Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Cool 47th Anniversary find, Z.
Was curious as to what year so I looked it up in "The Show That Never Ends" by Forrester, Hanson and Askew. Couldn't find the show. Turned out that they have it listed as May 28th, 1971 as does Greg Lake's Website.
Wonder when the actual show was? I'm thinking that the show was postponed for some reason as there is a nine day gap in the tour right where the Upsala College show should have been played according to this poster/hand bill.
http://greglake.com/Tour/tour_1971.html

Here's a setlist for what they played on May 26th, 1971 at Carnegie Hall.
  1. Pictures At An Exhibition
  2. The Barbarian
  3. Tarkus
  4. Take A Pebble
  5. Knife Edge
  6. Rondo
  7. Nutrocker
Can only assume that Lucky Man was played during Take A Pebble.
 
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Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it, Delmarva.
I wrote a series of Today In Music History articles almost daily for 6 months or so. Those articles were a labor of love, the one about Keith in particular. More can be found on that site by searching "TIMH".
 
As this thread has gone, I am a ELP fan.

I have no patience for King Crimson or Asia. I am not sure that I should even post this with these bands being so related, but I cannot find any enjoyment in their music.

I am rocking out to GuruGuru at the moment.

I have no folks in my musical circle that lead me to one band or another. I believe that the combined musicians of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer created a sound that no project even with those members could quite capture.
Perhaps revisiting In The Court Of The Crimson King is in order. Don't know how much you've listened to it but I've never known a fan of ELP not to love that album. That said, if it doesn't grab you then it doesn't grab you.
I remember being introduced to it around the time Works Vol 1 came out. It was shocking to say the least and I wasn't quite sure what to think. It grew on me quickly though. It's recognized by many as the greatest prog rock album of all time.

Asia on the other hand...well, they're Asia. :rflmao:

And I'm rocking out to Emerson, Lake & Palmer ~ Live at Pocono International Raceway, U.S.A., 8th July 1972.
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Cool 47th Anniversary find, Z.
Was curious as to what year so I looked it up in "The Show That Never Ends" by Forrester, Hanson and Askew. Couldn't find the show. Turned out that they have it listed as May 28th, 1971 as does Greg Lake's Website.
Wonder when the actual show was? I'm thinking that the show was postponed for some reason as there is a nine day gap in the tour right where the Upsala College show should have been played according to this poster/hand bill.
http://greglake.com/Tour/tour_1971.html

Here's a setlist for what they played on May 26th, 1971 at Carnegie Hall.
  1. Pictures At An Exhibition
  2. The Barbarian
  3. Tarkus
  4. Take A Pebble
  5. Knife Edge
  6. Rondo
  7. Nutrocker
Can only assume that Lucky Man was played during Take A Pebble.

I have a thread here where Me and others like to post concert posters . I came across this one and had to share here .
 
I was lucky enough to see ELP on their "Works" tour with the full orchestra at Madison Square Garden in NYC. I was sitting on the side/back of the stage fairly close to Mr. Emerson and remember after Keith's piano piece, the string members of the orchestra banging their bows on the music stands in appreciation of his playing.
While for me, progressive rock has not aged as well as other musical forms over the last 40 to 50 years, i still enjoy giving it a spin and just used Karn Evil 9 in a track list that I finished last night. That song, known as their "Hit", displayed everything ELP had to offer, technically perfect playing by the members of the band, clever songwriting and one of the great male voices in rock. What's not to like?.
 
There is an entire ELP thread... ? Ok I guess it's time for me to check them out.. I'll have to pull them up on Spotify, or listen to the single LP I have.

As soon as I seen the thread I knew Frank would be in the mix :) lol @Delmarva
 
Picking back up with the ELP album covers background stories.
I didn't really think that there could be much of a story for Pictures At An Exhibition.
I was wrong. :thumbsup:


I've gone 40+ years assuming that the cover was a painted illustration by artist William Neal depicting a gallery of paintings, much in the style of Norman Rockwell's super realism.
After doing a little research, I learned that it is actually a series of large oil paintings by William Neal specially commissioned for the album cover and then hung at the Hammersmith Town Hall, in London and then photographed by Keith Morris and Nigel Marlow.
The painting for Promenade is supposed to show and an embossed white dove taken from the debut albums artwork but could only be discerned with the naked eye and wasn't able to be photographed. The painting of The Hut of Baba Yaga supposedly depicts the Tarkus armadillo tank in the far background.

