Emerson, Lake & Palmer, also known as ELP, are a sporadically active English progressive
rock supergroup. They found success in the 1970s and have sold over forty million albums
and headlined large stadium concerts. The band consists of Keith Emerson, Greg Lake
and Carl Palmer. They are one of the most popular and commercially successful progressive
rock bands. The ELP sound is dominated by the Hammond
organ, Moog synthesizer, and piano of the flamboyant virtuoso Emerson. The band's compositions
are heavily influenced by classical music in addition to jazz and – at least in their
early years – hard rock. Many of their pieces are arrangements of, or contain quotations
from, classical music, and they can be said to fit into the sub-genre of symphonic rock.
However, Lake ensured that their albums contained a regular stream of simple, accessible acoustic
ballads, many of which received heavy radio airplay. Lake, in addition to providing vocals,
bass guitar, electric guitar and lyrics, also produced the band's first five albums.
History Background and formation
Keith Emerson and Greg Lake, both exploring options outside of their existing bands, met
at Fillmore West in San Francisco. On working together they found their styles to be compatible
and complementary. Keith described their first meeting in an interview in 1972: "Greg was
moving a bass line and I played the piano in back and Zap! It was there." They had actually
shared the same venues in 1969 – Emerson in The Nice and Lake in King Crimson, first
at the 9th Jazz and Blues Pop Festival in Plumpton, England, and at Fairfield Halls
in Croydon, England. Wanting to launch a keyboarddrum band, Emerson
and Lake sought a drummer. They initially approached drummer Mitch Mitchell, who was
at a loose end following the breakup of The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Hendrix's departure
to the Band of Gypsies. Mitchell subsequently suggested a jam session with himself, Lake,
Emerson and Hendrix. Although this session never took place, it led to press rumours
of a planned-but-abandoned supergroup named HELP, rumours which survived for over forty
years until Lake finally debunked them in 2012. Meanwhile, Robert Stigwood had suggested
Carl Palmer, formerly of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and at that time a member of
Atomic Rooster. Palmer was initially reluctant to leave Atomic Rooster but was persuaded
by the "magic" he felt when playing with Emerson and Lake.
The name Emerson, Lake & Palmer came about for two or three reasons: to remove the focus
on Emerson as the most famous of the three and to ensure that they were not called the
"new Nice".
Although their debut was in The Guildhall, Plymouth, on 23 August 1970, it was their
performance six days later, at the Isle of Wight festival, that drew the most attention
to the new band. The DVD of the performance, released in 2006, is appropriately titled
"The Birth of a Band". The band's drawing power as a live band helped them get a record
contract with US label Atlantic Records. Emerson explained: "The president of Atlantic, Ahmet
Ertegun, tells me the reason he signed us is because we could sell out 20,000-seaters
before we even had a record out. That was enough for him to think that a lot of people
would go out and buy the record when it did come out."
Debut album and Pictures at an Exhibition Their debut album was simply titled Emerson,
Lake & Palmer, and was released in late 1970. It was mostly a collection of solo pieces.
Keith Emerson contributed a series of treatments of classical pieces and an original organ
and piano piece, Carl Palmer provided a drum solo and Greg Lake provided two ballads, beginning
with the folky, extended work "Take a Pebble". It was the ballad, "Lucky Man", which was
a song Lake wrote when he had his first guitar at the age of 12, that brought the band to
prominence. It received heavy radio play in the UK and Europe, and also became a surprise
hit in America. The commercial success of "Lucky Man", combined with a strong performance
at the Isle of Wight festival, brought ELP rapidly to prominence.
The band's March 1971 live recording, Pictures at an Exhibition, an interpretation of Modest
Mussorgsky's work of the same name, was issued as a low-priced record, the success of which
contributed to the band's overall popularity. Due to management conflicts, the recording
was not released until after Tarkus, their second studio album. The record company was
reluctant to release a classical suite as an album, and insisted it be released on their
classical music label instead. Fearing that this would lead to poor sales, ELP instead
decided to shelve the work. After the success of their second album, however, the label
agreed to release Pictures as a budget live album.
It was unprecedented for a rock band to devote an entire album to a treatment of a classical
work, and Pictures remains the only complete classical suite that has hit the top 10 in
either the US or the UK. The album mixed in a ballad by Greg Lake, a Blues Variation section
by Emerson and many instances of heavily electronic and synthesised interpretations of Mussorgsky's
work. 1971–1972: Tarkus and Trilogy
Tarkus, released in 1971, was their first successful concept album, described as a story
about "reverse evolution". Combining a side-long song with an assortment of hard rock songs,
an instrumental and even some comic songs, it was quickly cited as landmark work in progressive
rock. The epic "Tarkus", recorded in just 4 days, is a seven-part rock suite which incorporates
a number of complex time signatures. The breadth and complexity of the music combined with
the series of William Neal paintings incorporated into the sleeve art helped to cement ELP's
reputation as being on the forefront of progressive rock music.
