Emerson Lake & Palmer’s eponymous album is not only the band’s debut but also the first so-called supergroup in progressive rock. The definition of a supergroup is that it is a band made up of members who are already famous. Fame is always relative, of course, but Messrs Emerson, Lake and Palmer can be said to have been, at the very least, well-known figures in their own scene.
The most famous member of the band at this stage, keyboardist Keith Emerson (1944-2016), could even be described as something of a star. Emerson was mostly a self-taught musician, but still able to draw fluently from classical music and jazz and bring their technical characteristics to rock music.
Just before ELP, Keith Emerson had achieved great popularity as the front man of The Nice. The Nice’s popularity was largely due to Emerson’s virtuoso playing, which was on a completely different level to what was expected of rock musicians at this stage. Emerson was also a brash showman and made keyboard playing as wild and cool looking as guitar playing at its best. Emerson wrestled on stage with Hammond organs, stabbed them with daggers and burned the American flag in protest at the Vietnam War, getting banned from the Royal Albert Hall. So not your typical nerdy guy hiding behind a piano.
The third key to The Nice’s success was Emerson’s rock adaptations of classical music which was still very fresh at the time. And progressive. It could be said that the trio (initially The Nice had a guitarist) The Nice was one of the most important pioneers of the early days of progressive rock. The Nice also achieved a surprisingly high level of success, with a few albums even reaching the top ten in England. In retrospect, however, The Nice’s albums have not stood the test of time very well and Emerson was not happy with his band. Emerson didn’t consider his bandmates drummer Brian Davison and bassist/vocalist Lee Jackson to be musicians worthy of him and didn’t think he could go any further with them. It was time to break up The Nice (at this time, bands/brands were still being abandoned!) and put together a new group to take them to the next level.
Greg Lake (1947-2016), on the other hand, had achieved prominence in his own right within the ranks of King Crimson, who had released the groundbreaking and commercially successful In The Court Of The Crimson King the previous year (read more about the album and the birth of King Crimson here), often regarded as the first album of the true progressive rock genre. However, all was not well in the Crimson camp when two key members, multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald and drummer Michael Giles, announced their departure from the band mid-tour. Lake had been jamming with Emerson on a joint tour with Crimson and The Nice and found that their chemistry worked well (at this point…) and eventually, the timing being perfect, they decided to form a new band together. After all, Lake was the perfect replacement for Lee Jackson. As a singer he was superior and as a bassist he was at least as good. Lake was also a songwriter. But where to find a drummer for the new band and they decided to make another keyboard-bass-drums trio, despite the fact that even Robert Fripp offered himself as a guitarist.
For a while, the drum kit was being considered with Mitch Mitchell, who played in Jimi Hendrix’s band. However, the atmosphere cooled down when Mitchell came waving a handgun at the band meeting. Emerson and Lake decided to pass and look for a more balanced drummer. Emerson’s manager, Tony Stratton Smith, suggested Carl Palmer (b.1950), a young man of only 20 who played in Atomic Rooster. Palmer was a very skilled drummer for his age and already had a lot of experience. He had already achieved success before Atomic Rooster with The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, playing on the top ten hit ”Fire”. Palmer initially refused Emerson and Lake’s offer because he was happy with Atomic Rooster, whose popularity was steadily growing. Eventually, however, he gave in to persistent persuasion when Lake convinced Palmer that his refusal would harm not only himself but also Mr Emerson and Mr Lake.
But what to call the new supergroup? The names Triton, Triumvirat (later a band imitating ELP with the same name crept out of Germany…) and Seahorse (eh?) were considered, but in the end the name Emerson, Lake & Palmer, which seemed a bit egotistical, was chosen. However, the reason for this was more humble than first impressions suggest, as the name was chosen to highlight more than just Emerson, otherwise there was a risk that the new band would have been shunted off as just The Nice 2, i.e. Emerson and his backing bands.
Thanks to the trio’s old reputation, ELP got off to a very fast start. The band played one small-scale show as a rehearsal, but the next gig was a guns blazing (actual cannons were fired!) show at the Isle Of Wight Festival in front of 600,000 people. ELP’s wild and energetic performance at the festival was a success and the band’s name was soon on the lips of everyone who knew anything about rock. It was time to move into the studio and record their first album.
ELP began recording their first album in July 1970 at Advision studios in London. Greg Lake took on the role of producer (Emerson has later questioned whether Lake produced the band any more than the other members…) and the young Eddy Offord was chosen as engineer, who in the following years became a major collaborator not only with ELP but also with another future prog giant, Yes. Offord did a great job on ELP’s debut. Completed in September 1970, the sounds on this album are of the highest quality of its era.. Striking, distinctive, yet natural sounding. Offord, together with Lake, did a great job of capturing the band’s immense energy.
