by Will Romano
Each of the tunes is bursting and bristling with conceptual brilliance, from Foxx fuzz- and wah-inflected bass burps and winding low-end leads to 13/8 patterns and wild odd-time alto sax solos, Collins’s delicate soprano sax puffing (and McDonald’s screaming, abstract sax work), bold and brassy bebop-meets-big-band horn blowing, and grinding, industrial-strength six-string assaults tempered by fleeting measures of acoustic guitar counterpoint overdubbing. (Check the guitar melody reprised by Mel Collins on soprano sax near the end of “Starless,” bringing the piece to a heartbreaking and rousing conclusion.)
“It was balls-to-the-wall progressive rock,” Wetton offered. “It was shit-hard rock ‘n’ roll. It was heavy metal, really.”
Excited by the prospect of having an original Crimson member among the ranks, Bruford and Wetton were pushing for McDonald to rejoin and travel with the band on tour. McDonald agreed, but before the release of Red, news broke that Fripp had disbanded Crimson. The band, as New Musical Express and Record Mirror had reported as early as September 1974, had “ceased to exist”10, as Fripp had declared Crimson “over for ever and ever.”
“Fripp basically asked me if I wanted to go out [with the band on tour], and I don’t know if he was asking me to rejoin or come on the road,” says McDonald. “I’ve always thought there may have been a little bit of revenge in there. John felt very disappointed that a tour never happened. This was a similar situation to what had happened with the original King Crimson band. In that case, I was the one who spoiled it. I think maybe [Fripp] wanted me to say I would come back and then he promptly folded the band. That is just my hunch.”
“[Robert] was starting to get disillusioned,” Wetton said.
“I think John Wetton felt the group was poised for, I have to use the words, ‘big time,’” adds McDonald. “He felt the group was ... for the first time on the verge of being widely known.”
“As he did with us and as he did with the John Wetton–Bill Bruford outfit, I think [Fripp] got to a point where he couldn’t see the wood for the trees,” Collins says.
The live record, USA, was culled from a performance in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in late June 1974 (and features overdubbed tracks by Roxy Music/Curved Air keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson) and appeared in 1975. A best-of compilation, A Young Person’s Guide to King Crimson, was released in 1976. The initials R.I.P. were printed near the bottom of the back cover of USA.
SMALL, INTELLIGENT HIGHLY MOBILE UNIT
Fripp’s Bennett/Gurdjieff minimalist philosophy of becoming a “small, intelligent highly mobile unit” correctly foretold a sea change in the industry and the rise of punk—it appeared he collapsed Crimson just in time for this legendary band to retain its integrity, and even gain a fan or two in the intervening years.
In 1974, by his own admission, Fripp had a “terrifying vision of the future”11 and his response was to run from a world in flux. (Fripp would tangle with his label and management company throughout the 1980s until eventually winning back the rights to his music. He runs the independent record label Discipline Global Mobile, dedicated largely to issuing and reissuing Crimson studio and live material.)
From roughly 1975 to 1980, Fripp did sessions with Brian Eno, Keith Tippett, and David Bowie, and produced Peter Gabriel, among other projects. The once and future King C guitarist would resurrect Crimson again in the 1980s, and totally revamp the style, feel, and look of the band. It would be a far more disciplined, mature, and open Fripp who took to the stages of the world in the early and mid-1980s.
Wetton signed on as Roxy Music’s touring bassist and later as a member of Uriah Heep. Just two-plus short years after Crimson’s demise, Jobson would work with both Wetton and Bruford in the British prog/jazz-rock supergroup U.K. In the early ’80s, Wetton formed Asia with Yes’s Steve Howe, ELP’s Carl Palmer, and Yes/Buggles keyboardist Geoff Downes.
Bruford was a hired gun for several years after Crimson, keeping busy with Gong, National Health, Genesis (as a touring drummer), and Pavlov’s Dog. He formed his own instrumental rock/fusion band Bruford and the aforementioned U.K. before rejoining the ’80s Crimson.
