Hepcat
retired
The Nice were the band with which Keith Emerson achieved widespread fame for his keyboard playing. The Nice was actually formed in May 1967 by then Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham to back soul singer (and former Ikette with Ike & Tina Turner) P. P. Arnold on her tour of the United Kingdom!
Lee Jackson - Vocals, Bass
David O'List - Guitar
Keith Emerson - Keyboards
Brian Davison - Drums
The Nice quickly evolved from its R&B beginnings into an experimental psychedelic band. Personal issues prompted Davy O'List to leave the band during recording sessions for the second album and the Nice continued on as a threesome.
The Nice released three strikingly innovative albums on Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate Records label:
The above three albums are the essential Nice albums in my opinion. Here's an excellent biography of the band from the Barnes & Noble website:
Nice Biography
I saw the Nice perform at the age of seventeen at Centennial Hall in London, Ontario. At that impressionable young age, I was left awestruck by the band's performance. The concert had everything from cutting edge psychedelic rock, to an amoeba light show behind the band of the kind that were in vogue at the time (see the cover of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly), to awe inspiring antics by Keith Emerson. Hey, playing the organ behind your back, getting up inside a piano to manipulate the strings directly, stabbing your keyboard with a knife, all these things I interpreted to be signs of genius or at least of a musician completely dedicated to his craft! I mean how could they be anything else? And best of all, it had cost me absolutely nothing to get into the concert! You see I was actually attending the wedding in the reception hall below the concert hall and just snuck out of the reception and went upstairs to see the concert.
I went out and bought two of the albums of the Nice that week and have been a fan of Keith Emerson ever since.
Lee Jackson - Vocals, Bass
David O'List - Guitar
Keith Emerson - Keyboards
Brian Davison - Drums
The Nice quickly evolved from its R&B beginnings into an experimental psychedelic band. Personal issues prompted Davy O'List to leave the band during recording sessions for the second album and the Nice continued on as a threesome.
The Nice released three strikingly innovative albums on Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate Records label:
The above three albums are the essential Nice albums in my opinion. Here's an excellent biography of the band from the Barnes & Noble website:
Nice Biography
I saw the Nice perform at the age of seventeen at Centennial Hall in London, Ontario. At that impressionable young age, I was left awestruck by the band's performance. The concert had everything from cutting edge psychedelic rock, to an amoeba light show behind the band of the kind that were in vogue at the time (see the cover of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly), to awe inspiring antics by Keith Emerson. Hey, playing the organ behind your back, getting up inside a piano to manipulate the strings directly, stabbing your keyboard with a knife, all these things I interpreted to be signs of genius or at least of a musician completely dedicated to his craft! I mean how could they be anything else? And best of all, it had cost me absolutely nothing to get into the concert! You see I was actually attending the wedding in the reception hall below the concert hall and just snuck out of the reception and went upstairs to see the concert.
I went out and bought two of the albums of the Nice that week and have been a fan of Keith Emerson ever since.
Last edited:
will do for me. 
***:
