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© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS
Soft Machine take a breather outside the Royal Albert Hall (August 1971)
The name given to a collective of bands who, somewhat unsurprisingly, mostly hailed from the Canterbury area.
Most notable bands were Soft Machine, Caravan, Camel (who didn’t actually come from Canterbury) and later on National Health and Hatfield & The North.
All the bands followed a slightly jazzier, more pastoral route than some of the more bombastic and ostentatious prog bands of the 70s, and thus had more low-key success.
Formed in 1970, Curved Air added classical, folk and electronic elements to their progressive sound. However they were most noticeable for having a female singer, the not unattractive Sonja Kristina, who was prog’s pin-up girl du jour and helped propel their single Back Street Luv to number four in the charts in 1971. Check the reformed band out at Glastonbury later this year.
