Take a pebble (Emerson Lake & Palmer) (LP 993 - 995)

Emerson Lake & Palmer  Emerson Lake and Palmer (Vinyl, Atlantic Records, 1970) ***** 

Emerson Lake & Palmer  Tarkus (Vinyl, Atlantic Records, 1971) *** 

Emerson Lake & Palmer  Pictures At An Exhibition (Vinyl, Manticore Records, 1971) ***

Genre: Prog rock 

Places I remember: Lewis Eady Ltd; Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Lucky Man

Gear costume: Take A Pebble

Active compensatory factors: I warned you all about needing an ELP sized deep breath when I last mentioned Keith Emerson in this blog. For some reason I am an ELP completist. I know. Weird right.

I much prefer guitars to keyboards, but here I am anyway. Prog rock will do that to you, I guess.

I'll be doing it in smallish bites, so you can relax a tad.

The first album is a kitchen sink, show-offy classic. It's full of things that shouldn't really work: daft lyrics; abrupt changes in mood and style but it does. It even includes a brilliant pop song with the best moog solo of all time.

You can't really have the drums or the bass as the main soloing instrument so, early on, Keith Emerson is established as the main dude on display. 

Luckily, he plays well alone, but he also plays well with others. First with The Nice and then joining forces with Palmer and Lake.

The debut is breathtaking in its scope and performance. It still sounds fantastic in 2023!

Second album, Tarkus, continues the fun. Side One is the Tarkus concept group of pieces. I have never understood the story line behind it. Yes, it's overblown and pretentious, but it also doesn't include too many memorable chunes. I prefer the madness of side 2. It even has a proto-punk number to end things!

Although it gets a rapturous audience reaction, the live Pictures At An Exhibition is my least favourite early ELP album. I just don't get the whole classical/rock mash up thing, I'm afraid. It's certainly an album they had to get out of their system before the next stage kicked in.

And, wowsers - what a next stage!   

Where do they all belong? A lot more to come as we reach my favourite ELP albums!

The flight of a hawk (Keith Emerson) (LP 909)

Keith Emerson  Nighthawks (Soundtrack) (Vinyl, Backstreet Records, 1981)  ***

Genre: Prog rock/ Soundtracks 

Places I remember: Record Fair in Palmerston North 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Nighthawking

Gear costume: Nighthawks main title theme, The Chase

Active compensatory factors: Unfortunately the cover is one of those cut out jobs (like George Harrison's Extra Texture or Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti) so the Nighthawk letters on my copy have been mangled a bit through use (the K and S) which is disappointing. Somebody didn't care about preserving this album's cover but the vinyl itself is excellent.

When I spied it at a record fair a few years ago, I had to make a quick decision. On the negative side - the cover, the fact it's from 1981 (I know what that means), and the fact that Keith was writing music for a film (in this case a Sylvester Stallone neo-noirish action crime thriller). Oh oh.

On the plus case - the price reflected all of those things, the vinyl was in mint condition and, well, it's Keith Emerson innit. So, on balance it was worth a punt.

Alrighty then - what's the music like? Well - for the most part, surprisingly good! Side one is consistently terrific (four stars) and side two gets 3 stars - how much film music from Nighthawks do you really need?

First track, the Nighthawks title theme, gets things off to a great start with some punchy brass, then it's down to atmospheric stuff that is firmly in the Isaac Hayes school of soundtrack design but with Keith's progtastic approach present as well.

All the extra things you need for a soundtrack help Keith too. He does a lot of the heavy lifting in ELP, but here he's mainly a composer so there is room for Jerome Richardson's great sax, Greg Bowen's trumpet, and Frank Scully's percussion (a crucial ingredient of noir actioners in this era), as well as the bass/ drums combo.

Keith, it goes without saying, is Keith - all virtuoso keyboard hero throughout.

Don't let this one pass you by if you're a prog/ soundtrack/ ELP/ music fan. 

Where do they all belong? Next up when we return to the prog vinyl it's time to launch into all (yes - all) of Emerson Lake and Palmer's vast catalogue. Deep breath!