In the hobbies section, I've mentioned my long-time admiration of Buddy Rich.  I started playing drums at a very early age and drum-kit remained my primary instrument until my late teens when I gradually switched over to piano (which I still consider to be my primary instrument...even though I recently purchased my first drum-kit in 30 years and am now getting back to those roots!).  In addition to Buddy Rich, I was heavily influenced by a lot of late-60's/early-70's progressive rock drummers, principally (in no particular order):

Given those drumming influences, it's no surprise that frequent visitors to my CD player include early ELP (up through Brain Salad Surgery and parts of Works...not much after that), early Yes (up to Tales of Topographic Oceans and parts of Relayer (although both those albums get a bit raunchy for my taste)), most Jethro Tull (but especially before the 80's), most Gentle Giant (again, preferring the earlier stuff...up to about Interview or Free Hand). I like some early Genesis (Selling England by the Pound is my favorite by them...the other stuff up to about Wind & Wuthering is pretty good and most from there on in doesn't do much for me). I'm fond of very early King Crimson (really just the first two albums although Lizard and Islands aren't bad). I like Kansas's more progressive stuff (Leftoverture, Song for America, Point of Know Return) and, in fact, they're one of the very few kick-ass guitar bands that I enjoy.  There's a lot of Renaissance (most of the albums with Annie Haslam...up through A Song for All Seasons) that I find quite beautiful although I have to say that of all the bands I've heard described as sounding like Renaissance, none of them have done much for me.

I like a lot of Italian bands, but especially early PFM (up through The World Became the World/L'isola di Niente), most Banco (although I don't know much of their work from the 80's), and a lot of Le Orme (although even at their best, I don't put them in the same league as Banco). I like a lot of Syndone's Inca disk (Spleen, less so) and the one Celeste disk I've heard is quite pretty (Principe di Giorna). I also find a lot of Calliope and Castello di Atlante enjoyable.  I recently picked up a couple of disks by a group called H2O which are quite nice.  Perhaps the most wonderful Italian prog-rock record in my collection, however, is Locanda della Fate's Forse le lucciole non si amano piu.  I don't know much about this band...they produced this one extraordinarily beautiful record in 1977 and then (so far as I've been able to tell) recorded nothing again until 2000 when they came out with the enjoyable but definitely-not-in-the-same-league Homo Homini Lupus.  If you have a chance to buy a copy of Forse and any of the bands I'm listing here appeal to you, then don't think about it...just buy it!

As for some of the less well-known bands, I like Anglagard (Hybris better than Epilog), I'm very fond of Ars Nova (the symphonic bits more than the raunchier bits although the way the raunchy bits blossom into the symphonic bits is often quite wonderful). At their best, Ars Nova makes me think of what ELP might have become if they hadn't sold out to 80's pop-music after (and, to some extent, on) Works.  In small doses, I like Flash and Starcastle (once again, their earlier couple of disks more than the later ones). I also quite like most Happy the Man (although I've been disappointed in the lack of variety in the solo works of their "mastermind" Kit Watkins).

I have mixed feelings about the Canterbury scene. A lot of it (like Henry Cow), gets too weird even for me and some of the other biggies (Soft Machine, for example), simply strike me as just-OK-jazz. Most of Dave Stewart's groups (especially Hatfield & the North, National Health and some of the work he did with Bill Bruford) I like a lot (I also rather enjoy his somewhat "poppier" albums with Barb Gaskin). Since I like Hatfield, it's probably no surprise that Camel (at least the earlier disks) are quite palatable to me as well. Caravan has it's moments but, for the most part, they don't do a lot for me.

On a more mellow front, I generally enjoy Celtic/Medieval/English-folk hybrids (I quite like Dunwich and Steeleye Span (and much of Maddy Prior's solo work)).  I'm a bit less fond of Pentangle and Fairport Convention but I do have quite a bit of stuff by each of them.