Billy Ritchie Interview: The Man Who Invented Prog (Part 1 of 3)

It’s an absolute honour to welcome into the Dukey Radio Show studio Billy Ritchie. The man who invented prog. And he really did.

Dukey first heard about our guest’s innovative musical endeavours with the band 123 and later, Clouds,through recent guest Bruce Thomas’s book “Rough Notes”. And, in a recent prog-themed special on this very show, Dave Dawson and Dukey waxed lyrical about Billy Ritchie’s influence on the likes of Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer. In this first instalment of our three-part interview with Billy, we chat about our guest’s early years in the music business

From finding his sound with TheSatellites and the Premiers in early 1960s Scotland to being signed up by The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein while in the band 123 - we discover that innovation comes with quite a cost attached to it. In the same way that Marty McFly’s guitar antics were shocking to his 1955 audience in the film Back to the Future – Britain wasn’t quite ready for Billy Ritchie’s blueprint for prog in the mid 1960s. To say that his band 123 were a Marmite outfit would be an understatement. From requiring police escorts to save the band from audience dissent to becoming the toast of swinging London Town with their now legendary residency at the Marquee Club in front of future prog demi-gods carefully watching and taking notes – it wasn’t an easy ride. But Ritchie's influence spawned an entire musical movement that is still going strong today. 

Billy also shares a rare solo home studio recording illustrating how his band 123 approached their friend DavidBowie’s track “I dig everything” back in the day. 

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