Customer Reviews

Emerson Lake & Palmer

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When I first listened to this LP way back in 1970, I was taken aback by the power of this music. I knew the music of The Nice, and I didn't believe that anything could top the first record of King Crimson, the majestic: "In the Court of the Crimson King". Oh, boy was I WRONG !!! ELP not only broke down the walls that stood between rock music and classical, They smashed the walls apart, crossed through and built totally new worlds of music that were so new, so fresh that nobody at this point was even close on their heels.

I brought this prize over to my friend Larry's house, sat him down and thrust this gem upon his turntable. He sat there in a cold silence during: "The Barbarian" and about half-way through "Take a Pebble" he got up from his chair and stormed outta the room to get away from this music and this record... We never spoke to each other ever again.

There are only six tracks on this record, but each of them matters as an important piece of this record. To my mind they are more like 'Movements' of a single work of music. Keith Emerson, was thinking outside the box, and was looking forward into uncharted waters. ELP was to sail out there and explore, no matter the cost. Progressive rock didn't start here BUT this first recording by Keith, Greg & Carl set the bar, and they set that bar VERY HIGH.

By the mid-seventies there were hundreds of bands all over the world TRYING to imitate this record (many of them built careers on their imitations) But, this first album of: Emerson,Lake & Palmer along with the first release from: King Crimsom were the pioneers that started a movement... IF YOUR EARS WORK, LISTEN TO THIS... FIVE STARS !!!

I'm not an ELP fan, but I am a fan of this album. In the aftershock of King Crimson's "farewell" album (Wake of Poseidon) and still reeling from the breakthrough "The Yes Album", ELP's first release captures much of what is best in the shortly post-emergent days of progressive rock. Having followed Emerson through some tortured releases with The Nice, ELP finally framed his talent with a pair of musicians that could, at least, keep up with his outstanding ability. Just listen to "Hang on to a Dream" on Elegy, by The Nice: I don't think Jackson or Davison had a clue to what Emerson was doing with that piano. Unlike The Nice, ELP plays here as a unit. And while their taste will be called into question in later releases, the first album balances extravagance with restraint in performances that sound as if they had been playing together for years and years.

What remains so strong about this album is that each piece is archetypal. Each is the definitive version of itself. From the virtuosic "The Barbarian" to the introspective "Take a Pebble" to the theatrical "Knife's Edge" and the fairy-tale-with-a-message "Lucky Man", all the music is strange, new and familiar at the same time. You may think you'd heard it before and elsewhere, but until this recording came along, you hadn't. It even set a new standard for sound reproduction: my friends and I often used "Tank" as a demo for evaluating stereo equipment. The climactic thumps once set a Phase Linear 400 amp on fire. Honest.

Perhaps it was simply the newness of combining all these influences at this particular moment in music, but the lads came out with what may be the only truly unique, complete and coherent record of their careers. It's one of those records where every note is in place, every inflection is absolutely right ( even though the reverb gets over the top in places ) and all of it stands the test of these past few decades at least. It perfectly captures that singular moment in music.

In 1971, keyboard wiz Keith Emerson, fresh off his stint with the Nice, formed a progressive rock power trio with singer/guitarist Greg Lake of King Crimson, and drummer Carl Palmer of Atomic Rooster. Their self-titled debut album from '71 still stands as one of the group's very best releases. Emerson brilliantly plays a wide variety of keyboards (including the Royal Festival Hall organ for one track), Lake's powerful vocals, booming bass & expert guitar lines simply amaze, and Palmer is a mighty stickman, trouncing his huge drumkit into submission with the greatest of ease. "The Barbarian" & "Tank" are both thunderous instrumental tracks, allowing the trio to really stretch out. Lake's 12 1/2 minute epic, "Take A Pebble," is a truly beautiful piece. "Knife-Edge" is a classic ELP rocker. Emerson's three-part keyboard suite, "The Three Fates," remains one of his greatest contributions to the band, and, of course, there's Lake's timeless, FM radio sing-along classic, "Lucky Man," complimented by Emerson's avant-garde synthesiser flourishes and Palmer's thumping drumwork. Great music and performances from end to end, and brilliantly engineered by Eddie Offord (who also worked with Yes around the same time), Emerson Lake & Palmer's debut disc is a magnificent album, and one of the great jewels in the progessive rock crown.

In 1970 keyboard player Keith Emerson of Nice and Greg Lake of King Crimson bolted from their groups and joined with drummer Carl Palmer from Atomic Rooster to form the most successful power trio in the history of progressive rock. Only Renaissance could be said to have more explicitly incorporated classical music into its sound that Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The trio were regarded as technical virtuosos on their instruments, to such a point that their performances surely could not match their reputations. Lake might not be as great a guitarist as the other two were on their instruments, but when I was a lad if you had given me my choice of any one's voice in rock and roll, I would have wanted to sing like Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake & Palmer also have some of the more interesting "what ifs" around in terms of their origin, since there were rumors of Jimi Hendrix joining the group and Steve Howe of Yes actually auditioned).

