Keith Emerson (born 2 November 1944) is an English keyboardist and composer. He was formerly a member of The Nice, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP), one of the early supergroups. Emerson first found success with The Nice in the late 1960s before going on to become a founding member of ELP in 1970. Emerson is widely regarded as one of the top keyboard players of the progressive rock era. Allmusic refers to Emerson as “perhaps the greatest, most technically accomplished keyboardist in rock history”. (More from Wikipedia)
Every once in a while, I see something on the Internet that makes me just step back and marvel. As usual, I went on the Internet to see what I could find about the Soul Agents. I immediately uncovered a blog called The British Sound that is run by an Italian rock historian named Bruno Ceriotti. His most recent creation was what he called “The Soul Agents Day-by-Day Story”. He describes the Soul Agents as “undoubtedly one of the best British rhythm ’n’ blues bands of the early 60’s” and thanks 30 people who assisted him over the 20 years of research required to put this information together, among them Eric Clapton and Keith Emerson. This truly amazing history of the band can be found at: thebritishsound.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-soul-agents-day-by-day-story.html .
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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)
