks a half dozen times I have seen our beloved caped keysader solo, and a more enjoyable evening of bawdy stories and fleet fingering I couldn’t have hoped for (see here at VintageRock.com for a review of that show). Beyond his musicianship, what’s always made the musical sections of Rick’s solo shows so great (and yes, it is ‘Rick’ with me, as this iconic musician and I are on a first-name basis…he just doesn’t know it) is his constant recognition of and playing specific tunes from his concept albums.

That last time I saw him, Mr. W. played three songs from the aforementioned “Arthur,” an album I have happened to have spun across the ’round table’ of my record player untold times. The great ivory-tickler sailed us through “Guinevere,” and “Merlin the Magician,” which I have heard him play plenty of times, but he also added in “The Last Battle,” regaling us all that he didn’t usually play this, the last bit of “Arthur.”

I certainly haven’t ever heard/seen him do so.

I was delighted, as much from Wakeman’s weaving in, under, above, and around these individual nuggets, as his recognition of these specific wonderful pieces making up the overall concept of the album they are from. I have often dropped the needle where I wanted on the spinning piece of vinyl that is my original The Myths and Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table when I just wanted to listen to this or that song. And who knows what he might pull out on his tour this summer (check out the news here.)

Conversely, it makes me shiver every time I hear a radio station play Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” together when we all know…they are two separate songs!

And speaking of radio, I have to thank whoever is looking down at us classic rock music fans for streaming stations. The pickings are deep from the many choices I have found from across the globe on web radio, and the more classic proggy stations (Morrow.com specifically, my current favorite) seem to stick to the rule of playing a song, no matter how short or long it is, from a concept album or side-long suite. I have as much heard “Aquatarkus” from ELP’s Tarkus side 1(all three minutes, fifty-five seconds of it) as the even briefer “Hairless Heart,” from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (a song I know I have never heard played all by itself on any terrestrial radio station), as much as the full side-long song of “Tubular Bells, Part Two,” from Mike Oldfield’s first grand opus-of-an-album from which William Friedkin’s devil would later have his due.

Surely, our favorite progressive rock bands weren’t known for churning out singles so often so it’s nice when we get their shorter songs recognized and played by either the men and women who made them or stations playing them.

I just know I couldn’t have made it through my youth the way I did without all as much as each part of the Tarkus suite, the Journey to the Centre of the Earth album, and all of Recycled,,,and so many other great albums filled with such great parts of the whole.