Decidedly Non Prog

A band director in junior college once told me that only liking one kind of music was like only eating lettuce. I could not agree more, and while my prefered style to play is prog, it is definitely not all I like. At the moment I am watching a performance by John Fogerty on Soundstage. Kenny Aronof is drumming and he is kicking ass. This is music from my childhood, music that reached me on a gut level before I knew an eighth note from a hole in the ground. This is the music that made me like music and there's more of it out there. Before I ever heard Gentle Giant and Rush; I had heard John Fogerty and Johnny Cash and Tom Jones and Elvis Presley and Marty Robbins and Gordon Lightfoot and Frank Sinatra and Petula Clark and Shirley Bassey and The Kingston Trio and Sam & Dave and Englebert Humperdink and Dave Clark and Roger Miller and by god THEY'RE ALL GOOD! Granted, when I heard Rush 2112, I was floored. When I heard The Mahavishnu Orchestra's Birds of Fire , I was stunned. But you know what? When I heard John Fogerty sing Have You Ever Seen The Rain and the emotion of it touched me, I was just as stunned and I was just as floored. I could be a snoot and a snob and I could poo poo the simplicity or formula of such music, but if I did so I would be lying. The fact is, that music formed me, made me love music, and will always be a part of me.