When you think of classic rock bands like Journey, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith may come to mind. However, there are a few classic rock groups out there that you may have never heard of and who deserve as much attention as the aforementioned artists.

Reading a recent article got me to thinking about classic rock and how many potential fans there might be out there that are too young to be familiar with a lot of the great music from the past few decades. I have to agree strongly with the author of the article in question. He sums things up pretty well with the following statement: “The public is tired of the poor-quality garbage being forced on them. It’s time we got back to real music.”

As much as I enjoy many of the well-known classic rock groups like Rush, Heart and Yes, there are a few others that are not as well-known and who I enjoy just as much. Lovers of classic rock who are not familiar with these groups might be surprised to learn that there is more great classic rock out there just waiting to be discovered.

For now I will limit the discussion to two of my all-time-favorite “unknown” rock groups.

The first is Saga, a Canadian group that managed to get a few videos on MTV back in the 1980’s but never really caught on here in the U.S. in a big way. They probably also managed some radio airtime back then, but to be honest I can’t recall for sure.

Saga seems to fall generally within the category of “progressive rock,” although that doesn’t do their unique sound justice. I can’t compare them with any other bands of that era that I can think of.

I don’t know what it is about somewhat obscure Canadian rock bands that I am drawn to, but my second choice happens to fall under that category as well: Max Webster.

In my opinion, Max Webster is one of the best undiscovered classic rock groups of all time. Make no mistake, these guys are rockers and man, could they play. Their front man, Kim Mitchell also has a few solo albums that are very similar in style and sound and are also well worth checking out.

I can take my entire collection of Saga or Max Webster MP3’s and que them up in my player and enjoy every track with the exception of one or two of them. The exceptions being the track or two that were thrown in as an experiment or gag — especially in the case of Max Webster.

You can still get a lot of this stuff on Amazon, so if you care to check it out, head over there and do a search for “Saga” or “Max Webster” and see what you think.