METALPRIEST
Senior Member
2nd Impression of Karn Evil
ELP : Emerson, Lake, & Palmer (Official Thread)
- Thread starter The Rover
- Start date
METALPRIEST
Senior Member
No kidding?? That had to have been wild!!! 
Big Ears
Music Lover
A Biography of Emerson, Lake and Palmer
With the metamorphosis of psychedelia into progressive rock, during the late nineteen-sixties, Emerson, Lake and Palmer came to epitomise the new genre. They were also one of the first so-called supergroups, combining well-known musicians from established bands into a progressive rock hybrid. Emerson, Lake and Palmer were known for the dominant synthesizer playing of Keith Emerson as well as their often classically inspired arrangements. Along with their exemplary musicianship, one of the band's unique features was that, despite the sidelining of guitars, they remained a heavy rock band.
Emerson Lake and Palmer were formed in late 1969 after a chance meeting between Keith Emerson, keyboard player with The Nice, and Greg Lake, singer and bassist with King Crimson. They later added drummer Carl Palmer from Atomic Rooster, when an original plan to link up with Jimi Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell came to nothing, and made their debut at The Guildhall, Plymouth, on 23rd August 1970. But, it was their performance six days later, at the Isle of Wight Festival, that drew attention to the band. Keith Emerson had already established a reputation as an adept organist and was a showman who had stirred up controversy with The Nice by burning the stars and stripes during a performance of Leonard Bernstein's America. Greg Lake had cut his teeth with The Gods (a prototype Uriah Heep) and King Crimson, being possessed of a high quality choir boy-type voice and an underrated guitar-playing ability. Carl Palmer had played with Chris Farlowe & the Thunderbirds, at the age of sixteen, then joined The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, with Vincent Crane, and accompanied the latter to Atomic Rooster. Emerson and Lake were beginning to stagnate with their respective bands, but gelled with each other immediately. Carl Palmer was reluctant at first, as Atomic Rooster was his new band, but when he played with Emerson and Lake, they all knew this was a unique and dynamic trio which would combine musical finesse with showmanship.
From the outset, Emerson, Lake and Palmer established a reputation among fans as a furiously active trio of unsurpassed technical ability, but the press were quick to accuse them of having no sense of humour and a lack of feeling. The most common adjectives being, 'bombastic', 'overblown' and 'pretentious'. BBC Radio One DJ John Peel famously accused them of being, "A waste of talent and electricity." Peel added that his colleague, Alan Freeman, had turned Emerson, Lake and Palmer from millionaires into even wealthier millionaires.
The first self-titled album (Island, October 1970) achieved reasonable chart success and the second, a concept album, Tarkus (Island, June 1971), made inroads into the American market. Emerson, Lake & Palmer contained many classical adaptions which was to give ELP their distinctive style and they continued to use this approach until their final album. The Barbarian is an arrangement of Hungarian composer Bela Bartók’s pian piece, Allegro Barbaro (1911). Knife Edge is borrowed from the first movement of Polish composrer Leoš Janácek's Sinfonietta (1926), apart from the organ solo, which is a quotation of the Allemande of JS Bach's 1st French Suite in D minor, BWV 812. Pictures at an Exhibition (Island, November 1971) should have been the second album, but was witheld by the record company because, as a live performance of a classical piece by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, it seemed too esoteric. However, the success of Tarkus resulted in Pictures' release as a budget album and it built on the success of its predecessors. Another facet of ELP's work is comedy songs, making a nonsense of the press criticism that the band lacked a sense of humour, and Tarkus has Jeremy Bender and Are You Ready Eddy? (a tribute to their producer Eddie Offord).