Ian McDonald went on to form the arena rock band Foreigner and, in later years, the 21st Century Schizoid Band—dedicated to reinterpreting Crimson material—with Mel Collins (who continued band and session work throughout the 1970s, most notably with Camel, Bryan Ferry, and Eric Clapton), guitarist/vocalist Jakko Jakszyk, and Crimson exiles/brothers bassist Peter Giles and drummer Michael Giles. (Michael Giles was replaced by former Crimsonite Ian Wallace, who reinvented his former band’s music with his Crimson Jazz Trio up to his death in 2007.)
RED RESURGENCE
In the 1990s, amid the grunge and alternative rock “revolutions,” Tool named Crimson as an obvious influence and Kurt Cobain cited Red as one of his favorite records
“All of a sudden, American kids were talking about this band King Crimson,” Bruford told the author in 1994.
It seemed a natural segue for Crimson to return, and Bruford happily and willfully rejoined the musical beast. “It’s a six-piece band,” Bruford said. “It’s recording a major album in October [eventually titled THRAK and released through Virgin] and it will be out in 1995. It sounds great, I must say. Two guitar players, two [Chapman] Stick players, two drummers. Double trio. So, each one of these trios can function on its own.”
The double trio included bassist Tony Levin (who also played Stick), drummer (and former Mr. Mister member) Pat Mastelotto, Trey Gunn (who played Stick, bass, and, later, touch guitars made by California-based luthier Mark Warr), guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew, Bruford, and Fripp.
Though the double trio split (Bruford and Gunn are no longer members, but Mastelotto, Belew, Levin, Fripp, and a new addition, a second drummer, Porcupine Tree’s Gavin Harrison, has come aboard), the unusual and adventurous musical spirit of Crimson survives into the twenty-first century.
“There’s a little phrase that comes around when we play together,” says Mastelotto, “and it goes something like this: ‘If you’ve heard it or played it, don’t do it.’ That came directly from Robert. That’s a philosophy a musician can use.”
(Ian Dickson/Getty Images)
EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER
Welcome Back My Friends . . .
MANY FANS OF PROGRESSIVE ROCK CLAIM YES WERE THE soul of the genre: If this is so, then Emerson Lake and Palmer were certainly the power, the glory, the spectacle—the so-called first supergroup of prog rock.
As soon as news hit that Keith Emerson, the keyboardist for the Nice; Greg Lake, the bassist/vocalist of King Crimson; and Carl Palmer, the drummer for the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster, had joined forces as ELP, the press had dubbed the band a supergroup—before they’d played a single note.
The band was “supersize” in everything: ELP were superfast and boasted superhuman virtuosity, superegos, and a super pedigree. Perhaps sensing the weight and responsibility of such a mantle being handed to them, Emerson Lake and Palmer performed as though they had something to prove to themselves and the world.
The band’s shows were some of the most bombastic in prog rock history, full of pyrotechnic physical prowess and stage production: Whether it was Palmer’s blazing, Buddy Rich—inspired drum solos; live cannons being fired onstage; Emerson’s humongous modular synthesizer unit (a literal wall of sound equipment, augmented by stacks of Leslie cabinets, used to generate ungodly noises); or a rotating, “flying” piano, ELP never let up—or disappointed.
EMERLIST DAVJACK
It was Emerson’s work with the Nice that fostered the kind of musical climate that allowed ELP to not only survive but thrive.
After attempting to hold down a nine-to-five job, Emerson, a native of Todmorden, Lancashire, England, who’d marveled at his dad’s musical abilities, gave up the notion of having a normal job (and life) and followed his heart in becoming a musician. By the mid-1960s, he had already begun gigging in London.
“Keith and I were toge
ther in what was originally a blues band that turned into a Booker T. and the M.G.s/Stax Records type of musical situation, called Gary Farr & the T-Bones,” says former Nice bandmate Lee Jackson. “We became very good friends, which we are still to this day. I was living in his flat, and he came over one Saturday saying he had been offered to put a band together for this ex-Ikette [Patricia Cole/P. P Arnold], who just had a hit record at the time [‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’].
“We started to put ideas together, never realizing we’d actually do anything with them,” continues Jackson, who handled bass and vocal duties for the Nice. “It was jazz, but we were also messing around with a bit of classical stuff. Similar to what Jacques Loussier—the French jazz musician who played classical pieces—was doing.”
