RIP: Keith Emerson of "Emerson, Lake and Palmer"

[Old No7]

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. Ladies and gentlemen..."

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the show has finally ended...

One of the heroes of my childhood -- Keith Emerson, formerly of The Nice and then later with Emerson Lake and Palmer -- passed away recently, under very tragic circumstances. Born in Yorkshire England, he was 71 years old. I've read that he was very depressed from pain in his hands which affected his playing ability; and that, combined with depression, brought about his sad end.

He was as much a hero to me as John Wayne or Clint Eastwood was when I was a teenager, because I too played keyboards back in the 70s and 80s. No, I never attained his level of proficiency -- dare I say few keyboardists ever have -- but he gave me something to aspire to. And I did manage to cover abbreviated versions of "Hoedown", "Tarkus" and "Karn Evil 9" in several of my rock bands in the late 70s. If you know ELP's music, you know those are not easy songs to cover! Plus, I didn't have as much equipment as he did... As a result, I never took a knife to my Hammond Organ, Mini Moog or Leslie rotating speaker or set one on fire either. Trying to keep up with his capabilities cost me thousands in equipment and many thousands of hours practicing and playing, and I have no regrets -- other than not getting to see him perform in concert.

Keith will be missed by legions of ELP and keyboard fans. Some here may not know of him, but I'd say he was as instrumental (no pun intended) with pushing the envelope with keyboards in rock as Elmer Keith was with pushing heavier loads with handguns.

I'll have to close the PC down early tonight and go down into the cellar to blast some ELP in Keith's memory... Man, what a tragic loss................

So I'll close with another ELP lyric:

"Oh, what a lucky man he was..." Guess not so at the end though...

Thus, I think it might be appropriate to play his version of "Fanfare for the Common Man" -- as he was anything but common.

Thanks for letting me share this.

Any other ELP fans here???

Old No7

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[AJMD429]

Yep. I still listen to Take a Pebble and just love the piano part about 2/3 of the way through.

I had an LP of him playing classical stuff back in the 'Nice' days that was awesome.

Hopefully he's in a place now where his hands don't hurt, and he can do on the piano what Carlos Santana does to the guitar, or what Ravi Shankar did to the Sitar.

[OldWin]

Too bad.

And yup, I've got a little downloaded on my phone.

[Richardx]

No.7,

I was saddened when I heard the news, always liked ELP.

Back in 74-75 I was on Billy Joel's crew and had to take Billy's Mini-Moog back to the Moog factory for repairs, when I was there I was given a tour of the plant (old munition's plant FWIW). We came around the corner and these sat Emerson's huge keyboard rig (the one in your photos), it had been caught in the rain at an outdoor show and was warping and corroding. The Moog staff was trying their best to get it back together.

Side bar: Billy Joel's Mini would just start playing by it self during concerts; Moog looked it over, shot some contact cleaner on it, and told me to tell Billy to quit babying it and beat the sh*t out of it when he played, just like his pianos.

RIP Keith, you were one of a kind.

[Blaine]

"Pictures..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7NAGTq_IJQ

[CowboyTutt]

Yeah, I read about this too. I don't have any ELP records but really enjoyed their best known songs. Sure wish the Reaper would take some time off this year. He has been far too busy. -Tutt

[octagon]

I remember when "Brain Salad Surgery" was a staple in many record collections. Heck, 8tracks! RIP.

[Old Ironsights]

They said there'd be snow at Christmas...