The self-tilted 1971 debut album (mostly recorded the previous year), is a mix of the bombastic synthesizer overkill that could dominate some of their early work (such as the first side of their next album, "Tarkus") and the subtle balance between Lake's vocals and Emerson's piano playing. The former is represented by the instrumental opening track, "The Barbarian," which sets up a radical shift to the former with "Take a Pebble." This song was ELP's first released single, and would become one of the improvisational standards of the group in concert. The "first side" ends with "Knife-Edge," based on a theme by Janacek I believe, and is one of the rare examples of balance between Emerson's synthesizer and Lake's vocals. You have to remember that the synthesizer was a new toy at that time and perhaps Emerson should be forgiven for taking it out so unrelentlessly at times on a test drive.

"The Three Fates," like "Take a Pebble," owes much to classical forms and provides ample evidence of my contention that Emerson was much more proficient on a piano than on an organ. "Tank" represents the third synthesized work while "Lucky Man," the group's first and biggest hit single, showcases Lake's haunting vocals against an acoustic guitar, with a synthesizer solo at the end. You cannot help but wonder what else Greg lake might have written if he did not have to contend with Emerson's propensity to longer and longer keyboard works. Any how, on Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut album we end up with three synthesizer songs and three piano/guitar songs. I give the latter 5 stars and the former 3 stars, but "Lucky Man" is a 6 and "Knife-Edge" a 4 and that ends up a 5 because I can make this stuff up as I go along. Seriously, whichever type you prefer, it is going to dictate which of their other albums you are going to enjoy.

The debut release from this extraordinary trio is a virtual music appreciation course presented on one disc. This album is capable of giving the listener a respect not only for classical music, but also for the jazz and rock influences contained within. The music was recorded nearly 30 years ago, yet shows no sign of age, standing up incredibly well in this new millenium. Each member of the trio gets ample opportunity to show off his talents. Keith Emerson's keyboard playing is simply breathtaking on "Take A Pebble" and "The Three Fates." Carl Palmer's percussion solo on "Tank" is simply amazing. And Greg Lake's haunting ballad "Lucky Man" showcases his angelic tenor at its best. ELP's debut album pushed the boundaries of popular music upon its release in 1970. It continues to stand as a monumental musical achievement in the history of rock music.

If you haven't heard of this album, you have never heard of ELP. If you have never heard of ELP, you've never heard of progressive rock. For those of you who are stupid, that means it's good. While it only has six tracks it is still over forty minutes long, and that was the average time for most albums back then. Since each track has it's own distinctive qualities, I think we should go through the album track by track.

1. The Barbarian - A peice by Bela Bartok, that was rockified by ELP. It may have started out as classical, but this is no classical.

2. Take A Pebble - This is the longest song on the album, at 12:27. Not once, in the twelve minutes and 27 seconds does this song get boring. It contains some of the best keyboards on the album.

3. Knife-Edge - This is probably my favorite on the album. The entire album is made from the bass line (D,C,A), a variation of a BMinor chord. Very inventive, and great vocals.

4. The Three Fates - Containing a wonderful piano trio, a piano solo, and some organ playing. Shows off more of Keith Emersons incredible keyboard skill.

5. Tank - If Carl Palmer would have gotten better over time, instead of worse, he would be as good as Neil Peart of Rush. This is an amazing percussive exersize written mainly be Palmer.

6. Lucky Man - A beautiful song that has the best vocals on the album. Most ELP albums had an acoustic guitar song, and this is one of the best, but it still has a bit of trouble fitting into the rest of this prog rock.

As you can see from my comments, this is a superb album, and I recommend it to you.

My journey to ELP's first album was through King Crimson's debut (itself pretty amazing) and Greg Lake's sensational voice on that particular release. Hearing "Knife Edge" for the first time over a crackly AM transmitter in 1974(?), late at night with the lights out, sent a chill down my spine that has never quite gone away. Someone else in a review has said it perfectly: hearing this album in it's entirity leaves you crying in despair: "where has all this good music gone to?". You just don't seem to get rock musicians like Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman (Yes) or Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) these days anymore! So "Knife Edge" made me buy the vinyl Atlantic pressing many years ago and "Lucky Man", "Tank" and "Take A Pebble" made me think I may have just bought one of the best albums of the 70's ever released. As a community radio announcer, I take great delight in playing tracks from this album as if to say to the world: this is what you young'uns have missed out on! This is what the rest of the 70's should have been like!! Never heard any ELP music? Do NOT buy this album first off, because nothing else will ever sound as good.