That’s when Andrew Loog Oldham, the founder of Immediate Records and onetime Rolling Stones manager, became aware of Jackson’s band. “He told us, ‘Pat is going back to America and I want to take you guys in and make you a band on your own, and we’re going to make an album,’” relates Jackson.
The Nice, then a four-piece (including Emerson, Jackson, drummer Brian Davison, and guitarist Davy O’List), were signed to Immediate and released two songs: “Rondo,” an interpretation of Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo à la Turk,” a fusion of jazz and classical world music from 1959’s Time Out, containing references to Leo Janáãek’s Sinfonietta (later to reappear in “Knife-Edge” by ELP) and (possibly) Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue (which was also played by Jackson and Emerson in the T-Bones); and “America,” the Leonard Bernstein/ Stephen Sondheim song from the original musical West Side Story, which was recorded and performed as a protest to the Vietnam War. (Emerson, controversially, even burned the American flag onstage at an infamous performance at the Royal Albert Hall in the late 1960s.)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, 1977.
(Courtesy of Atlantic Records)
ELP: s/t (1970)
“I remember I made contact with Emerson just shortly after he [started to play] ‘Rondo,’” says Dave Brubeck. “I asked him why he played his version of ‘Blue Rondo’ in 4/4 [instead of 9/8], and, you know, it’s easier for some people to relate to music in common time.”
The band’s debut, The Thoughts of Emerlist Duvjack, followed and was released in 1967, prog rock’s pivotal year. Though the Nice may have been under the radar, compared to other groundbreaking acts of the day (including the Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, and Procol Harum), that only meant the band required more time to perfect its approach.
But all the ingredients for future progressive rock success were present in Emerlist: space-age tinkling of the Hammond organ (“The Flower King of Flies”), Beach Boys–influenced vocals (the title track), sonic experimentation (e.g., in “Tantalizing Maggie,” for which Emerson plucks piano wires; and “Cry of Eugene,” which features O’List’s ghostly feedback, approximating the sound of Mellotron strings), innovative reinterpretation (“Rondo”), and production savvy (“Azirial”). It’s a rich stew. Heck, even the title of the record is a mass of jumbled-up names of the band members.
The Nice became known for moving from one genre to another—classical, jazz, and rock—with impunity.
“Classical music sacred me,” admits Emerson. “I didn’t think I was good enough to play it, although I used it in quotes to accentuate a solo and then play whole pieces to the extent that it woke up the classical repertoire.”
The Nice continued to evolve, but there was one drag: Guitarist O’List wasn’t adding that much. In fact, the case can be made that he was detracting from the band’s progress. Ultimately, O’List was asked to leave. (More about that in a moment.)
“[Keith] was always envious of all the guitarists because they could move around the stage, while he was stuck to what was ostensibly a piece of furniture,” says Jackson. “Once his mother came to a gig and she brought Pledge furniture polish, and he said, ‘For God’s sake, Mother.’ She only did that once. But we pulled his leg about that for months.”
The Nice became an organ trio as much by circumstance as by design, forging ahead much in the same way Roger Waters and Floyd did without Syd Barrett. Simply put, O’List was a deeply troubled young man, and Emerson’s motives for developing the band weren’t sinister.
Some speculate that O’List was angered and even depressed that Emerson was stealing the spotlight. After all, Emerson was using and abusing his Hammond—rocking it, tipping it over, causing a distorted, metallic wash by disrupting the organ’s reverb chamber, and even stabbing knives—a gift from Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, then a Nice roadie—into the organ to sustain notes as he violated his instrument. He was a showstopper.
By 1969 the Nice had released an album called, simply, Nice (titled “Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It in the U.S.), featuring a live version of “Rondo (69),” a reworked “Azrael Revisited,” a cover of Tim Hardin’s “How Can We Hang On to a Dream” (appearing as “Hang On to a Dream”), and an extended version of Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me.”
Within a year, the symphonic Five Bridges appeared, featuring the band with the Sinfonia of London on the title track suite—a commissioned piece that marked the Nice’s first major all-original epic, ruminating on the five (now seven) bridges spanning the Tyne in Newcastle.
