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FORGOTTEN HISTORY: Keith emerson | History Defined

Emerson, Lake & Palmer announce newly remastered reissue of Works Live

Carl Palmer will bring his An Evening With Emerson, Lake & Palmer to England for three shows in February 2027

Louder

“I’d get thrown out then brought back in. I just couldn’t play in a conventional way”: Japan’s Richard Barbieri on coloured hair, lipstick, a fingerless glove and the unusual reason he joined the band

Future Porcupine Tree member recalls being put off playing keyboards by Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman, and feeling culturally homeless before the new romantic era

Louder

“He cannot do that – it’s a criminal act! This is destroying classical music!”: Orchestral players were horrified by Keith Emerson’s work. But times have changed, says acclaimed conductor

Terje Mikkelsen was once told to avoid the ELP icon’s material. He ignored that advice, and went on to collaborate with Emerson himself

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“He said, ‘The music is one thing, but we’re here to put on a show.’ And that’s what he did”: Keith Emerson’s manager wanted to ditch plans for a flying piano. Emerson proved him wrong

Backstage boss Stewart Young took one look at the prototype in 1974 and decided to walk away – but the keyboard maestro wouldn’t have it

Louder

Carl Palmer announces An Evening With Emerson, Lake & Palmer shows in England for February 2027

Carl Palmer will perform live with late band members Keith Emerson and Greg Lake appearing in sync on screens on either side of the stage

Louder

“Professional pianists are the only ones who say, ‘I understand why he wanted to kill himself. I would think the same thing’”: Keith Emerson’s partner says his health issues were caused by his fear of letting people down

Mari Kawaguchi remembers hearing his best-ever performance of Tarkus in a Japanese dive bar, where the critics couldn’t hurt him

Louder

“I opened the curtains a bit and said, ‘Look at all these people who’ve paid to see us!’ I didn’t realise that was the worst thing I could have done”: Carl Palmer on Keith Emerson, and how his death wasn’t the worst part of losing him

They met when Palmer stood in with Fleetwood Mac for a show with The Nice. Half a century of amazing music and friendship followed. The drummer reveals what they’d be doing today if Emerson was still alive

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We celebrate Keith Emerson on the cover of the new issue of Prog Magazine, which is on sale now!

Plus Francis Dunnery, Pat Metheny, Gong, Clive. Nolan, Soft Machine, Ulver, Bill Nelson's Orchestra Futura, Godsticks, Magnus Martin and loads more...

Louder

“What Keith Moon did on drums, he did on keyboards. Without him the genre would be much poorer”: When Geoff Downes saw Keith Emerson live, he found immediate inspiration

The Yes man hails ELP counterpart as a musician and entertainer

Louder

“Playing with Vince Neil, opening for Van Halen, it got to be total rock ’n’ roll excess. I had to reassess why I was even playing guitar”: Steve Stevens on resisting shred, how Paco de Lucia made him go nylon, and Billy Idol’s eternal appeal

Billy Idol’s collaborator of 40-plus years transcends the punk-rock guitarist mold, taking in flamenco, jazz‑fusion, prog and classical styles – and he is as excited aboutguitar today as he was when he first picked one up

Guitar World

“The publisher told us to forget it. But I didn’t give up so easily – I got his home number and called him”: How Emerson, Lake and Palmer charted with Aaron Copland’s Fanfare For The Common Man in the year of punk

Even cut down to a third of its length, the 1977 track became their biggest hit, and one of the most successful instrumental single of all time

Louder

"A picture-postcard Christmas, with morbid edges..." New animated video released for Greg Lake's perennial seasonal favourite I Believe In Father Christmas

Greg Lake's I Believe In Father Christmas originally reached No. 2 in the UK singles chart in 1975

Louder

“We made bad albums. Two of them should be melted down into flowerpots. But how many great pieces of artwork are you going to create in your career?” What Carl Palmer really thinks of ELP

