Emerson Lake and Palmer

Emerson Lake and Palmer biography

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 (keyboards), Greg Lake (bass guitar, vocals, guitar) and Carl Palmer (drums, percussion). They are one of the most popular and commercially successful progressive rock bands.

The ELP sound is dominated by the Hammond organ and Moog synthesiser of the flamboyant 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, besides 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 current bands, met at Fillmore West in San Francisco and on working together, found their styles to be compatible and complementary. Keith described the first meeting (during a soundcheck) 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 keyboard/bass/drum band, Emerson and Lake sought out 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 (Hendrix-Emerson-Lake-Palmer) which survived for over forty years until Lake finally debunked them in 2012. Meanwhile, Robert Stigwood (manager of Cream) 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 (a band he had just helped form) but was persuaded by the "magic" he felt when playing with Emerson and Lake.

The name Emerson, Lake and Palmer came about for two reasons: to remove the focus on Emerson as the most famous of the three (and thereby recognise all 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."

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