Michal Prokop & Framus Five

Biography

Acting as a long-lived backing band for its leader, Michal Prokop & Framus Five are one of the most influential acts on czech music scene to date, best known for their title track Kolej Yesterday, a story of cold-war generation in mid-life crysis. Their sound and genre direction has been fluid so far, ranging from rhythm and blues and soul, over to bigbeat, blues rock and progressive rock compositions. The same versatility applies to the band’s name and line-up. During more than four decades sin...

Acting as a long-lived backing band for its leader, Michal Prokop & Framus Five are one of the most influential acts on czech music scene to date, best known for their title track Kolej Yesterday, a story of cold-war generation in mid-life crysis. Their sound and genre direction has been fluid so far, ranging from rhythm and blues and soul, over to bigbeat, blues rock and progressive rock compositions. The same versatility applies to the band’s name and line-up. During more than four decades since its formation, a great number of excellent musicians has taken place in the band, including guitarist Luboš Andršt and violinist Jan Hrubý.

The band’s origins can be traced back to spring of 1963, when schoolmates Michal Prokop and Ivan Trnka formed a guitar-piano duo. With temporary and unstable line-ups created together with session musicians, they used to perform occasionally as an instrumental act Framus, inspired by The Shadows. Prokop’s strong interest in Ray Charles, soul and rhythm and blues music in general, together with inability to find a suiting vocalist, led to his decision to provide the vocal section on his own. In 1967, the band was already famous and estabilished well on the scene. Performing as Michal Prokop & Framus Five at that time, they released their first eponymous LP in 1969, with an export version called Blues in Soul. Subsequent tour consisted of an impresive number of concerts, including 200 shows in Poland. The first change in genre direction came with highly acclaimed progressive rock piece Město ER (R City) in 1971.

At the beginning of seventies the times were getting bad for czechoslovakian rock musicians and groups. As a consequence of Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and following normalization, the group eventually disbanded in 1971 due to censorship, government oppression and repertoire restrictions. Members of the band later continued to perform in mainstream acts.

Unsatisfied with the state of his own solo career in 1978, inspired with The Animals reunition and work of Pink Floyd, Michal Prokop decided to form the band again. In order to pass the mandatory qualification requirements, any trace of english language had to be omitted from the title, which is the reason new line-up continued as Michal Prokop & Framus 5. Because there were no longer only five members in the band, the title was later also written as Michal Prokop & Framus (5) on album covers (with ampersand replaced by "a" as czech synonym, which adds even more confusion). The initial plan was to continue musically where they left one decade ago and to find a new direction. As result, Holubí Dante (Columbine Dante) was released in 1980, which did not prove much success when faced with different audience. A positive change came with producer Ladislav Kantor, who contributed to create new image of the band and to find new members to support the goal. The following three albums – Kolej Yesterday (Campus Yesterday, 1984), Nic ve zlým, nic v dobrým (Not Meant Bad, Not Meant Good, 1987), Snad nám naše děti... (May Us Our Children... , 1989) – are headstones of 80’s czech rock music and the tracks contained still remain popular nowadays.

Second hiatus came with the dawn of democracy in 1989 when Michal Prokop took career of a politician. The band no longer continued to perform or release any albums except for compilations and reissues till 2006, when Prokop released new solo material Poprvé Naposledy („Last Time for the First Time“) and some of the former members agreed to support him during the recording sessions and through the follow-up tour. What was initially planned as a temporary act, remains a long-standing line-up thanks to the great fan response. Michal Prokop & Framus Five continue to perform on a regular basis today. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.