The 1972 album Trilogy contained ELP's only Top 40 single in the USA, "From the Beginning".
Like "Lucky Man", the song was a distinctively mellow acoustic ballad broken by an extended
Moog solo. The album also featured a cover of "Hoedown" from Aaron Copland's Rodeo as
well as some self-penned suites. It is cited by Lake as his favourite ELP album. However,
only "Hoedown" persisted as a live song. It was with the release of Trilogy that ELP were
able to focus heavily on international touring. 1973–1974: Brain Salad Surgery and worldwide
touring In 1973, the band had garnered enough recognition
to form their own record label, Manticore Records, and purchased an abandoned cinema
as their own rehearsal hall. In late 1973, Brain Salad Surgery, with sleeve designed
by H. R. Giger, became the band's best-known studio album. The lyrics were co-written by
Peter Sinfield, whom Greg Lake had collaborated with in King Crimson. It was their most ambitious
album to date, with one of the tracks, "Karn Evil 9", sprawling over both sides of the
album. It also contained a cover of Alberto Ginastera's Toccata, the first musical recording
to employ synthesised percussion, in the form of an acoustic drum kit fitted with pick-ups
that triggered electronic sounds, which were combined with the kit's acoustic sounds. The
subsequent world tours were documented with a massive three-LP live recording, Welcome
Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends.
By April 1974, ELP were on top of the bill during the California Jam Festival, pushing
co-stars Deep Purple to second billing. ELP's California Jam performance was broadcast nationwide
in the United States, and attended by over 200,000 paying fans. By the end of 1974, ELP
were just about tied with Led Zeppelin as the highest grossing live band in the world.
On stage, the band exhibited an unorthodox mix of virtuoso musicianship and over-the-top
theatrical bombast. Their extravagant and often aggressive live shows received much
criticism in this regard. The theatrics consisted of a Persian carpet, a grand piano spinning
end-over-end, a rotating percussion platform, and a Hammond organ being up-ended and thrown
around on stage to create feedback. Emerson often used a knife given to him by Lemmy Kilmister
to force the keys on the organ to stay down. The band took a full Moog modular synthesizer
instrument, which Dr. Robert Moog thought "would never work live") on the road with
them, which added to the uniqueness of the band's live sound.
1975–1977: Hiatus and the Works album ELP then took a three-year break to re-invent
their music, but lost contact with the changing musical scene. They eventually released the
double album, Works, in which each member had a side to himself. Side 4 contained 'full
band' pieces, including a highly synthesised cover of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the
Common Man". Released as a single, it reached number 2 in the UK charts. A great deal of
the album was recorded with an orchestral accompaniment; in fact, Keith Emerson's side
consisted solely of a 20-minute piano concerto which he had composed himself. This album
was soon followed by Works Volume II, which consisted entirely of 3–4 minute songs including
ballads, pop songs, jazzy instrumentals and a Christmas single. It was seen as a collection
of leftovers and was ELP's first commercial failure.
The band toured the US and Canada in 1977 and 1978 with a schedule of night-after-night
performances – some with a full orchestra, which was a heavy burden on tour revenues.
But as disco, punk rock, corporate rock and new wave styles began to alter the musical
landscape, ELP could no longer generate the same excitement. Eventually, they drifted
apart due to personality conflicts and irreconcilable differences concerning musical direction.
Greg Lake commented on the Beyond the Beginning documentary about the Works tour that they
had lost about 3 million dollars from their pockets. On the same documentary, Keith Emerson
said, they still blame him for it, "you and your bloody orchestra".
1978: First break-up Their last studio album of the 1970s, Love
Beach, was dismissed even by the trio itself, who admitted it was delivered to fulfill a
contractual obligation. Love Beach was ill-received by the music press. Side One features Lake
and consists of several shorter songs in an attempt to put something in the pop charts.
Side Two's composition, "Memoirs of an Officer and a Gentleman", is a four-part narration
of the tale of a soldier in the Second World War. The album's cover photograph – which
showed the three band members posing with their shirts unbuttoned, on a tropical beach
– engendered no small amount of ridicule, with Palmer complaining the group looked like
disco stars the Bee Gees. Emerson, Lake & Palmer disbanded later in 1979. The live LP In Concert
was released after they had broken up, also to fulfill contractual obligations. It was
cobbled together from the ill-fated orchestral tour, and was later rebranded Works Live.
