Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Lucky Man
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer was the first band to start playing rock that would later be referred to as “progressive rock”. They gained hundreds of thousands of listeners, echoes of their work could be heard in other rock groups such as Yes, who quickly became the musical rivals of ELP in the early 1970s.
The group was formed in 1969 by keyboardist Keith Emerson and Greg Lake. A year later, they were joined by Mitch Mitchell, who was eventually replaced by Carl Palmer. Initially, they played songs from the repertoire of The Nice (their achievements were described as “between beat and Beethoven”) and King Crimson, with which they were previously associated, such as: “Rondo” and “21st Century Schizoid Man”. One of their first performances together was a concert at the Isle of Wight Festival in September 1970. A month later their first album simply titled “Emerson, Lake & Palmer” was released and it was a huge success. A year later they recorded another album: “Tarkus”. A particularly important event in the history of the group was the concert at Newscastle City Hall, where they presented their version of the work of the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky “Pictures from an Exhibition”.
The next album “Trilogy” was released by E, L & P in June 1972. They also started working with Pete Sinfild, who was associated with King Crimson and enriched the ELP sound with new elements. The next triple album of live performances, entitled “Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends” was well received, but the group’s position was shaken by the next album “Works”. It showed the inconsistency of the intentions of the musicians who could successfully publish the material on it on three solo albums. However, they did not decide to do it, although “Works”, released in March 1977, consisted of three solo parts, and the fourth “common” part contained songs such as “Pirates” and “Fanfare For The Common Man”. The album was not well received by both critics and fans. It was similar with the subsequent albums “Works vol. 2” and “Love Beach”.
The group broke up in 1979. Greg Lake devoted himself to a solo career, Keith Emerson took up composing music for films, and Carl Palmer joined the group Asia. In the mid-1980s, Emerson took up a new project – Emerson, Lake & Powell, which resulted in an album of the same title.
In 1991 E, L & P played together again, and the result of the cooperation was the album “Black Moon” and a joint concert tour. In 1993 they released the album “Live At Royal Albert Hall”. The recording of another album, although planned, did not take place due to Emerson’s disease.
