Stones of Years: Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends... The year is 1970. I stumbled upon a relatively new and innovative band called Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Upon my initial listen to their first album, I wasn't sure what I thought. I was experimenting, buying albums for their covers, (a habit that would carry me for the duration of my album buying days.) After getting acquainted with the LP, it truly frightened me. Why? Because nobody should be that good. I mean each and every one of these guys were master musicians. Their skill level was astonishing. Check out the song "Tank" from the first album. Listen to Greg Lake playing bass, note-for-note, exactly what Emerson is playing on the keyboard. At age 15, I was duly impressed. I'm still impressed now. The first album was incredible. The song "Take a Pebble" was one of the oddest tunes I'd ever heard coming from a rock band. It quickly became a favorite of mine, and remains so today. "Knife Edge" was raw, but not nearly as raw as "The Barbarian". However, I always thought that "Lucky Man" was rather blah compared to the rest. Still, the record was so hot it was scorching, and from that first album on, EL&P and myself began a lifelong love affair.

I tried Keith Emerson and The Nice and I tried Atomic Rooster. Both The Nice, and Atomic Rooster didn't impress me that much. Atomic Rooster was okay, they just seemed too mainstream for me. I was now fully addicted to the likes of King Crimson, Yes, the art rock of Genesis. The Nice seemed to come up short.

When the LP "Tarkus" was released in 1971, I was so far into ELP's universe, that I knew I'd never get out alive. There were some great pieces on Tarkus, especially "Stones of Years" and "Battlefield". "Tarkus" was wonderful, but I always felt that it was missing a "side". Tarkus took up side A, but side B was almost as boring as the entire "Works" LP. Even though I loved Tarkus, I almost felt like they weren't quite sure about it themselves.

In my opinion, the most incredible album I'd ever heard from them had to be "Pictures at an Exhibition." I bought it because it was EL&P, and my personal discipline required that I buy anything by EL&P. Also because it was a live album, and I always loved live albums. This record showed extreme versatility, especially with Greg Lake's guitar work on "The Sage". It was classical guitar played on steel-string as opposed to the standard nylon string. The solo was amazing. And somebody should have given Carl Palmer a speeding ticket for his drum work on "The Hut of Baba Yaga". All of my friends that ever listened to it soon fell in love with "The Gnome" because of the creepy synth work.

The entire presentation was just dynamite, both cover-wise, and performance-wise. Still, there was one problem with it: "Nutrocker." Why was it that EL&P always managed to throw a turkey into their beautiful mix? Their turkeys thus far would be "Nutrocker", "Eddy Are You Ready?", and "Benny the Bouncer". So, to conclude this incredible masterpiece of live concert work on a variation of Mussorgsky's delightful "Pictures at an Exhibition", is the tiresome "Nutrocker". This song mostly earned the gesture of "Lifting the needle to start the record over" when it came on. Sorry Keith, Greg & Carl, but I didn't like your goofy tunes.

"Trilogy" marked a new beginning for EL&P and myself. This was a marvelous, well-disciplined album, with some of Emerson's finest compositions to date. However, it was a bit sugar-coated and a little boring. "The Endless Enigma" was great, "Trilogy" was greater, "Abbadon's Bolero" was wonderful, and I even loved "The Sheriff", due to the great tack piano and story-telling lyrics. I thought the true gem of this record was Greg Lake's "From the Beginning". This song makes the entire album worth buying. Greg Lake's guitar work was always top-notch and on this one, he proved himself to be one of the most stylish guitarists ever. His picking on the opening of the song requires a discipline unto itself.

The Mecca of all EL&P albums came into my vision as "Brain Salad Surgery", one of the finest crafted LP's in prog history. This was now high-brow prog, serious jamming and performance. The epic "Karn Evil 9" was--and is-- the most fantastic thing in the world. The music is great, it moves, and it moves hard. The structure is perfect, and Greg Lakes blistering guitar solos are so musically and tightly honed that they qualify (in my opinion) as textbook examples of how to write and perform a rock guitar solo. Everybody shines hard on this record. Palmer's electronic percussion, Lakes guitar and vocals--and songwriting ability, and Keith's true expeditionary keyboard work make this one unforgettable album.

"Surgery" does feature the A-typical dud that's almost an ELP requirement in "Benny, the Bouncer," but the album regains its pace and momentum after dropping the Benny ball. The phenomenal cover painting by Swiss artist H.R. Giger (pronounced Jee-jur), was beautifully horrifying. Giger himself once mentioned in one of his books that he basically "painted his nightmares". Next, the cover had structural engineering: it opened as two doors to reveal the inside. EL&P also now had a unique logo. Soon the big triple live album came out, and it was well-worth the money. For once, we had a preview of EL&P original material performed live, and that was a good thing. When I saw them in 1973, it was this same tour.

I felt that what followed in the years after, were largely experimental works that did not really impress me that much. After Brain Salad I saw the beginning of the end, and that premonition remains one of the saddest days of my life.