Though no one knew it at the time, “Five Bridges Suite” was the band’s swan song. Emerson was beginning to get stir-crazy with the Nice. He felt he needed new vistas for musical inspiration—things the Nice didn’t seem to be providing him.
Enter King Crimson’s Greg Lake.
“Coincidentally, King Crimson were playing at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West [mid-December 1969] and we were supporting the Chambers Brothers, and on the same bill was the Nice with Keith Emerson, and we happened to have been staying in the same hotel,” remembers Lake. “In the bar at night we all met up and Keith asked, ‘How is it going?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s going great but the band is breaking up.’ And he said, ‘Strange you should say that. I think the Nice is breaking up. To be honest, I think I’ve taken it as far as I can. I don’t think there’s anything else I can do. I think I’m going to move on.’ So we began discussing forming a band. Keith said, ‘I like the idea of a three-piece band.’ So we decided then to look for a drummer.”
Lake had contacted Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which had just recently broken up. “We talked with Mitch and he was very nice, and a great drummer,” says Lake. “At one point we were going to meet with Jimi, and we were going to get together and have a jam to see if it was possible to form a band between the four of us.”
But it never happened. The dream band, a Nice-Crimson-Experience amalgam, didn’t materialize, and instead Robert Stigwood, who had managed Cream and the Bee Gees, called Emerson and Lake, asking if drummer Carl Palmer, of Atomic Rooster and formerly of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, could come down for an audition.
It seems Palmer was primed to work with Emerson, given his experience playing with organist Vincent Crane, with whom he’d worked in the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster.
“It was a natural evolution to put those three guys together,” explains Lake’s Crimson bandmate Ian McDonald. “I know Greg always had big ideas and he always used to think big. I think he pulled it off with ELP.”
ELP DEBUT
Though ELP had performed live previously, it was the band’s appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival, dubbed the “British Woodstock,” held before six hundred thousand spectators in late August 1970, that stands as the supergroup’s official unveiling.
“At the time, British groups ruled the world,” says Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, who also made an appearance at the festival. “They would continue to do so for the next three or four years.”
It was obvious from the Isle of Wight (and from ELP’s self-titled debut, which was soon to follow) that this band was not fooling about. The press were stunned, and fans eagerly awaited the band’s first release, which is now a classic of the
genre.
The opener, “The Barbarian,” is an artistic proclamation as much as a description of a rock band that would take no prisoners. Based in large part on Béla Bartók’s “Allegro Barbaro,” “The Barbarian” lent a dark, Eastern European folk feel to the record that melded surprisingly well with this keyboard-led heavy metal.
The fuzz-bass, Palmer’s rapid brushwork, and the song’s overall disturbing tonality makes it difficult to listen to without thinking of saber rattling, spilled blood and guts, and war. This is ELP: barbarian rockers at the gate poised to conquer Rome (i.e. the record industry), hinting at the musical pillage and plunder yet to come.
“Emerson was unbelievable,” says Eddy Offord, who engineered ELP’s debut. “He’s probably one of the greatest keyboard players in that style who’s ever been.... The [Minimoog] synthesizer had just come out, and I think we had the first one at our studio [Advision]. No musician could run it. The solo you hear at the end of ‘Lucky Man,’ I believe, is the first take. I mean, Emerson just blew it up and that was the end of that. It was over in a few minutes. There were controls on the thing, one called portamento, which allowed you to slip or glide through a series of notes so you could make these really strange noises—‘weeahweeahweee’—that were unlike anything anybody had ever heard. Keith used this for ‘Lucky Man.’”
The “Hendrix of the Hammond”: Emo abusing his keyboard. (Jorgen Angel/Getty Images)
“If you listen to ‘Lucky Man’ and you ask somebody who wasn’t watching what Emerson was doing, he’d say, ‘What the heck is this guy playing?’” says Tom Rhea. Rhea wrote the first owner’s manual for the synthesizer in 1970, and even spent time with Emerson, educating him on the synth’s capabilities. “Never in a million years would I think someone would say, ‘Yeah, it’s some kind of keyboard.’ The sound itself was so powerful and monophonic, and what Emerson and Moog did was help make keyboards, or synths, lead instruments in the way that guitars and saxophones were. The keyboardist didn’t have to be relegated to the back of the band, laying down foundation.”