Trilogy (Island, June 1972) became the band's breakthrough work and was followed by the epic Brain Salad Surgery. Trilogy continued the classical influences with Abbadons Bolero, an adaption of Maurice Ravel's piece with two beats/rhythms, hence the overdubs, and Hoedown from Aaron Copland's Rodeo. Comedy come in the form of The Sheriff. Whereas, ELP had Greg Lake's solo piece Lucky Man (which includes a groundbreaking synthesizer solo), Trilogy has From the Beginning. The title track has a lilting introduction but becomes much heavier and is very experimental in its use of synthesizers. Living Sin is full-on heavy rock.
Brain Salad Surgery (Manticore, November 1973), the first album on the band's own label, continued the experimentation and Carl Palmer has said that, by this stage, every time the band tried something, it worked. Jerusalem is a heavy rock version of Hubert Parry's hymn and shows the influence of church music in the formative stages of British progressive rock musicians. The instrumental, Toccata, is based on the Fourth Movement of Alberto Ginastera's 1st Piano Concerto, arranged by Keith Emerson with special synthesised effects; Carl Palmer adding a percussion accompaniment using newly-developed drum synthesisers. Unlike Bernstein, Alberto Ginastera liked Emerson's arrangement of his work. Still . . . You Turn Me On is a Greg Lake solo track. Benny the Bouncer is a sinister comedy song about a doorman's clash with a greaser. Karn Evil 9, in three impressions, dominates the album and is about the creation of computers, which are subsequently blamed for man's inadequecies. The lyrics were co-written with former King Crimson lyricist, Pete Synfield, who went on to work with Bucks Fizz and Celine Dion. Artwork for the album is by HR Giger, similar to, but created sometime before his 'organic' designs for Ridley Scott's Alien. Brain Salad Surgery, despite a murky production, is Emerson, Lake and Palmer's masterpiece and stands as one of the great progressive rock albums alongside Court of the Crimson King, Nursery Cryme, Dark Side of the Moon, Close to the Edge and Fragile.
With the metamorphosis of psychedelia into progressive rock, during the late nineteen-sixties, Emerson, Lake and Palmer came to epitomise the new genre. They were also one of the first so-called supergroups, combining well-known musicians from established bands into a progressive rock hybrid. Emerson, Lake and Palmer were known for the dominant synthesizer playing of Keith Emerson as well as their often classically inspired arrangements. Along with their exemplary musicianship, one of the band's unique features was that, despite the sidelining of guitars, they remained a heavy rock band.
Emerson Lake and Palmer were formed in late 1969 after a chance meeting between Keith Emerson, keyboard player with The Nice, and Greg Lake, singer and bassist with King Crimson. They later added drummer Carl Palmer from Atomic Rooster, when an original plan to link up with Jimi Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell came to nothing, and made their debut at The Guildhall, Plymouth, on 23rd August 1970. But, it was their performance six days later, at the Isle of Wight Festival, that drew attention to the band. Keith Emerson had already established a reputation as an adept organist and was a showman who had stirred up controversy with The Nice by burning the stars and stripes during a performance of Leonard Bernstein's America. Greg Lake had cut his teeth with The Gods (a prototype Uriah Heep) and King Crimson, being possessed of a high quality choir boy-type voice and an underrated guitar-playing ability. Carl Palmer had played with Chris Farlowe & the Thunderbirds, at the age of sixteen, then joined The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, with Vincent Crane, and accompanied the latter to Atomic Rooster. Emerson and Lake were beginning to stagnate with their respective bands, but gelled with each other immediately. Carl Palmer was reluctant at first, as Atomic Rooster was his new band, but when he played with Emerson and Lake, they all knew this was a unique and dynamic trio which would combine musical finesse with showmanship.
From the outset, Emerson, Lake and Palmer established a reputation among fans as a furiously active trio of unsurpassed technical ability, but the press were quick to accuse them of having no sense of humour and a lack of feeling. The most common adjectives being, 'bombastic', 'overblown' and 'pretentious'. BBC Radio One DJ John Peel famously accused them of being, "A waste of talent and electricity." Peel added that his colleague, Alan Freeman, had turned Emerson, Lake and Palmer from millionaires into even wealthier millionaires.
