| Emerson, Lake & Palmer | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer | ||||
| Released | November 1970 in U.K. January 13, 1971 in U.S. | |||
| Recorded | 1970, Advision Studios, London, England | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock | |||
| Length | 41:13 | |||
| Label | Island, Atlantic, Manticore (UK) | |||
| Producer | Greg Lake | |||
| Emerson, Lake & Palmer chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Georgiy Starostin | (9/10)[2] |
| Robert Christgau | (C)[3] |
| Rolling Stone | (not rated)[4] |
Emerson, Lake & Palmer is the eponymous debut album of British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released in 1970.
As a first album from the newly formed supergroup, the album clearly demonstrates the variety of influences the artists brought with them, in the mix of instrumental and vocal pieces. The cover of the album depicts a fluttering white bird with a human ear in the bottom left corner; the bird's left wing outlines the back of the male head to which the ear is attached, the other half of which is on the back of the album, and the right wing outlines a female head).
The album is not entirely an effort of the unified band; not all the tracks feature credits for all three band members, and some are essentially solo pieces.
Take a Pebble by Greg Lake is a full band arrangement - with the primary sections being a jazz arrangement by Emerson (reminiscent in some ways of Keith Emerson's late-1960s jazz-style adaptation of Tim Hardin's "Hang On To A Dream" aka "How Can We Hang On To A Dream?") - with a folk guitar middle section by Lake with water-like percussion effects by Palmer, plus a bit of clapping and whistling, that then returns to the jazz arrangement by Emerson (starting with a modal based improvisation on top of the primary ostinato).
"Lucky Man" is Folk-Rock style ballad by Greg Lake, and is a precedent to those he would produce on subsequent albums (notably "From The Beginning" from Trilogy, "Still...You Turn Me On" from Brain Salad Surgery, and "C'est La Vie" from Works Volume I).
"The Three Fates" suite showcases Keith Emerson's composition abilities, and the second movement "Lachesis" showcases Emerson's solo piano playing.
Carl Palmer's solo spot "Tank" was composed by Palmer and Emerson. The first section features Emerson on clavinet and piano, Lake on bass and Palmer on drums. The middle section showcases Palmer's virtuosic solo drumming style. The final section features Emerson on clavinet and the Moog synthesizer, with Lake on Bass guitar.
Going beyond the incorporation of classical and jazz music influences, including using complex time signatures and harmonies and symphonic-type structures - which helped to give them their unique sound, the band used lengthy note-for-note extracts and themes from composers (Bartók, Janáček, and Bach, in the first album).
Although the composition of the first track, "The Barbarian", was attributed to the three band members (on the U.S.A. Atlantic Records vinyl album release, and on all later U.S.A. reissues on CD - but not on the band's own British Manticore vinyl album release), it is an arrangement for rock band of Bartók’s 1911 piano piece, Allegro Barbaro.
The third track, "Knife Edge", is based on the first movement of Janáček’s Sinfonietta (1926) with an instrumental middle section that includes an extended quotation from the Allemande of Johann Sebastian Bach's first French Suite in D minor, BWV 812, but played on an organ rather than clavichord or piano. None of these quotations are attributed on the original U.S.A. Atlantic Records vinyl album release, nor on any later U.S.A. CD reissues by several companies, but all except the Bach quote are clearly listed on the back cover of the British Manticore vinyl album release.
"Lucky Man", the album's single which charted on both sides of the Atlantic, was originally recorded to fill leftover space at the end of the album at the request of the record company. It was written by Greg Lake for acoustic guitar when he was 12 years of age, and was not originally well received by Emerson or Palmer. However, the two agreed to collaborate on what was to become one of the band's most commercial and accessible tracks. At Lake's request, Emerson played a solo on his modular Moog synthesizer at the close of the track.
In the October 1977 Dominic Milano interview of Keith Emerson in Keyboard Magazine (at that time called "Contemporary Keyboard Magazine"), and much later on the band's DVD Beyond the Beginning, Emerson explains how the solo was entirely improvised off the top of his head, in one take. It represented a landmark in popular music and a defining moment in Emerson's career, despite his original insistence that it was below his usual standard. The brief electric guitar interlude (between the second and third verses of lyrics), on top of the multi-tracked overdubbed vocal and acoustic guitar parts, was overdubbed by Lake, as were more extended electric guitar solos on other later ELP studio tracks, like on parts of "Tarkus" and on the middle of "Karn Evil 9 - 1st Impression" (Greg Lake would switch back between bass guitar and electric guitar during the middle of live performances of "Tarkus" to play "Battlefield" (section 6 of the Tarkus suite), and during the middle of "Karn Evil 9 - 1st Impression", in the 1973 - 1974 tours; as can be seen in video-taped footage, including from famous 1974 ABC "California Jam" television broadcasts). In more recent live full band performances (with either ELP or with The Keith Emerson Band featuring Mark Bonilla), Emerson now generally plays a version of the melody of the electric guitar interlude on Hammond organ, whereas on some earlier live versions of "Lucky Man", Greg Lake would sing and perform the piece on acoustic guitar sans any Moog solo or drums (such as on the Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends... Ladies and Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake & Palmer release)
The cover painting is by the British artist Nic Dartnell. It was originally intended for the American group Spirit. The bald-headed man on the left of the cover is Spirit's drummer, Ed Cassidy. However, ELP saw it, liked it and bought it. Dartnell's work can be seen at his website.
A Quadraphonic mix of this album is believed to exist only on the Quadraphonic 8-Track tape cartridge format.
The album peaked at #18 on the Billboard 200. "Lucky Man" reached #48 on the Billboard Hot 100. On the U.K. charts the album peaked at #4.[5]
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