Great music few are aware of. Any genre.

@bdp24 - nope, didn't even know of Emerson 'til the first ELP record. Emerson was an amazing pianist and keyboard artist. There are video clips of him performing works of a classical nature. The whole "prog rock" thing got overdone, and lost traction, but I still listen to early ELP, I have a couple of The Nice on early UK pressings. 
Leslie West- a whole other story. Lon-guy-land boy as I remember. I first saw him and Mountain (with the great Felix Pappalardi) open for Tull right before Aqualung was released. (I think Glenn Cornick was still playing bass). Leslie was a tone monster. No shredding, no impeccable fingering technique, but he could pull more soul out of a few notes than many more technically proficient guitarists. (The leads in Theme for an Imaginary Western come to mind). 
FWIW, we went to hear Crimson a couple weeks ago. I wasn't a long time fan, only really cared about the first album, though I had passing familiarity with Red, Larks Tongue and a few other tracks from the Wetton era. (Greg Lake's voice on the first album was gorgeous, but got lost in the mix). This band put on one of the best shows I have ever attended- well produced, no sonic overload, tighter than hell- three drummers, everybody, from the woodwind player to the bassist, played dead on--
Very few "old" acts that are still around can even approach what they did in their heyday. These guys, from what I gather, are in better form than ever. Fripp, of course, was as inscrutable as ever- looking like a retired haberdasher or banker, sitting on a stool, conducting and occasionally playing these psychotic, psych fills on vintage Les Paul's that were run through synthesizers. Crazy good show if you can catch it. 

Yup Bill, Emerson got a lot of credit for being a "Classically" trained keyboardist playing Rock music. He did that, though, not by using Classical compositional knowledge (ala Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Gary Brooker, a few other Pop and Rock keyboardists, especially Garth Hudson of The Band) to create new, song-form music, but rather by playing music written by Classical composers for an orchestra, in a Rock band. For me, that didn’t work---it sounded silly. Pictures At An Exhibition, written by Mussorgsky for solo piano, but better known in the version orchestrated by Ravel, played by a Rock band? Uh, no thanks. In contrast, Garth Hudson used his knowledge of music theory to play great Classically informed parts in his organ playing in The Band. Matthew Fisher did the same in Procol Harum. That’s more like it! For me, at any rate.

Not talking about the ELP or prog stuff, just straight piano playing, classical style. No pretensions of it being prog or rock. Yeah, I dug the The Band quite a bit back in the day. I was simply giving Emerson his due for being a superb keyboard player.

Jimmy LaFave
Start with "Cimarron Manifesto" or "The Night Tribe"

Poetic Austin (by way of Oklahoma) songwriter/rocker/Dylan devotee. His voice may not be to everyone’s taste. Think of a male early Lucinda Williams, the way his voice breaks and cracks. I like it just fine. He made great, rich music. He left us last May but his music deserves to live on and on.

Yeah Bill, and Emerson's grim ending was shocking. Not being able to play anymore was more than he could bear. Richard Manuel, pianist of The Band, did himself in too. Broke my heart, and Eric Clapton's too. He was a great admirer of Richard.