He referenced ELP Trilogy on his show once as well.Originally Posted by Digital_Man
He referenced ELP Trilogy on his show once as well.
Joss Whedon (director/writer/producer of Buffy, Angel, Firefly and most recently the Avengers) is enough of a Yes fan to name his production company Mutant Enemy.
Steve Carell is a well known Jethro Tull fan.
Tony Snow (former White House Press Secretary and of Fox News) was a big Tull fan too. In fact, he was the special guest (and played flute on a couple numbers too!) at one of Ian's Rubbing Elbows shows in 2003.
Some of the people from MST:3000 and Rifftrax and prog fans or know their prog. Quite a lot of Genesis, Collins, Tull, Rush, references.
From The Gentle Giant Home Page
Sherman Hemsley (1938-2012), the actor who played George Jefferson on the TV sitcoms The Jeffersons and All in the Family, was actually a fan of Gentle Giant. (This fact has been confirmed by Hemsley himself.) In fact, on the TV show The Dinah Shore Show, Hemsley performed a dance to a Gentle Giant song.
Here's the story as described by fan Ray Seda. (Editor's note: Ray mistakenly placed the dance on the Mike Douglas show.)
On this particular occasion, the guest on the show was Sherman Hemsley, the guy that played the character "George Jefferson" on the shows "The Jeffersons" and "All in the Family." On that occasion he was going to perform a dance. To our shock and amazement, the music he danced to was none other than Proclamation from The Power and the Glory! After his dance, the host was laughing and asked what kind of music that was. Sherman then proceeded to give a 5 minute speech on Gentle Giant. The host stopped laughing when he realized that Sherman was 100% serious about Gentle Giant!
Boy was that a weird scene!
A fair amount of hip-hop and r&b artists and producers are self-professed prog fans. Most recently Jeff Bhasker has had a lot of success producing stuff like Kanye West, Rihanna, Alicia Keys and Fun. In interviews about Keys' wonderful album "The Element of Freedom" he's mentioned prog and the influence of prog keyboardists and analogue synths. (In fact even Keys' herself has mentioned the Genesis influence on that album.).You can hear it on a lot of his productions.
On a personal note, I'm making an album now with a few luminaries from the Scandinavian and British prog scenes, and the main vocalist is a very high profile pop songstress here in Norway who I know loves White Willow. She is also going to appear on "Dancing With the Stars" here in Norway this Fall, which I think must be a prog related firstHere's one of her own hit singles (warning, NOT prog): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zgion1nAWE
Another local story about prog and celebrities: One of the absolutely most successful comedians in Norway the past decade or so, used to be a singer in this band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2d9I0NssxQ
Jacob, the link to the "pop songstress" comes up with "uploader has not authorized this video for your country".
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
and of course, there's this:
Compact Disk brought high fidelity to the masses and audiophiles will never forgive it for that
Bestselling author Michael Chabon is a progger. Check out the number of bands he invokes below.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/...og_rock_.html#
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Interesting. How about this, then? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQHC_ioWkcgJacob, the link to the "pop songstress" comes up with "uploader has not authorized this video for your country".
Oh, and here's a quote from an Alicia Keys interview about "The Element of Freedom" in USA Today: "Other vintage pop acts also informed Freedom, her fourth studio album, which arrives today. Keys started "to experiment with keyboards from the late '70s and '80s. ... I listened to a lot of Genesis, The Police, Tears for Fears— people who hadn't been staples for me.""
Nope, but it did give me enough to listen to Vemke K. on yt, and she definitely has a great pop voice. People were also saying that about Leslie Hunt of D97 until she sung with them.
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
Top Scottish novelist Ian Banks/Ian M Banks who died recently was a big Marillion fan, and in fact part of the rock star character Weird in Espedair Street was apparently influenced by Fish. If you haven't read this book, I suggest you do.
UK comedians Al Murray and David Baddiel are huge Genesis fans, and Steve Coogan loves Tull.
Somebody above mentioned Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear being big on Prog - so is co-presenter James May. Rick Wakeman has obviously been on the show, and last weekend saw Mike Rutherford make an appearance as the "star in a reasonably priced car" - he wasn't very fast, Brian Johnson of AC/DC kicked his ass.
(Racist, misogynistic and thoroughly repugnant) British comedian Jim Davidson is a massive ELP fan and is/was a close buddy of Keith Emerson. When Mr D presented the UK TV show 'The Generation Game' the theme music was a newly recorded version of 'Karn Evil 9' - Keith has also contributed special arrangements of the likes of Tarkus that were used in Davidson's panto productions
Steve 'Interesting' Davis is a huge Magma fan
The late great Al Davis (owner of the Oakland Raiders) attended Nearfest 2002 and was a big fan of Caravan, Steve Hackett, and Nektar among others.
Holy shit! I never knew that, Mark.
Or are you bored enough in retirement to conjure up a tale?
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
lol, Al must have blended right in as the year they were at NF, I swear more than half the crowd were wearing Nektar t-shirts.
So, is Hillary Duff really a prog fan?
Katie Puckrick was in Prog magazine. I think she liked Tull.
I have a lot of books by author Walter Klimczak, kind of a young adult sci-fi/fantasy author. 'Falling In The Garden' I thought was great, so reading the next in his 'TimeFront' series 'This Place Only', I turn a page and see a quote from Tony Banks' 'An Island In The Darkness' with a reference to Tony Banks. Kind of blew my away since it was so unexpected. So I messaged him on Facebook, and he responded stating that he pretty much listened exclusively to Tony Banks throughout the writing of that particular book.
I was there! And did not know that.The late great Al Davis (owner of the Oakland Raiders) attended Nearfest 2002 and was a big fan of Caravan, Steve Hackett, and Nektar among others.
Anyhow I heard another Sherman Hemsley rumor that- Hemsley collaborated with Yes’s Jon Anderson on a funk-rock opera about the “spiritual qualities of the number 7” (never produced).
Also Jimi Hendrix was a huge King Crimson fan as well as an ELP fan. I heard from someone that he was supposed to have joined ELP too.
Last edited by LEG-art; 07-05-2013 at 07:22 PM.
John Voldstadt who was one of the two Daryl brothers on the tv show Newhart is a prog fan and was at Nearfest apocalypse. He was also in the movie Stripes.
Long story made short, I had the nervous balls to saddle up aside Mr. Hackett at the War Memorial Bar (he was drinking tea) and started conversation with him. Very polite gentleman is Mr. Hackett. Al Davis sits to my immediate right and leans in across me and introduces himself to Steve Hackett and I suddenly realize I'm a very lucky but very non entity in this conversation. I move to the table right in back of me and end up sitting with Roy and Taft from Nektar talking about bongs and Remember The Future and how they found the MUSE(ie....bong use!) to write RTF. Doug Boyle (guitarist for Caravan) sits down with us and I'm in fantasy land......my story and I'm sticking to it! And yes Geez, retirement is everything I'd hoped it would be. Lots of time to play the keyboards and guitar now!
Or are you bored enough in retirement to conjure up a tale?
Horror novelist Bentley Little is a prog fan. In just about every one of his novels I've read (lots) his main character drives to investigate some horrific scene with a stack of prog CDs to play in the car.
Lou
Looking forward to my day in court.
I saw a tweet of his a few months back in which he linked to a video of Kevin Gilbert's band from the mid '90s doing a cover of Zeppelin's Kashmir. Is there any other evidence to suggest he's specifically a Gilbert fan? He could've been searching for Zeppelin covers and just happened to find that one without having any other knowledge of Gilbert's music, for all we know.
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