Emerson Lake & Palmer Biography

ELP formed in 1970. Their debut performance was at the Isle of Wight festival, where they performed their transcription of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Their first four years were a creatively fertile period. Lake produced their first six albums, starting with Emerson, Lake and Palmer (1970), which contained the hit "Lucky Man". Tarkus (1971) was their first successful concept album, described as a story about "reverse evolution". The March 1971 live recording (Newcastle, UK) of the band's interpretation of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition was issued as a low-priced record, the success of which contributed to the band's overall popularity. The 1972 album Trilogy contained ELP's best-selling single, the understated "From the Beginning".

In late 1973 Brain Salad Surgery, with an eye-catching sleeve designed by H.R. Giger, was released and became the band's best-known studio album. The lyrics were partly written by Peter Sinfield, who was the creator of the King Crimson concept and only lyricist for their first four albums. The subsequent world tours were documented with a massive three-LP live recording, Welcome Back my Friends to the Show that Never Ends.

Their debut performance had been a relatively modest show at the August 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, one of the last of the great Woodstock-era festivals. By April 1974, ELP were 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 US and is often seen as the summit of the band's career.

The ELP sound was heavily dominated by the Hammond organ and Moog synthesizer of the flamboyant Emerson. The band's compositions were heavily influenced by classical music in addition to jazz and – some say – 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 (their style came in for heavy abuse from critics; a popular joke of the time went, "How do you spell pretentious? ...ELP").

Onstage 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 – although in retrospect it was all rather small change compared to later rock spectacles: the theatrics were limited to a Persian carpet, a grand piano spinning end-over-end, a few bangs on huge Chinese cymbals, and a Hammond organ being molested on stage. (It was the same sympathetic organ every time, called the L100, that was repaired overnight for the next show.) Their roadie at the time was Lemmy, who gave Emerson the knife that was used to force the keys on the organ to stay down instead of the screwdriver that Emerson had been forcing between keys for the purpose. Another unusual factor was the fact that Emerson took a full Moog modular synthesizer (an enormous, complex, and touchy instrument under the best of conditions) on the road with him, which added greatly to a tour's complexity.

ELP then took a three-year break to reinvent their music but lost contact with the changing musical scene. The band toured the US and Canada in 1977 and 1978 on a killing schedule of night after night performances – some with a full orchestra, which was a heavy burden on the tour revenues. These late-'70s tours found ELP working harder than ever to stay in touch with their audience. But as disco, punk rock, and new wave styles began to alter the musical landscape, ELP could no longer generate the excitement of being forerunners in musical innovation. Eventually they drifted apart due to personality conflicts and irreconcilable differences concerning musical direction.

Their last studio album of the 1970s, Love Beach, (1978), was dismissed even by the trio itself, who admitted it was delivered to fulfill a contractual obligation. The Love Beach album has been ill-received not only by the music press but also by the fans, who easily understood that the group was tired, something Greg Lake admitted in various interviews. Side One features Lake and consists of several shorter songs in a late 70's attempt to put something in the pop charts although one of them, "Taste of My Love", is an R-rated ode to one of the perks of rock stardom. 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, and his ordeal of love and death as well as tragedy and triumph. The album's cover engendered no small amount of ridicule, with Palmer complaining the group looked like the Bee Gees.

In 1985, Emerson and Lake formed another "ELP" band with heavy metal drummer Cozy Powell. Palmer declined to participate in a reunion, preferring to stay with Asia. Rumours also linked Bill Bruford to their new lineup, but the former Yes drummer remained committed to King Crimson and his own group, Earthworks. Emerson, Lake & Powell (album) 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 unsuccessful band 3.

The original ELP lineup reformed and issued a 1992 comeback album, Black Moon, on Victory Records. Their 1992/1993 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 and Emerson has been treated for a repetitive stress disorder in one hand. So it was no surprise that the follow up album In the Hot Seat (1994) did not live up to expectations.

Emerson and Palmer recovered to tour again. The last ELP tours were in 1996, 1997, and 1998. Their tour schedules brought them to Japan, South America, Europe, the USA and Canada and ELP played fresh new versions of older work. However enjoyable these tours were, ELP played in significantly smaller venues for significantly smaller audiences. Their last show was in San Diego, California, in 1998. Conflicts about a new album inspired a new and final break up. Greg Lake insisted on producing the next album, having produced all successful ELP albums in the early 70s. Keith Emerson complained in public (on the internet) that although he and Carl Palmer worked out on a daily basis to maintain their musical skills, Greg Lake did not make the effort to do the same. Lake admitted that he did not train his voice: a few live shows were generally enough to get it in shape, he claimed.

Keith Emerson toured Britain with his old bandmates from The Nice during 2003. Drummer Carl Palmer tours on an irregular basis with his Carl Palmer Band, playing electric guitar adaptations of ELP's keyboard work in the club circuit. Greg Lake has toured the USA with Ringo Starr in 2002, and most recently has recorded with The Who. (edit)

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