Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One app.

Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles. One news app.

MYSTERIOUS: Greg lake - What They Never Told You

“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

Louder

“Greg Lake was a bit of a cabaret singer. Jon Anderson, whatever you think of his lyrics, bloody meant it”: The prog stars who influenced a comedy musician’s career – and made him become a milkman for a while

Graham Fellows, creator of Jilted John and John Shuttleworth, started out with ELP before finding Yes, Focus, The Enid and Pink Floyd (although he has no time for The Dark Side Of The Moon)

Louder

"There was about 380 people in the hall, sold out. There wasn’t a woman in sight." Carl Palmer looks back on the earliest Emerson, Lake & Palmer shows

The birth of a prog rock legend

Louder

From analysis to the latest developments in health,
read the most diverse news in one place.

"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

“Robert said, ‘Would you be prepared to play bass?’ And I thought, ‘Four strings, six strings... what could be the problem?’”: Greg Lake started out as a guitarist – before being convinced by Robert Fripp to switch to bass when joining King Crimson

Lake went on to form Emerson, Lake & Palmer – ELP – with keyboardist Keith Emerson and drummer Carl Palmer, creating one of rock’s first super-groups

Guitar World

Mega new prog you must hear from Big Big Train, Karnivool, Textures, Les Penning & Robert Reed and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week

Cool new proggy sounds from Earthside, Hällas, Jagged City and more in this week's Tracks Of The Week

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

Read news from The Economist, FT, and more,
with one subscription

“It was an awful mistake to overlook his album. But you could be excused for not sticking with it”: Fired by King Crimson, this prog poet assembled a group of A-list colleagues and took them on a trip into the unknown. They got lost – or so it seemed

His only solo release merged Genesis, Greenslade and Soft Machine vibes with an additional experimental edge. But the real beauty is that it couldn’t have been made any other time than the early 70s

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

“I said, ‘If you don't want it, I'll have it,’ very calmly, trying to control myself. It's the best Strat I've ever had”: Gary Moore's iconic 1961 Strat is up for sale – alongside his ‘Still Got the Blues’ ’59 Gibson Les Paul

The Gary Moore Collection: The Final Encore kicks off in November and is the last of a series of sales of Moore’s collection that have taken place at Bonhams

Guitar World

“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

"The Queen Mother asked us to play something on the Moog. She was really cute": PFM on brushes with royalty, spaghetti with Aerosmith, and how to annoy America

Premiata Forneria Marconi, aka PFM, remain one of the great trailblazers of European prog rock

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

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

Get all your
news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One news app.

Louder

“I don’t think he ever got over being fired from King Crimson… but he went on to bigger, more financially successful things”: Peter Sinfield, the prog poet who gave voices to ELP, Roxy Music and many others

Lyricist, art director, producer and all-round creative who aimed to enlighten, provoke or stir died in November 2024 without being fully aware of what he’d achieved

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

Louder

“Andrew Loog Oldham asked if we were songwriters. I said we were – then I had to go away and figure out how you wrote songs”: The Nice helped found prog and merged classical music with rock, then they were gone

Prompted by a disagreement that spilled into the public domain, co-founders Keith Emerson and Lee Jackson once visited the Prog office to set things straight

Get all your
news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One news app.

Louder

"It's unlikely that I'll ever listen to any other Asia albums but only time will tell": Asia upset the prog purists and delight their bank managers on freakishly successful debut album

Featuring members of Yes, ELP and King Crimson, Asia were billed as a prog rock supergroup but kept it concise, to enormous success

Louder

“The sort of thing which got prog a bad name, but which now seems increasingly bold and ambitious”: 10 essential Greg Lake songs

From King Crimson to ELP and beyond, he left a catalogue of impressive creations from an extraordinary musical journey which included that Christmas song

The Guardian - UK

Peter Sinfield obituary

Lyricist, record producer and co-founder of the prog rock band King Crimson

Louder

“John Peel said we were a waste of talent and electricity… It had become de rigueur to knock us”: Emerson Lake & Palmer and the making of Brain Salad Surgery

The prog supergroup were at their creative peak when they created the 1973 epic that took the world by storm, despite the apparent hordes of critics

Louder

Robert Fripp and Carl Palmer lead tributes to Pete Sinfield who has died, aged 80

King Crimson and ELP producer and lyricist Pete Sinfield sadly died on Thursday, aged 80

The Guardian - UK

Peter Sinfield, lyricist for King Crimson, Céline Dion and more, dies aged 80

Versatile poet and music producer co-founded King Crimson, produced Roxy Music’s debut album and had a long partnership with Greg Lake

Louder

“A much better testimony to ELP’s legacy than the original incarnation’s risible swan song Love Beach”: Emerson, Lake & Powell’s The Complete Collection

The other ELP’s sole album remastered and bulked out, frustratingly showing how good a live act they were

1 2

People

From analysis to the latest developments in health,
read the most diverse news in one place.

Organisations

Read news from The Economist, FT, and more,
with one subscription

Topics

Places

Fourteen days free

Download the app

One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.