HENRI VAUGRAND – FROG PROG : musiques progressives en français

Description

FROG PROG: progressive music in French
Chroniques transatlantiques

CAMION BLANC – The publisher that drives rock!
July 31, 2023
Book, format 14.8 x 21 cm, 370 p.
ISBN: 978-237848-391-3

At the end of the 60s and during part of the 70s, progressive music occupied the front of the international scene, in particular thanks to groups like those of the “Big Six”: Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Genesis; Jethro Tull; King Crimson; Pink Floyd and Yes. Predominantly English-speaking, this particular form of music has nonetheless seen the birth of singular linguistic developments capable of going beyond musical, political and societal borders. Thus, the Francophonie has seen the flowering of artists carrying varied poetic and ideological messages on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Often without knowing or crossing paths, these French-speaking cousins have developed a musical exception that continues some fifty years later. Thus Ange, Harmonium, Atoll, Maneige, Mona Lisa, Morse Code, Triangle, Pollen and others have marked the musical history of their respective countries, and sometimes beyond, while giving birth to spontaneous generations marked by their influence, in France as in Quebec or elsewhere. It is this particularity that is the subject of this work because progressive musics in French have managed to mark their existence with works whose interest has been equaled only by the lack of attention or even rejection expressed by the public and the media of the countries where they were born. Caught in particular dreams, the French-speaking artists, ardent defenders of their mother tongue, also generated unique musical forms of which it was appropriate to identify many aspects. Without concern for completeness, the author tries to shed new light on the transmitters of language and hope that were, are and will undoubtedly still be tomorrow these “shepherds of a seventh heaven”.

Henri Vaugrand is musician, reviewer for Big Bang. Musiques progressivesmagazine, and Vallis Lupi label manager. Doctor in sociology, he directed the “Diagonale critique” collection at L’Harmattan editions and the research journal X-Alta. The author is interested in different cultural forms and what they tell us about the characteristics and evolutions of our societies.