A few factoids about PAAE.
The piece was the first thing they ever played live.
ELP originally intended to do a studio recording of their interpretation of Mussorgsky's masterpiece, but decided to spend the studio time recording Tarkus instead. They made the live recording of PAAE intending to make it a giveaway album to go along with Tarkus. Cooler heads prevailed and it was decided to release it as a budget album costing 1.49 pounds. They didn't feel right asking full price for a 24 minute album.
EDIT: Quite honestly, I accepted that 24 minute stuff from two articles that I read. The CD comes in at 38 minutes according to my Sony CDP-190. The CD has no added content.
There's no freakin' way that my vinyl copy clocks in at 12 minutes per side.


The Sage, Greg Lake's obligatory ballad was actually something that he had written for another album but incorporated seamlessly into PAAE. Can only assume it would have been incorporated into Tarkus.

The recording at Newcastle's Town Hall begins with Emerson manning the Hall's 40 year old pipe organ. Palmers extended drum part after the intro is to allow Emerson time to run down the stairs from the pipe organ and to the stage to join with Lake and Palmer.

Despite being ready for release before Tarkus, the record company refused to issue it, fearing a classical suite would result in poor record sales. They insisted it be released on their classical label instead. ELP threatened to shelf the entire project if that was to be the case. ELP won that battle but Tarkus was still released first.

Atlantic/Cotillion Records, ELP's American label didn't want to release the album at all as they felt there were no singles on it to release for radio play.Their UK label Island Records began importing it to the US and sales were so brisk that Atlantic/Cotillion decided to release it as well in 1972.

Carl Palmer has said that Pictures At An Exhibition was their most difficult piece for him to play. There was nothing to keep rhythm to he said and he basically had to become a fourth lead instrument.

I've always thought that PAAE was released before Tarkus, but clearly I was wrong on that.
Pays to do a little research once in a while.

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In one of the books I am reading, it was suggested that Keith got his idea for the moog work on Lucky Man from this piece of music, which was released before LM was recorded. What do you think? To me, similar, yes, but I don't think a copy.

 
I absolutely hear it. To me, at times, it's an almost note for note copy of the solo.
Emerson slid in and out of the notes with a lot more dexterity
Fantastic find, Ray. A very entertaining piece of ELP history.

Now I want to hear the rest of Hyman's album.
 
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Ray. I had to pull my copy of Forrester, Hanson & Askew's book, ELP: The Show That Never Ends - A Musical Biography, and yes, right there on page 93 is the reference that you eluded to. However they're saying that Emerson quoted Hyman's "The Minotaur" during the Aquatakus section of Tarkus on WBMFTTSTNE. I heard the moog solo from Lucky Man in the Hyman piece. Now I need to listen again.
I read the book 17 years ago in 2001. Long before YouTube came along and gave us this great musical reference library. So back then I read it, and said, "Well that's interesting" and kept turning pages. Need to revisit this book again.
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EDIT: Yes, upon further inspection I'm hearing Aquatarkus big time in this.
 
There is a little college FM radio station I listen to that plays all kinds of stuff . The current Trower album has been played constantly . The other night on the way home from work , I turned the radio on and they were playing Devo's Whip It . Next , I here the subtle synth opening of a song I know so well , but never on the radio . HOLY COW , THAT"S TRILOGY FROM ELP ! I arrived home about half way into the song . I sat in the car until it was over . That was so cool .


Hey, when you're on the 'net try a site called radioparadise.com. They play ELP and a lot of stuff like the old AOR stations used to in the better days of FM radio. The owners, Bill & Rebecca Goldsmith, are quite cool.

The nice thing is - no commercials, no pop up crap, and it has a very good sound quality/resolution. Also has a listener ranking system.

Here's the playlist of their ELP tracks. They do also play 'Lucky Man' but I don't know why it didn't come up.

http://www.radioparadise.com/rp_2.php?#name=Music&func=search&type=artist&search=emerson,+lake+&+palmer
 
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