httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoxHGxQw9ws
English rock musician Greg Lake, who helped pioneer the expansive genre of progressive rock in the late 1960s and ’70s as a founding member of both King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, has died.
Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, who drafted Lake for the 2001 edition of his All-Starr Band, tweeted on Thursday “God Bless Greg Lake. Peace and love to all his family.”
Their respective bands – Lake in King Crimson, and Emerson in The Nice – were both on the bill, and the two musicians first jammed together t, sparking a collaboration that would continue for decades.
Of King Crimson, which Lake formed in 1967 with childhood friend and budding experimental guitarist Robert Fripp, Lake said: “One day we were playing to 50 people, the next day to 500, and the day after to 3,000. The public reaction spread like wildfire.”
After that initial jam session in San Francisco, Emerson left King Crimson and latched onto Lake, and then they were introduced by English rock impresario Robert Stigwood to Palmer, who had been a member of Atomic Rooster.
As a trio they brought instrumental proficiency in rock music to new highs – Emerson leaning on his classical training as a pianist, Palmer adding a rhythmic complexity that owed much to jazz greats such as Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa, while Lake anchored the rhythm section with freewheeling abandon that expanded on the inventive use of the bass by such predecessors as Motown’s James Jamerson and fellow Brits Paul McCartney and the Who’s John Entwistle.
Following more hit albums, including “Brain Salad Surgery” in 1973 and the live album “Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends – Ladies and Gentlemen” that reached No. 4 in 1974 – the group’s highest charting album -Emerson, Lake and Palmer went on a two-year hiatus from 1977 to 1979, but upon its return the tide of pop music had shifted away from prog rock.
In addition to his work with King Crimson and ELP, Lake issued a couple of solo albums and periodically reunited with Emerson and Palmer.
Yes is on the current slate of nominees for induction in 2017 and is running third, behind Journey and Electric Light Orchestra – two bands whose music contains elements of prog-rock – but not Emerson, Lake & Palmer.