The first self-titled album (Island, October 1970) achieved reasonable chart success and the second, a concept album, Tarkus (Island, June 1971), made inroads into the American market. Emerson, Lake & Palmer contained many classical adaptions which was to give ELP their distinctive style and they continued to use this approach until their final album. The Barbarian is an arrangement of Hungarian composer Bela Bartók’s pian piece, Allegro Barbaro (1911). Knife Edge is borrowed from the first movement of Polish composrer Leoš Janácek's Sinfonietta (1926), apart from the organ solo, which is a quotation of the Allemande of JS Bach's 1st French Suite in D minor, BWV 812. Pictures at an Exhibition (Island, November 1971) should have been the second album, but was witheld by the record company because, as a live performance of a classical piece by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, it seemed too esoteric. However, the success of Tarkus resulted in Pictures' release as a budget album and it built on the success of its predecessors. Another facet of ELP's work is comedy songs, making a nonsense of the press criticism that the band lacked a sense of humour, and Tarkus has Jeremy Bender and Are You Ready Eddy? (a tribute to their producer Eddie Offord).
Trilogy (Island, June 1972) became the band's breakthrough work and was followed by the epic Brain Salad Surgery. Trilogy continued the classical influences with Abbadons Bolero, an adaption of Maurice Ravel's piece with two beats/rhythms, hence the overdubs, and Hoedown from Aaron Copland's Rodeo. Comedy come in the form of The Sheriff. Whereas, ELP had Greg Lake's solo piece Lucky Man (which includes a groundbreaking synthesizer solo), Trilogy has From the Beginning. The title track has a lilting introduction but becomes much heavier and is very experimental in its use of synthesizers. Living Sin is full-on heavy rock.
Brain Salad Surgery (Manticore, November 1973), the first album on the band's own label, continued the experimentation and Carl Palmer has said that, by this stage, every time the band tried something, it worked. Jerusalem is a heavy rock version of Hubert Parry's hymn and shows the influence of church music in the formative stages of British progressive rock musicians. The instrumental, Toccata, is based on the Fourth Movement of Alberto Ginastera's 1st Piano Concerto, arranged by Keith Emerson with special synthesised effects; Carl Palmer adding a percussion accompaniment using newly-developed drum synthesisers. Unlike Bernstein, Alberto Ginastera liked Emerson's arrangement of his work. Still . . . You Turn Me On is a Greg Lake solo track. Benny the Bouncer is a sinister comedy song about a doorman's clash with a greaser. Karn Evil 9, in three impressions, dominates the album and is about the creation of computers, which are subsequently blamed for man's inadequecies. The lyrics were co-written with former King Crimson lyricist, Pete Synfield, who went on to work with Bucks Fizz and Celine Dion. Artwork for the album is by HR Giger, similar to, but created sometime before his 'organic' designs for Ridley Scott's Alien. Brain Salad Surgery, despite a murky production, is Emerson, Lake and Palmer's masterpiece and stands as one of the great progressive rock albums alongside Court of the Crimson King, Nursery Cryme, Dark Side of the Moon, Close to the Edge and Fragile.
