Emerson, Lake & Powell

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Emerson, Lake and Powell
General information
Genre (s) Progressive rock
founding February 1985
resolution 1986
Last occupation
Keith Emerson †
Greg Lake †
Cozy Powell †

Emerson, Lake & Powell was a short-lived British rock band formed by keyboardist Keith Emerson and singer, bassist and guitarist Greg Lake that emerged from a failed attempt to reform Emerson, Lake & Palmer . With Carl Palmer unavailable , Keith Emerson and Greg Lake took former Rainbow and Whitesnake drummer Cozy Powell into the band. The formation's only studio album was released in 1986.

history

In 1984, after Greg Lake left Asia because his musical ideas were not well received by the rest of the band, Jim Lewis, Vice President of Polydor Records , tried Keith Emerson to bring Emerson, Lake & Palmer back together. Emerson met with Lake to discuss the possibilities of re-starting the band after four years. The two decided to try a second time.

Since drummer Carl Palmer was contractually bound to Asia or their record company Geffen Records , Emerson and Lake had to look for a replacement. Rehearsals with Simon Phillips and former Yes , King Crimson and UK drummer Bill Bruford were unsatisfactory, and the first demos were recorded with a paid studio drummer. When it was just agreed to record the album with various drummers, Cozy Powell left the band Whitesnake. Originally intended as one of several drummers, Emerson Powell proposed in February 1985 to join the band as a full, third member. Powell accepted the suggestion.

The fact that the drummer's surname began with a "P" like Carl Palmer's meant that the music press called the new band "ELP". This suggested to the public that Emerson, Lake & Palmer had reunited, replacing Palmer with Powell. However, out of respect for Palmer, the three musicians never used this abbreviation, but instead called themselves explicitly "Emerson, Lake & Powell", also to show that it was a new and independent band.

Album Emerson, Lake & Powell

At the end of 1985 the band went into the studio, in January 1986 the recordings were completed. The release was planned for February, but an elbow injury from Emerson would have made a tour impossible at that time, so the album was postponed until the end of May.

The debut was released under the title Emerson, Lake & Powell . The album actually made some concessions to the classic style of Emerson, Lake & Palmer - with classic progressive rock and many style changes: longer pieces like The Score and The Miracle alternate with anthemic ballads ( Lay down your Guns ), the jazzy Step Aside and Adaptations of classical pieces (such as Mars, the bringer of war from the suite The Planets by Gustav Holst , 1916). However, the differences to Emerson, Lake & Palmer predominate:

The Score is a classic progressive rock piece. It lasts about nine minutes and consists of four parts: an intro, characterized by Emerson's dissonant keyboard fanfares , a typical Emerson march repeated several times , which in places reminds of ELP's Pirates , a song part that starts after more than three and a half minutes and a melodious one Up-tempo part, which already leads to the following learning to fly . In contrast to ELP, Emerson's playing is much more disciplined here: Instead of long solos, he almost exclusively plays accompanying chords, which give the piece a coherence that was alien to the ELP sound of the 1970s.

The transition to the near-pop learning to fly is just as seamless as that to The Miracle , which connects the three pieces that made up page 1 of the LP into a suite . The Miracle begins with a somber passage that briefly dissolves into major chords after a minute , only to be repeated afterwards. Emerson reacts imaginatively to the text Lakes, in several places (e.g. "specter", "ship of glass") a short, tonally matched keyboard interludes replies to the text content. After two and a half minutes, the refrain finally kicks in. In this song, too, Emerson avoids keyboard solos and instead restricts himself to the blocky chords that contribute to the closed band sound.

On the second side of the album, the styles of music alternate more clearly. It opens with the single Touch and Go , an unusual piece for a hit single, the refrain of which is kept instrumental. The piece adapts a quote from the English folk song Lovely Joan . Love Blind is another pop song, Step Aside is classic bar jazz , it is followed by the classic adaptation Mars , which Emerson smoothed rhythmically and slowed down considerably. Lay Down Your Guns is a calm, anthemic anti-war ballad.

The massive sound, the new timbres of the electronic keyboards, Powell's drumming, which was completely different from Palmer's style, and above all Emerson's reluctance as a soloist made Emerson, Lake & Powell sound much more like a homogeneous band than ELP. It was also possible here for the first time to minimize the stylistic contrasts between Emerson and Lake. The single and the album sold well, reaching number 23 on the American Billboard charts in July 1986 .

tour

The subsequent US tour started on August 15, 1986 in El Paso (Texas) , ended on November 2 in Phoenix (Arizona) and included 41 concerts. However, it was not as successful as hoped for a long time: Although the band played in front of 13,000 people in New York's Madison Square Garden , in Lexington (Kentucky) only 800 people filled the Rupp Arena, which held 20,000 spectators. For some concerts, smaller halls had to be booked afterwards because too few tickets were sold.

The main reason for this was that they had booked halls for Emerson, Lake & Powell in the south of the USA, which was dominated by country music and where Emerson, Lake & Palmer had hardly had any fans. The band lost more money than they made on the tour. Yngwie Malmsteen , who was supposed to appear as a special guest, complained about lack of space on the stage and refused to accompany the tour after only one appearance. The band was also forced to change management during their concert tour. In addition, the already never easy relationship between Emerson and Lake had turned into open enmity during the tour. A planned tour of Australia was therefore canceled completely.

Dissolution of the band

Back in England it was clear that Emerson, Lake & Powell could not continue to exist like this. The relationship between Emerson and Lake and the lack of funds to finance the December 1986 work on a second album made it impossible.

In the 1990s, some live recordings and recordings of rehearsals came on the market as bootlegs , which were remastered and officially released in 2003 as Live In Concert and The Sprocket Sessons .

Discography

Albums
  • 1986 - Emerson, Lake & Powell
  1. The Score (Emerson, Lake) - 9:08
  2. Learning to Fly (Emerson, Lake) - 4:02
  3. The Miracle (Emerson, Lake) - 6:50
  4. Touch and Go (Emerson, Lake) - 3:38
  5. Love Blind (Emerson, Lake) - 3:11
  6. Step Aside (Emerson, Lake) - 3:45
  7. Lay Down Your Guns - 4:22 (Emerson, Lake, Steve Gould )
  8. Mars, the Bringer of War - 7:54 ( Gustav Holst , arr.Emerson , Lake, Powell)

Japan CD bonus tracks:

  1. The Loco-Motion - 4:40 ( Gerry Goffin , Carole King )
  2. Vacant Possession (Emerson, Lake) - 4:42
  • 2003 - The Sprocket Sessons (rehearsals)
  • 2003 - Live in Concert (recorded live in Lakeland, Florida, November 1986) (Live album)
Singles
  • Touch and Go / Learning to Fly / The Locomotion
  • Lay Down Your Guns / Step Aside

Sources and web links

  • Edward Macan: Endless Enigma. A musical biography of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Chicago / Illinois 2006, ISBN 0-8126-9596-8 .
  • George Forrester, Martyn Hanson, Frank Askew: Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The show that never ends. A musical biography. London 2001, ISBN 1-900924-17-X .
  • emersonlakepalmer.de - ELP history website with a large information section about Emerson, Lake & Powell