In the Court of the Crimson King

IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING
 
 
In the Court of the Crimson King  is the debut studio album by the British rock group King Crimson, released on 10 October 1969.  The album is generally viewed as one of the first works to truly embody the progressive rock genre, where King Crimson largely departed from the blues influences that rock music had been founded upon and mixed together jazz and classical symphonic elements.  The Who’s Pete Townshend was quoted as calling the album “an uncanny masterpiece”.  In the Q & Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came fourth in its list of “40 Cosmic Rock Albums”.  The album was named as one of Classic Rock magazine’s “50 Albums That Built Prog Rock”.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
I cannot talk about progressive rock without bringing up one of my favorite albums:  King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King.  This was one of the earliest albums in the progressive rock genre; Bruce Eder in Allmusic describes it well as “one of the most daring debut albums ever recorded by anybody”.  I can’t even remember how I found out about this album; it came out in late 1969, and I am pretty sure that I already had a copy of the album with me when I headed to North Carolina State University for the second semester of my freshman year in early 1970.  Even at the time, the album made almost all of the other 1960’s music seem positively stodgy in comparison.  Woodwinds are very rare in rock music, yet Crimson King abounded in them; but honestly, I couldn’t tell how they made some of those sounds.  The dense lyrics were also a revelation; printing out the lyrics in an album was comparatively rare until Sgt. Pepper came along, and the fact that many of the lyrics were written by someone having the sinister name of Peter Sinfield (who was not numbered among the musicians) only heightened the notion that I was hearing something brand new. 
 
King Crimson never quite reached those heights again (to these ears anyway), not least because several of the key members of the band had moved on (or were about to) before the release of their second album, In the Wake of Poseidon
 
(October 2012)
 
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Even in the context of the late 1960’sKing Crimson’s debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King seemed to come out of nowhere, even after other bizarro albums had already come along (both of which are excellent by the way):  the 1968 debut Gris-Gris by Dr. John the Night Tripper (the stage name of premier New Orleans pianist Mac Rebennack, and later shortened to Dr. John), which features voodoo rhythms and chants; and, in the same year, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, which spawned the hit single “Fire”.  In the Court of the Crimson King featured powerful music and dense lyrics, particularly on the title song, “In the Court of the Crimson King and “21st Century Schizoid Man”, interspersed with quieter songs like “I Talk to the Wind” and an extended free-form jazzy interlude on “Moonchild”.  I have already discussed this album at length on an earlier post about another UARBTrillion

 

I have always been fascinated about where the music in In the Court of the Crimson King came from, and while I certainly don’t have all of the answers, I heard about a predecessor psychedelic rock band called Giles, Giles and Fripp not too long ago.  This band includes the only constant member in the ever-changing line-up of King Crimson over the years, guitarist Robert Fripp.  The other bandmembers were two English brothers, drummer Michael Giles and bass guitarist Peter Giles; the two had advertised for a singing keyboard player, but they hired Fripp anyway.  The band released one album, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp in 1968, along with a couple of singles; all sold poorly (Robert Fripp claimed that they only sold 500 copies of the original album, though that figure is disputed). 

 

Along with fellow King Crimson alumnus, Ian McDonald plus Jakko Jakszyk (who had previously played with Level 42, Tom RobinsonRobert Fripp and Dave Stewart, among others), the Giles Brothers formed a band in 2002 called 21st Century Schizoid Band, which was named after the King Crimson song, 21st Century Schizoid Man (the opening track on In the Court of the Crimson King).  Though not exactly a tribute band – since they were the original musicians on much of the music – 21st Century Schizoid Band mainly played music from the first four King Crimson albums.  They disbanded within a few years. 

 

(March 2013)

 

Last edited: March 22, 2021