In the world of prog rock, there are not too many bands who got it right the first time. It took both Yes and Genesis three albums before they really start to take off. And for Jethro Tull, it took them four or five albums, as they made the transition from the blues to prog rock. Not saying that the albums these groups did before Aqualung or Thick is a Brick (Jethro Tull), The Yes Album, or Nursery Cryme were bad (with the probable exception of From Genesis to Revelation, which I thought was pretty bad, but still of historical interest), but it's the common case of "showing great potentional" that the finally showed after the third try or so. But it's really nice to see ELP pulled it off the first time. But then Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, and Carl Palmer all had recording experience prior, so that explains a lot. Emerson was with The Nice, who made some good music, but the vocals of Lee Jackson really weren't suited for the task, and he often ruined many of their songs. Greg Lake was with King Crimson, and appeared on their classic In the Court of the Crimson King, and it's (often regarded in a lesser-light) followup, the similarly titled (and partly similarly-sounding) In the Wake of Poseidon. And Carl Palmer played in the Crazy World of Arthur Brown (apparently did not appear on the 1968 album with the hit "Fire", but Drachen Theaker did), but only when they toured since Theaker was afraid of flying. Then he jumped board with former Crazy World organist Vincent Crane to form Atomic Rooster, and appeared only on their 1970 debut. So basically ELP consisted of disenfranchised musicians needing a place new to express themselves.

Their debut might not be their easiest album to get in to, but it's full of great material still the same. The album opens up with "The Barbarian", which consisted of some workings of classical songs, done ELP style, with lots of great piano and organ work. Greg Lake gives us the wonderful ballad "Take a Pebble". This is perhaps the closest to the King Crimson sound, but without the Mellotrons (as Emerson was no fan of that instrument, apparently), and with lots of wonderful piano. There's a section where the music slows down quite a bit, with just Greg Lake playing his acoustic guitar, before the song picks up, with more piano, and the whole band participating, before the vocal track returns. Then you get the wonderful classic "Knife-Edge". Wonderful, sinister atmosphere, with some killer organ. This is perhaps the closest to heavy prog you get on this album. "The Three Fates" was obviously Emerson's showcase. It starts off with some majestic, over-the-board pipe organ (which I thought worked much better than "Infinate Space/The Only Way" from Tarkus), before he switches over to piano. Then the whole bands gets in to the game, but with Emerson's piano still dominating. "Tank" starts off with Emerson playing clavinet, but here's the only weak spot on the album: Palmer's drum solo, which I found pretty pointless. But after the solo, comes the synthesizer, the first time you hear it on this album. Many might mistake this as the first album to use synthesizer (it's not, as the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, the Byrds, and the Monkees had all used one before them), but it was definately one of the groundbreaking albums as far as synthesizers were concerned, as Emerson really put creative use in to this monster III-C modular Moog. Then the final song is the classic FM hit "Lucky Man", written by Lake. To casual listeners, they would simply think this as a simple folk-rock song with some silly synthesizer tagged at the end. It's little wonder why this received so much radio airplay: it pretty much stuck to the proven rock formula, so when buyers bought the album when it came out, they were in a shock to see how little the rest of the album resembles that song. Still, despite "Lucky Man" being different from the rest of the album, it's still a great classic, and I do like the synthesizer that closes it. This is truly a great album, and anyone in to prog rock should own this.

This album ranks as one of the best debut albums by any band only toped by King Crimson { In the Court of the Crimson king)thats was a class of its own .... The main part of this album or actully any ELP album is the bombastic power these three musicians use to conduct their music is facinating. Every time u hear the album u will find something new .... sometimes its hard to tell who is really playing as Emersons keyboard playing is just so amazing that u wonder was its the keyboard of greg lake on the electric guitar ... Greg lake is an amazing Bass player ... specially in this album and Pictures At an Exe. gerg's bass playing can be heard properly and can really be mindblowing at times ...Carl palmer drumming is very unique ... there is no drummer like him ... i sometimes wonder who is better Neil Perth of Rush or Carl Palmer.. as i feel neil perth will not be able to play the drums as diffrently as carl palmer does...
This album is an amazing start for any one who wants to begin to start a n ELP collection or any Progressive ROck collection .... A must have for any Progressive rock fan .

This album has to be listened to within the context of its time frame. If you were able to transport yourself back to its release date you would be astonished.

ELP gave me my first taste of the Moog Synthesizer at a time when it was still in its developmental stages and Keith, I believe, was collaborating quite closely with Dr Robert Moog. Imagine you have never heard the instrument before and then play Lucky Man!

Take A Pebble probably still remains the standout track and, here again, it is easy to lose sight of its originality and importance when compared to the kind of music that was universally popular at the time.

ELP were amongst the first victims of the punk backlash of the mid seventies - probably because their music had progressed way beyond the easy-to-appreciate commercial nonsense that traditionally infests the charts.

They fully merit their position as one of the most innovative and skilled outfits of our time.

This debut release was also characterised by being a particularly high class production effort. I still play it regularly.