Big Ears
Music Lover
At the height of their success, ELP released a triple live album, Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends (Manticore, August 1974). It was recorded on the Brain Salad Surgery tour and became their last album for three years. During this period, the ever-present limitations that the group put on the members' individual aspirations came to the surface. Their first album had, after all, been a combination of solo pieces with group works, and this remained the case throughout their albums up to Brain Salad Surgery. Keith Emerson's compositions were becoming more pure classical works requiring an orchestra, while Greg Lake's songs relegated the other musicians to backing musicians and Carl Palmer was the peacemaker caught between the two. A series of solo albums was avoided, because each required an album's worth of material and was unlikely to sell on the scale of ELP records. Instead the compromise was a double album, Works Volume 1 (Atlantic, March 1977), that consisted of each member having a side of solo material and a fourth and final side comprising band pieces. Needless to say, the band material, Fanfare for the Common Man and Pirates, was by far the strongest and most cohesive. Coming after a succession of five consistently strong studio albums, culminating in Brain Salad Surgery, the record was massively disappointing. The impetus provided by Brain Salad Surgery was lost and, in the meantime, the revolutionary movement of punk rock, along with disco, had seen the baby thrown out with the bath water. The band hired a 70-piece orchestra for some concerts of the Works tour, but eventually had to dismiss the orchestra due to budget constraints that almost bankrupted the group. Works Volume 2 (Atlantic, November 1977) was a collection of solo experiments, single a and b-sides and outtakes dating back to Brain Salad Surgery. The next album of new material, Love Beach (Atlantic, November 1978), despite having a number of different and interesting ideas, was completed for contractual reasons, given a regrettable name and packaged in an inappropriate Bee Gees-style album cover. Ironically, however, it gave the band a hit single in For You.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer split up in 1979, with Greg Lake embarking on a guitar-led solo career with Gary Moore; Keith Emerson withdrawing from the band scene to compose some excellent fim scores; and Carl Palmer forming his own group PM, before joining another successful progressive rock supergroup, Asia. During the interim, different permutations of ELP worked with each other, either as Emerson, Lake and Powell or 3 with Robert Berry. Greg Lake even had a brief spell with Asia. A renewed interest in heavy and prgressive rock from the rise of grunge, along with the creation of Victory records as an offshoot of Atlantic, saw the return of the Manticore in the early nineties . . . but that is another story . . .
Lineup
Keith Emerson: keyboards
Greg Lake: vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, bass
Carl Palmer: drums, percussion
Discography
1970 Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1971 Tarkus
1971 Pictures at an Exhibition
1972 Trilogy
1973 Brain Salad Surgery
1974 Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends... Ladies and Gentlemen
1977 Works Volume I
1977 Works Volume II
1978 Love Beach
1979 In Concert '73
1992 Black Moon
1993 Live at the Royal Albert Hall
1993 Works Live (In Concert '73 re-released)
1994 In the Hot Seat
1997 Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
1997 Live in Poland
1997 King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents: Greatest Hits Live
1998 Then & Now
2001 The Original Bootleg Series from the Manticore Vaults: Volume One
2001 The Original Bootleg Series from the Manticore Vaults: Volume Two
2002 The Original Bootleg Series from the Manticore Vaults: Volume Three
2006 The Original Bootleg Series from the Manticore Vaults: Volume Four
2010 A Time and A Place
2010 High Voltage
2011 Live at Nassau Coliseum '78
2011 Live at the Mar Y Sol Festival '72
Big Ears
Music Lover
Pete Sinfield
Eddie Offord
Eddie Offord
Mr.Camel
Dromedary
I just recently got into ELP with the album Pictures at an Exhibition.
I also listened to their self-titled but I still prefer Exhibition.
I read this whole thread and saw that nobody had mentioned it!
It isn't too popular with you folks?
I also listened to their self-titled but I still prefer Exhibition.
I read this whole thread and saw that nobody had mentioned it!
It isn't too popular with you folks?
Big Ears
Music Lover
The version of Pictures at an Exhibition recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall, in 1992, is the best piece of music I have ever heard. Unfortunately, they left it off the album and edited (shortened) it for the DVD. I live in hopes that this will eventually see the light of day. There are Steven Wilson remixes due for release in September, all of which I would swap for this one live track.
I am not a big fan of that record Mr. Camel...the original classical piece is far better than ELP's take on it. I even bought the audiophile version of ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition and was disappointed...don't know what I expected but compared to my Telarc vinyl record it paled by comparison. And I am a massive fan of contemporary bands incorporating classical into their repertoire.
To be fair I'll dig out the CD again and give it a listen, but I have to say when it comes to Mussorgsky's best loved composition I always reach for my Brendel solo piano version or my Telarc CD.
Similar threads