The Barbarian
The album starts with an explosive ”The Barbarian” which, as its name suggests, is a rather brutal and downright ferocious song. ”The Barbarian” is Emerson’s arrangement of solo piano piece combining Hungarian and Romanian scales composed in 1911 by the early 20th century Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881-1945). Emerson draws on Bartók’s themes fairly faithfully, but when arranged for the rock trio the piece takes on a whole new power that does credit to the song’s name. The whole thing feels very natural and not at all like a typical rock-goes-to-classics arrangement with the solo instrument playing the melody of the original composition in that direction and the rest of the band playing a steady accompaniment in the background.
”The Barbarian” is introduced by Emerson’s frenetic organ work, but the aggressive fuzz bass played by Greg Lake is also a stroke of genius. Occasionally Emerson switches to piano, playing the song as if he’s a concert pianist while Palmer kicks things along with his supple drumming. ”What makes ’The Barbarian’ great is largely its raw, heavy sound world. It’s anything but a polite-sounding affair. ELP really makes Bartók rock! Another characteristic of ”The Barbarian” is that the song doesn’t let up for a moment, but seems to push forward like a steam train. This insistent feeling of going forward became something of a trademark of ELP and is present in many of the band’s best songs.
ELP’s combination of rock music and Bartók has certainly been a model for many later avant-prog bands, even if they don’t necessarily want to admit it. Robert Fripp was also very interested in Bartók and I wouldn’t be surprised if ELP’s interpretation of the subject inspired him in Crimson’s later music.
An unfortunate detail about ”The Barbarian” is that ELP forgot to credit Bartók on the original release… Or the label forgot as the band’s view was. Unfortunately, the same problem was repeated with the ”Knife-Edge” track on the album.
Take A Pebble
An essential part of progressive rock from the beginning has been the interplay and juxtaposition of ”soft” and ”hard”, quiet and loud music. This is done not only within individual tracks, of course, but also across the album, alternating between heavier and lighter tracks. ELP knew what they were doing from their first album, and from the almost heavy-metallic sprawl of the weighty ”The Barbarian”, the band moves on to the lighter and more lyrical ”Take A Pebble”.
Over 12 minutes long, the pastoral, jazzy theme is composed by Greg Lake and as a whole it may well be the most ambitious work of his career. Usually Lake’s compositions for ELP were the band’s pop gems, but ”Take A Pebble” is a different story altogether. ”Take A Pebble” is a very original song, being a mixture of a beautiful folk-infused vocal section (which begins with Emerson strumming the strings of an open piano) and a long instrumental section where Emerson’s elegant piano playing takes the lead after Lake’s slightly bluegrassy guitar part. Palmer embellishes the whole with thoughtful cymbal rattles and drum beats. Palmer’s restrained and orchestral playing on the track is a smashing performance in other respects. Palmer’s playing alternates between that of a symphony orchestra percussionist and that of a jazz drummer. Nothing like this had ever been heard on a rock album before. Not that the song itself has much to do with rock. ”Take A Pebble” is one of the best examples of a successful collaboration between Lake and Emerson, where the best of each is allowed to shine without either ending up dominating the final result. Somewhat surprisingly, Emerson didn’t get composition credit for the song. That’s how obvious his handprint is on the instrumental part of the song. As much as ELP made great music in the years that followed, it’s a bit of a shame that the band didn’t explore beyond the epic pastoralism of ”Take A Pebble”.
Knife-Edge
After ”Take A Pebble”, the band returns to a heavier mood with the great ”Knife Edge”. This fiercely, and downright nasty, rocking song has its roots, like ”The Barbarian”, in classical music. This time ELP borrows from the composition ”Sinfonietta” (1926) by Leoš Janáček (1854-1928).
Unlike ”The Barbarian”, however, ”Knife-Edge” owes only a very suggestive debt to some of the themes of ”Sinfonietta”. In its general atmosphere, ”Knife-Edge” is quite different from ”Sinfonietta”. Darker and angrier and, of course, more rocking. Somewhat surprisingly, the song also contains bluesy tones that are not usually very typical of ELP.
The lyrics, written by Lake in collaboration with ELP’s then-roadie Alex Fraser, paint a desperate picture of an apocalyptic future, fitting the music perfectly.
Tread the road cross the abyss
Take a look down at the madness
On the streets of the city
Only specters still have pity
Patient queues for the gallows
Sing the praises of the hallowed
Our machines feed the furnace
If they take us they will burn us
Lake sings the lyrics with great passion and somehow with an interestingly mocking way of pronouncing the words. In the middle of the piece, Emerson borrows a melody from Johann Sebastian Bach’s (1685-1750) ’French Suite in D minor, BWV 812’ (1722) for his magnificent Hammond solo.
”Knife-Edge” is one of ELP’s finest rock songs and became a popular concert song.
Read also: King Crimson: Larks’ Tongues In Aspic (1973)
The Tree Fates
Emerson’s three-part composition ”The Tree Fates” opens the b-side of the album. In the first movement, entitled ”Clotho”, Emerson plays the huge pipe organ of London’s Royal Festival Hall with thunderous power. The organ part, which cleverly uses breaks, is very dramatic.
From the organ part, we move to the piano driven part ”Lachesis” which is really great to hear. Emerson plays the grand piano with the confidence of a concert pianist in virtuoso style. After a percussively played opening, Emerson moves into quite romantic-sounding skilful runs. Emerson demonstrates a level of technical skill unlike any other rock keyboard player in the 1970s. And it was years before any credible challenger even appeared in the same arenas.
