Elegy (The Nice Album)

chronology
Elegy
Studio album by The Nice
Publication ; (s)	April 1971
admission	1969-1970
Label (s)	Charisma , Philips
Format (s)	LP
Genre (s)	Progressive rock
Title (number)	4th
running time	39:27
occupation	Keith Emerson : Keyboards ; Lee Jackson : vocals , electric bass ; Brian Davison : drums ;
production	The Nice
Studio (s)	Trident Studios, London

Elegy is the last regular album by the English progressive rock group The Nice . It was released in 1971, a year after the group broke up.

The album

At the time of publication, The Nice members had long since gone their separate ways: Lee Jackson at Jackson Heights, Brian Davison at Every Which Way, and most successfully Keith Emerson at Emerson, Lake and Palmer .

Elegy contains four songs, all of which are covers or new arrangements. Two of them were recorded live at the Fillmore East in New York in 1969: Hang On to a Dream from the album The Nice and an instrumental version by America from the musical West Side Story . America was previously only released as a single. Tchaikovsky's Third Movement, Pathetique Symphony is already included on the previous album Five Bridges , but there with orchestral accompaniment. The only previously unpublished title is the Bob Dylan cover My Back Pages . Here Emerson starts at the piano and then switches to the Hammond organ.

The flap cover designed by Hipgnosis shows on the outside a sandy desert landscape with a chain of red balls extending into the distance on a dune ridge. Inside you can see a rocky desert with table mountains in the background. Various Nice memorabilia such as photos, record covers and newspaper clippings lie in the foreground as if blown with the wind.

reception

Although the band no longer existed for over a year, Elegy reached number 5 in the British album charts.

Allmusic's Bruce Eder describes the album as one for Keith Emerson fans. On the live recorded Hang On to a Dream , he offers his best piano playing ever legally published. He also highlights his organ playing and the seductive arrangements of the Tchaikovsky and Dylan covers. He gave the album four stars out of five.

Track list

page 1

Hang On to a Dream (Live) ( Tim Hardin ) - 12:43
My Back Pages ( Bob Dylan ) - 9:12

Page 2

Third Movement, Pathetique Symphony (Group Only) ( Tchaikovsky , arranged by The Nice) - 7:05
America (Live) ( Leonard Bernstein / Stephen Sondheim , arranged by The Nice) - 10:27