Emerson, Lake & Palmer Emerson, Lake & Palmer

• 1 The Barbarian 04:30
• 2 Take a Pebble 12:32
• 3 Knife-Edge 05:04
• 4 The Three Fates 07:44
• 5 Tank 06:48
• 6 Lucky Man 04:35
• Total Runtime 41:13

Info for Emerson, Lake & Palmer

When Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, and Carl Palmer left the Nice, King Crimson, and Atomic Rooster, respectively, they created the first prog-rock supergroup. ELP's 1971 debut was full of just as much bombast, technical facility, and brash classical-rock fusion as prog admirers could have hoped. A large part of the band's appeal was the keyboard mastery of Emerson, who shows both superhuman chops and sophisticated compositional abilities on the classically tinged instrumental "The Barbarian," which opens the album.

"Take a Pebble" and "Lucky Man" represent the more pop-oriented ballad side of the ELP sound, for which bassist and singer Greg Lake is chiefly responsible. The instrumental epics "The Three Fates" and "Tank" find all three musicians interacting at a furious level, throwing awe-inspiring licks around with uncanny ease, with plenty of octopus-armed drumming from Carl Palmer. Epic, ambitious, and overflowing with technical mastery, „Emerson, Lake & Palmer“ paved the way for the prog rock phenomenon of the '70s.

„Lively, ambitious, almost entirely successful debut album, made up of keyboard-dominated instrumentals ("The Barbarian," "Three Fates") and romantic ballads ("Lucky Man") showcasing all three members' very daunting talents. This album, which reached the Top 20 in America and got to number four in England, showcased the group at its least pretentious and most musicianly -- with the exception of a few moments on "Three Fates" and perhaps "Take a Pebble," there isn't much excess, and there is a lot of impressive musicianship here. "Take a Pebble" might have passed for a Moody Blues track of the era but for the fact that none of the Moody Blues' keyboard men could solo like Keith Emerson. Even here, in a relatively balanced collection of material, the album shows the beginnings of a dark, savage, imposingly gothic edge that had scarcely been seen before in so-called "art rock," mostly courtesy of Emerson's larger-than-life organ and synthesizer attacks. Greg Lake's beautifully sung, deliberately archaic "Lucky Man" had a brush with success on FM radio, and Carl Palmer became the idol of many thousands of would-be drummers based on this one album (especially for "Three Fates" and "Tank"), but Emerson emerged as the overpowering talent here for much of the public.“ (Bruce Eder, AMG)

Keith Emerson, Hammond organ, piano, clavinet, pipe organ, synthesizer
Greg Lake, vocals, bass, acoustic and electric guitar
Carl Palmer, drums, percussion

Recorded 1970, Advision Studios, London, England
Engineered by Eddie Offord
Produced by Greg Lake

Digitally remastered

Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Considered by many to be one of rock’s original first super-groups, Emerson Lake & Palmer formed in England in 1970 consisting of Keith Emerson (keyboards), Greg Lake (bass guitar, vocals, guitar) and Carl Palmer (drums, percussion). The band created a brand new world of music, combining classical and symphonic rock fused with beautiful vocals. Their penchant for appropriating themes from classical music and the group’s more nuanced, textured approach to symphonic arrangements set ELP apart from their more bombastic guitar-based contemporaries of the time. This subtler and more sublime approach carries on today in the expansive atmospherics of Radiohead and Muse and also in the prog-influenced sphere of band’s like Porcupine Tree, Dream Theatre, Opeth and many others, making ELP one of the more relevant torchbearers of the progressive rock sound. Along with Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, and Rush, Emerson Lake and Palmer ushered in the Prog era and as one of the most commercially successful rock bands of the 1970’s having sold over 40 million albums. ELP’s dramatic flair, sincere passion, labyrinthine song structures, and symphony-worthy virtuosity proved that classical rockers could compete for arena-scale audiences as the band headlined stadium tours around the world.

This album contains no booklet.