Taking their name from Steve Marriott's (of the Small Faces) euphemism for being high, The Nice originally formed as a back-up band for Immediate label soul singer P.P. Arnold. But the group's infatuation with Jimi Hendrix-like stage antics, manifested in Keith Emerson's keyboard histrionics, led them quickly away from the singer and into London's limelight. Guitar heroes had been around for years already, but Emerson lashed out as England's first keyboard showman.

Upon review, The Nice's self-titled third record is certainly not their strongest effort, as it fails to offer any progress on the band's prior two releases. The album opens with "Azrael Revisited," though Keith Emerson's piano is an inferior substitute to David O'List's guitar on the original single.

With David O'List gone, Keith Emerson firmly took charge of The Nice. It should be no surprise then that their second effort finds the trio diving deeper into the classical music realm to further flaunt Emerson's keyboard histrionics. Their six-minute rendition of Leonard Bernstein's "America," from the musical West Side Story (recorded while O'List was still with the band), was released as a single and nearly reached the UK Top 20 in July.

The Beatles changed the course of popular music in three major ways: 1) they wrote their own songs; 2) they took control of the recording process; and 3) they gave us Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Released worldwide on June 1st, 1967, The Beatles had been off the road for almost a year and immersed at EMI Studios. That it is a conceptual album and not just a collection of songs makes Sgt. Pepper's the landmark that it is.

Steve Winwood was known for his blue-eyed soul with the Spencer Davis Group, and songs such as "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm a Man" were the last in a string of hits from the group. By 1967, Winwood was out on his own, engaging some friends from his native Birmingham to form Traffic. They retired to the proverbial "cottage in the country" and created the first of two records that, along with Pink Floyd and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, would best characterize Britain's answer to America's acid rock: psychedelic rock. Their debut album, Mr.

The Moody Blues were originally an R&B-inspired group who scored a UK No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Go Now" b/w "It's Easy Child." A couple years later they-drummer Graeme Edge, keyboardist Mike Pinder and flautist Ray Thomas-recruited bassist John Lodge and guitarist Justin Hayward, but it took a change to the Deram label and the purchase of a Mellotron before they’d find success again.

The members of Procol Harum suffered most of the 60s as The Paramounts, whose minor claim to fame was a cover of "Poison Ivy" that hit the UK Top 40 in 1963. They finally broke up in 1966, but by the following year had resurrected themselves as Procol Harum. Released in May, their first single "A Whiter Shade of Pale" b/w "Lime Street Blues" shot immediately to No. 1 in the UK, selling over 4 million copies.

In late 1966, London-ordained "swinging" by Time magazine-was undergoing a massive cultural change. At the very heart of London's underground lay Barry Miles and Indica Books, the subject of The Beatles' "Paperback Writer." Along with John Hopkins, American Jim Haynes and others, Miles also launched the International Times, London's first newspaper dedicated to this new counter-culture. And it was roughly here that managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King introduced the Pink Floyd Sound to that scene.

Prior to recording their fourth album, Yes went through yet another personnel change: Tony Kaye was given the axe in favor of London's hottest keyboard player at the time. Rick Wakeman, who had just finished a musically unceremonious stretch with the Strawbs, was a Royal College of Music dropout, best known inside the studios (and pubs) of London. Yes offered him the opportunity to flaunt his talent, on the pretext that an infusion of more diverse keyboard sounds would further their music. It did indeed.