”The Tree Fates” climaxes about five minutes into the song with the organ playing a reprise of the opening theme and the final section called ”Atropos” where Palmer’s drums come in to play polyrhythms while Emerson beats the piano frantically in a stagnant rhythm. ”Atropos” is a wild and chaotic piece that recalls the most brutal moments of Igor Stravinsky’s ”The Rite Of Spring”. Palmer also plays maracas, chestnuts and cowbells in the background, among other things, bringing in strange, slightly off-kilter Latin atmospheres that surprisingly work perfectly in the song. Greg Lake does not play or sing in ’The Three Fates’ at all.
At just under eight minutes, ”The Tree Fates” is one of Emerson’s most stunning compositions and is so full of great ideas that paradoxically it somehow feels like a longer piece, but not in any negative way.
Tank
From the classic moods of ”The Tree Fates”, ”Tank” takes us to a more futuristic romp. Composed by Emerson, the track begins with Palmer’s tight drumbeat and Lake’s bass, over which Emerson begins to compose three overlaid pianos that sound a bit like electric cymbals. The piano tracks form a complex counterpoint under which Lake plays an intricate bass pattern that is one of the finest performances of his bass playing career. The first two minutes of ”Tank” are a great listen, but after that, unfortunately, things get a bit stale when Palmer launches into a technically impressive, but still ultimately rather dull drum solo. After the solo, Emerson and Lake join in and the song becomes more march-like. Gradually Emerson starts to bring a slightly trumpet-like sound to the piano alongside the Moog synthesizer. This is the first moment when the wall-sized contraption of inventor Robert Moog plays on this album. Whether it was planned or not, it’s interesting that the Moog was only saved for the last two tracks of the album. ”Tank” ends with a triumphant fanfare in a rather satisfying way, although the last half of the song doesn’t quite manage to do justice to the great opening.
Lucky Man
The album ends with Greg Lake’s rather light folk/pop track ”Lucky Man”. Greg Lake is said to have composed the song at the age of 12, which is not hard to believe as it is a somewhat naive tale of a war hero and a ladies man who is eventually hit by a bullet. ”Lucky Man” is a remarkable song in two ways. Firstly, in its pop-like ease and catchiness, it was an important humanising factor for ELP’s large audience. ”Lucky Man” provided a more casual audience with a gateway to the band’s music through widespread radio play and contributed to ELP becoming one of the biggest rock bands in the world for a few years.
The other significant thing is that the song introduced the synthesizer, and in particular the Moog synthesizer, to millions of people who had heard of the synthesizer being used before, maybe in some sci-fi movie bleeps at the most. Emerson’s Moog solo at the end of the song was just a last minute finale. Emerson improvised the solo in one take, thinking it was just a rehearsal. However, Greg Lake was adamant that that was the perfect take and, to Emerson’s dismay, did not allow a second take. Of course, it is impossible to say what kind of solo Emerson would have produced if he had had the chance to hone his performance further, but without the talents of a clairvoyant, the solo that rose to iconic status seems perfect. The solo, which emerges dramatically and grows into a massive howl, introduces a fantastic new level to the song, transforming it from just a nice folk song into a new kind of pop hybrid.
”Lucky Man” brought the first conflicts that foreshadowed the difficulties to come. Emerson would not have wanted the song on the album as it did not match his vision of ELP at all. In the future, the very different tastes of Emerson and Lake would clash on several occasions. Sometimes fruitfully, but ultimately very damagingly.
ELP’s debut is a stunning fusion of technique, beauty and brutal power. It is a stunningly strong debut album and one of the milestones of early prog. It’s also surprising how coherent the album feels as a whole, even though it goes to so many different extremes. There’s heavy rock, jazz, strong influences from 20th century classical music, the roar of church organs, a drum solo, light folk and somehow ELP has managed to make it all fit together naturally.
The album was an immediate success when it was released in November 1970, reaching number four in the UK album charts and the top twenty in the huge US market. Although ELP’s reputation is not as high today, the band had a huge impact on the development of progressive rock in its infancy in 1970. ELP’s debut made it clear that keyboards were at least as important an instrument as guitars in progressive rock and, especially in the fertile Italian scene, many prog bands were eager to draw from one example in terms of instrumentation and musical style. Emerson Lake & Palmer started a wild winning streak for the band that lasted for five albums until 1973.
Best songs: ’Take A Pebble’, ’Knife-Edge’, ’The Tree Fates’
Rating: *****
Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI
Tracks:
- The Barbarian
- Take A Pebble
- Knife-Edge
- The Three Fates
- Clotho
- Lachesis
- Atropos
- Tank
- Lucky Man
Duration: 51 minutes
ELP:
Keith Emerson: Hammond organ, piano, clarinet, pipe organ, Moog modular synthesizer Greg Lake: vocals, bass, acoustic and electric guitar Carl Palmer: drums, percussion
Label: Island / Atlantic
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