Dec 14

Emerson, Lake and Palmer

EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER
 
 

Emerson, Lake & Palmer  were an English progressive rock supergroup power trio who sold over forty million albums.  The band consisted of Keith Emerson (keyboards), Greg Lake (bass guitar, vocals, guitar) and Carl Palmer (drums, percussion).  They were one of the most popular and commercially successful progressive rock bands.  ELP's sound was dominated by the Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer and piano of flamboyant virtuoso Emerson and heavily influenced by classical music as well as jazz and hard and symphonic rock.  Lake ensured that each album contained at least one simple, accessible acoustic ballad, many of which received heavy radio airplay.  (More from Wikipedia)

 
 
Vocalist Greg Lake of King Crimson joined keyboard wiz Keith Emerson of the Nice and Carl Palmer, who had drummed for the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster, in forming Emerson, Lake and Palmer; how you feel about this "super group" probably goes a long way toward defining how you feel about progressive rock as a whole. 
 
Even progressive rock bands whose albums sold well from the beginning often didn't reach their creative peak for awhile.  The magnum opus for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, "Karn Evil 9" was on their fifth album, Brain Salad Surgery.  Jethro Tull's classic album Aqualung was their fourth album.  This also applies for several rock bands of the same time period that do not truly fit the progressive rock category.  It was Queen's fourth album, A Night at the Opera that included their unforgettable "Bohemian Rhapsody".  Canadian hard rockers Rush came up with 2112 as their fourth album (that title is exactly 100 years from now, as it happens).  The Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd's space-rock masterpiece that took up near permanent residency on the Billboard album charts – was the band's eighth album.  With Trillion though, the band was never given the opportunity to develop an audience or to refine their sound. 
 
(October 2012)
 
*       *       *
 

On June 6, 1966, Keith Emerson – later a founding member of the Nice and Emerson, Lake and Palmer – told Bruno Ceriotti that he was in the audience for a performance by the Soul Agents at the Marquee Club.  As reported by Ceriotti on his blog:  "The not yet famous organ God Keith Emerson was in the audience during one of the band's Marquee shows that summer, and was duly inspired by Don Shinn's act that featuring hilarious stage antics such as a habit of disappearing around the back of his organ to draw out weird sounds with the aid of a screwdriver, and also 'treated' adaptations of classical pieces such as an arrangement of Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor, one of the most popular of all piano concerti.  Seeing Don Shinn do that, made Keith Emerson realise that he'd like to compile an act from what Don did."  

 

(May 2014)

  
Last edited: March 22, 2021