Plenty of examples from Jethro Tull and Freedom Rider by Traffic has a great flute part.
What are the best ones?
Ray Thomas of The Moody Blues comes to mind.
Peter Gabriel was one of the best.
Any songs in mind?
Some other examples:
“So Long Frank Lloyd Wright” by Simon and Garfunkel
“Moondance” by Van Morrison
“Thick As A Brick“ by Jethro Tull
“California Dreamin’” by The Mamas & the Papas
So far these are all either Folk or Prog Rock.
Some early Marvin Gaye singles had flute solos: Hitch Hike, Stubborn Kind of Fellow.
Wasn’t it Brian Jackson who played on Gil Scott herons records? The Bottle was great.
Andrew Latimer of Camel.
“Supertwister” Camel - Supertwister - YouTube
These could be too soft to be “rock”, but Lotta Love by Nicolette Larson and Lowdown by Boz Scaggs.
Burton Cummings was a decent flute player, and a few Guess Who songs had flute in them.
The Marshall Tucker Band used a flute extensively:
Tull’s “Locomotive Breath” is pure rock, with a good flute solo.
There are plenty of examples of flute played in rock songs. Ian Anderson is the only one who plays Rock Flute.
In the recording of Roger Waters The Wall: Live in Berlin there is some great flute work on Goodbye Blue Sky. Not surprising since it’s James Galway. Irrelevant fact: As one of the opening acts that day Galway played with The Chieftains. I was there.
Does disco count? The Hustle
That is pretty cool. I’ve seen the Chieftains twice now, once right at the Art Center. I’ve been to several post Waters Pink Floyd concerts and the Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking tour by Waters. what a great mix of performers.
No, it never counts.
There is that flute part of California Dreaming
Flute Thing by the Blues Project
Here’s the video of that performance. Joni Mitchell on vocals.
Jeremy Steig of Jeremy and the Satyrs was a flautist. It’s hard to categorize his music, but Lillian Roxon listed him in The Rock Encyclopedia. Twice.
Burton Cummings learned to play the flute just for “Undun.”
How about Chicago’s “Colour My World”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKvNoC0SRoY Flute starts at 1:52 point. Chicago had a lot of brass too.
Not rock, but jazz. I saw Maynard Ferguson many times and the flute player always amazed me. For a trumpet player watching a mainly brass band that says something. About 1:30 in this clip.
He also "sang" when he played. It is subtle but around 3 minutes into this you can hear it.
Jaya of The Hu plays flute on several of their songs, and they are most *definitely *rock.