Later incarnations: Emerson, Lake & Powell and 3
In 1985, Emerson and Lake formed Emerson, Lake & Powell with ex-Rainbow and session
drummer Cozy Powell. Palmer declined to participate in a reunion, as he was too busy with commitments
to Asia. Rumours also linked Bill Bruford to their new line-up, but the former Yes drummer
remained committed to King Crimson and his own group, Earthworks. The album Emerson Lake
& Powell charted reasonably well, with a major single, "Touch and Go" generating some radio
and MTV exposure for the trio. However, the old interpersonal tensions between Lake and
Emerson resurfaced during the 1986 tour. Emerson and Palmer subsequently joined with Robert
Berry to form the band 3. They released an album, To the Power of Three, in 1988.
1990s: Reformation and second break-up In 1991, Emerson, Lake & Palmer reformed and
issued a 1992 comeback album, Black Moon, on JVC. Their 1992–93 world tours were successful,
culminating in a performance at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles in early 1993 that
has been heavily bootlegged. But, reportedly, Palmer suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome
in one hand and Emerson had been treated for a repetitive stress disorder. In 1994, the
band released a follow-up album, In the Hot Seat.
Emerson and Palmer eventually recovered enough to start touring again, beginning in 1996.
Their tour schedules brought them to Japan, South America, Europe, the United States and
Canada, playing new versions of older work. They played in significantly smaller venues
compared to their heyday. Their last show was in San Diego, California, in August 1998.
Conflicts over a new album led to another break-up.
2000s & 2010s: re-releases, 2010 tour and one-off 40th anniversary concert
In 2003, UK independent label Invisible Hands Music released the 3-CD box set Reworks: Brain
Salad Perjury, a new work created by Keith Emerson in collaboration with Mike Bennett,
using sampling technology. In April 2010, Emerson and Lake embarked on
a North American tour, presenting an acoustic repertoire of their work. On 14 May 2010,
Shout! Factory released A Time And A Place, a 4-CD collection of Emerson, Lake & Palmer
live tracks. On 25 July 2010, Emerson, Lake & Palmer played
a one-off 40th anniversary concert, headlining the High Voltage Festival event in Victoria
Park, London. The entire concert was later released as the double-CD live album High
Voltage. On 22 February 2011, Shout! released Live at Nassau Coliseum 78, a 2-CD set live
recording of an Emerson, Lake & Palmer concert in 9 February 1978 at the Nassau Veterans
Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. On 29 August 2011, Emerson, Lake & Palmer
released on DVD and Blu-ray ... Welcome Back My Friends. 40th Anniversary Reunion Concert.
High Voltage Festival - 25th July 2010, the film of the 40th anniversary concert in Victoria
Park, London. A Blu-ray and SD DVD of the concert was produced by Concert One Ltd, together
with a definitive documentary of the band's 40-year history.
On 6 December 2011, Shout! Factory released Live at the Mar Y Sol Festival '72, a single-CD
set live recording of an Emerson, Lake & Palmer concert in 2 April 1972 at the Mar Y Sol Festival,
Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. ELP have signed a worldwide licensing deal
with Sony Music Entertainment. In North America, the band are moving to Razor & Tie.
Influence Koji Kondo, Nintendo's first video game composer,
cited ELP as a major influence on his work. Kondo's work on the Super Mario and The Legend
of Zelda series, which have sold hundreds of millions of copies, has been recorded by
many orchestras around the globe. Nobuo Uematsu, best known for scoring the majority of titles
in the Final Fantasy series and considered one of the most respected composers in the
video game industry, cites ELP as one of his influences.
Criticism ELP were heavily criticised by some music
critics, one citing a joke, "how do you spell pretentious? E-L-P." Robert Christgau said
of the band "these guys are as stupid as their most pretentious fans". Christgau called ELP
the "world's most overweening 'progressive' group". John Kelman of All About Jazz noted
that an "overbearing sense of self-importance turned ELP from one of the 1970s' most exciting
new groups into the definition of masturbatory excess and self-aggrandizement in only a few
short years." Kelman also stated that "in their fall from grace, [ELP] represented everything
wrong with progressive rock." DJ John Peel went so far as to describe the band as a "...waste
of talent and electricity..." Discography
Emerson Lake & Palmer Tarkus
Trilogy Brain Salad Surgery
Works Volume 1 Works Volume 2
Love Beach Black Moon
In the Hot Seat See also
Emerson, Lake & Powell 3
Alliance The Best
List of rock instrumentals References
Further reading Macan, Edward. Endless Enigma, A Musical Biography
of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Open Court Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8126-9596-8.
Forrester, George; Hanson, Martyn; Askew, Frank. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Show That
Never Ends, A Musical Biography. Helter Skelter Publishing. ISBN 1-900924-17-X.
Freeman, Garry. Do You Wanna Play Some Magic?: Emerson, Lake & Palmer in Concert 1970–1979
- A Live History. Soundcheck Books. ISBN 978-0956642080. External links
Official website Emerson, Lake & Palmer at AllMusic
Emerson, Lake & Palmer discography at Discogs ELP at DMOZ