Comparing his band to Yes and Pink Floyd, the sole surviving member looks back on OTT productions, getting carried away with overdubs and constant criticism – but insists: “We were setting a standard”

Louder

“If you want to play that kind of music, play it on your solo album. I’m not interested”: In 1971 Greg Lake enraged Keith Emerson, who immediately quit ELP. The result was their acclaimed album Tarkus

Carl Palmer recalls a crisis meeting, arguments over time signatures, and playing the whole album top to bottom in the studio – only to discover their engineer had taken a break

Louder

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"We'd been going down well until that happened": How The Nice offended Leonard Bernstein and the US Embassy

The story of the song that crystallised the burgeoning prog-rock movement and turned The Nice into one of the most controversial bands of the day

Louder

"I was blown away!" The greatest prog albums, as chosen by prog legend Geoff Downes

He's been in The Buggles, Yes and Asia – but what does Geoff Downes consider the finest prog albums ever?

Louder

“People say Genesis ended when Peter Gabriel left, or when Steve Hackett left. But he was the anchor that everything else revolved around”: An appreciation of Tony Banks, by John Boegehold

Pattern-Seeking Animals keyboardist praises Banks’ ear, taste and understatement, which he argues is essential to everything Genesis achieved

Louder

“I strive to get away from the Genesis vibe. But it’s so deeply ingrained… I’ve been doing it longer than Peter Gabriel was in the band!” Nad Sylvan is more himself than ever on solo album Monumentata

Best known for his12 years with Steve Hackett, the US-born Swede explores his own life and times at last. And is that a Pink Floyd reference as sings about being frontman and sideman in someone else’s project?

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“I’m not a massive fan of all things prog. But I must have listened to the Tarkus album a million times down the years”: Twisted Sister’s Jay Jay French wants Emerson, Lake and Palmer to be remembered for ever

Glam metal guitar slinger had been a fan of The Nice but hadn’t even heard of Carl Palmer when the super-talented supergroup blew him away live

Louder

“Some synth timbres sound a little dated; but hymnal qualities and exquisite melancholy are still to die for”: Greg Lake Live returns from 2005

His band doesn’t have the pedigree of many of his collaborators, but a future Jethro Tull guitarist and a TV show musical director prove highly capable foils in three-disc set

The Guardian - UK

PP Arnold on her star-studded life in music: ‘Peter Gabriel and I used to hang upside down in gravity boots’

After singing with everyone from Tina Turner to the Small Faces, she takes your questions on her Glastonbury plans, life as an Ikette and getting a leg up from Mick Jagger

Louder

”Three highly gifted men with the capacity to behave like spoilt brats in each others’ company”: Emerson, Lake & Palmer often didn’t work. But then, neither did projects that featured just two of the trio

Massive musical ability crossed with pomposity and excess made it difficult for the supergroup to meet expectations – but even with one of the giant personalities missing, the other pair could struggled to deliver

Louder

“We took it badly – ‘No one wants us any more!’ We’d never been through the school of hard knocks. We didn’t know what it meant to work hard”: When ELP collapsed, Carl Palmer’s career-long lucky streak ended. But he didn’t give up

Born into a musical family and a pro by his teenage years with a real-life education in backstage realities, the passionate drummer has seen dreams come true with Arthur Brown, Atomic Rooster, Asia, Mike Oldfield and others

Louder

“It seemed to me that America was ruled by the gun… if you don’t like the President, shoot him”: Flag-burning prog innovators The Nice found trouble on stage and off it

Keith Emerson, Davy O’List and Lee Jackson created enough controversy to last for decades in their original three-year run

Louder

“I’ve always wanted to be in a metal band… Pantera and Dream Theater are great”: Carl Palmer on his desire for a life beyond classic prog, the final ELP show, and why he wishes they’d had a guitarist

After Emerson Lake & Palmer’s High Voltage concert, the drummer shared his thoughts on his former bandmates and pondered an unfulfilled ambition

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