Founder member of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Lake of course found individual fame with his 1975 hit I Believe in Father Christmas.
Lake apparently wrote Lucky Man when he was twelve having received a guitar from his mother as a present. It was one of the first times a Moog synthesiser had featured on a record.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer: Lucky Man
Gregory Stuart “Greg” Lake: 10/11/1947 – 7/12/2016. So it goes.
Keith Emerson who died earlier this week was one of the arch proponents of Prog Rock. I’ve already featured several of his recordings with that most unlikely of progenitors of the form, P P Arnold’s backing band The Nice. America, where his reworkings of classical pieces in a rock style perhaps began and which has a good claim, in its extravagance, to be the first truly prog track, its B-side, The Diamond Hard Blue Apples Of The Moon and their first single The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack.
It was, though, Emerson’s work with Greg Lake and Carl Palmer as Emerson Lake and Palmer (aka ELP) that solidified his reputation as one of the “rock dinosaurs” that punk rock sought to consign to oblivion.
Here’s a live performance of part of ELP’s take on Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer: Promenade and the Gnome
Keith Noel Emerson: 2/11/1944 – 10/3/2016. So it goes.
