Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1971)

A waste of talent and electricity, was John Peel's verdict of ELP's debut Isle of Wight concert, following the formation of the prog supergroup from members of The Nice, King Crimson and Atomic Rooster.

Nevertheless, the band were an important part of my early teenage experience and grounding in the art of prog. And on seeing the CD for a couple of quid in Harborough Market, I decided to revisit their debut album.

It kicks off with the bombastic The Barbarian (which coincidentally had appeared on a Spotify playlist on the drive yesterday - probably why I was susceptible to this purchase). This is an uncredited (well, credited to Keith Emerson) arrangement of Bartok's Allegro Barbaro, clearly setting out the band's intent on keyboard and classical based extended works. This is carried on in the Greg Lake song Take A Pebble, which has a long central section of country style guitar from Lake, and jazz style piano from Emerson, before it's back to the final verse. The first half ends with Knife Edge, with more classical borrowing - the main theme being Lake's lyrics to a Janacek tune, with a Bach 'quotation' in the middle. None of these are credited, of course.

Metaphorically flip the disc over, and we kick off with The Three Fates, mostly a solo Emerson piece, firstly on the church (actually the Royal Festival Hall) organ, before moving to a piano solo, and finally Carl Palmer joining the piano on percussion for the third section, in very much a jazz motif. Tank is a catchy little tune mainly on the clavinet, which I suspect only exists to bookend a Palmer drum solo. As you know, I don't approve of drum solos beyond about 20 seconds. This goes over two minutes. Finally, Lake's short song of medieval heroics, Lucky Man, pleasant enough, but feeling simple and juvenile (he claimed to have written it when he was 12). I'm not sure whether the Emerson electronics at the end enhance or annoy.

But it's good to listen to this again, picking out its strong points and its excesses with a more mature ear than half a century ago. It set the scene for a prog career which flew high for five years before punk dragged it down.

Link to full album

3* - sounds a bit pompous and overblown in parts, but much still works.