Rick Wakeman Gets Prog God Award

Rick will be given the award at the ceremony in Kew Gardens on 5 September when the biggest prog artists around will be heading to London.

Rick Wakeman said of the award: "I’m very proud indeed. I've always believed that these days there is hardly a band or musician anywhere who haven't used some element of prog in their music. It's all about freedom of expression, which in my case is often in seven different time signatures! I am genuinely very very proud to get this award.”

Steven Wilson leads the nominations at the awards with five, followed by both Steve Hackett and Ian Anderson, who are nominated in four categories each, and with Opeth’s Mikael Akerfeldt and It Bites both featuring in three different awards categories.

"These awards have been a long time coming,” says Prog Editor Jerry Ewing. "But certainly when one considers the enormous amount of success that progressive artists have garnered over the past four decades, and perhaps more importantly the enjoyment they have given millions of fans over the years, it’s only right we give something back to the musicians themselves And given the buoyancy of the genre in recent years, we felt that the time was certainly right.

"We think we’ve managed to get the balance of nominations right with acknowledgement of the original wave of progressive artists who have been such an inspiration to so many people, and today’s new wave of forward thinking musicians who carry the flame ever onwards.”

You can find out more HERE