ABSTRACT
Bill Bruford (born 1949) was one of the most respected drummers of the British progressive rock era. He began in 1968 as one of the original members of Yes, and over the course of the 1970s played with other similar-minded groups such as Genesis, UK and, most significantly, King Crimson, a group he would rejoin for a second stint in the early 1980s, and, for a third time in the mid 1990s. In this excerpt from his 2009 autobiography, Bruford examines the backgrounds and creative intentions of the British musicians and bands that comprised the 1970s British progressive rock movement. As he explains, these groups very much reflected their uniquely British social and cultural context. While they reached a large audience in the United States, they were often met by hostile rock critics quick to skewer the movement’s seemingly pretentious musical ambitions.1 Bruford’s account of the era is eloquent, critical, self-reflective, and better researched than the typical rock musician’s autobiography. He even includes academic-styled endnotes that cite such important musicological studies as Edward Macan’s Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture and Allan F. Moore’s Rock: The Primary Text. The seriousness and thoughtfulness with which Bruford approaches his subject in many ways reflects the depth and complexity of the progressive rock movement itself.
