Emerson, Lake & Palmer Tarkus (1971) [warner Pioneer 18p2 2851, Japan]

After the heavily distorted bass and doomsday church organ of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut album, the exhilarating prog rock of epic proportions on Tarkus, and the violent removal of the sacred aura of classical tunes on Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy, ELP's fourth album, features the trio settling down in more crowd-pleasing pastures. Actually, the group was gaining in maturity what they lost in raw energy…

A 7CD box set collecting five remastered ELP performances from 1970 to 1997, culminating in an unreleased concert from Phoenix, Arizona.

Between 1970 and 1978 Emerson Lake & Palmer were one of the most exciting rock bands on the planet and this stunning 2-disc set pulls together their greatest moments.
Featuring performances from every stage of their career, including 44 minutes of ELP headlining the massive California Jam Festival in 1974 on Disc 2 which also showcases the much sought afer footage of the famous spinning piano sequence. The DVD also contains Beyond The Beginning, an hour-long documentary, which tells the story of this remarkable band with tetreshing honesty and candour…

Long-term ELP fans will doubtless recognize much of this box set as a reprise of sundry, previously released collections and anthologies, most notably the three Manticore Archives box sets of the early 2000s. The cumulative cost of those boxes, however, makes this a magnificent alternative, cherrypicking the very best of those earlier releases to create a one-stop portrait of one of the world's most exciting live bands at its best. With 43 tracks spread across four discs, the first three CDs are sensibly divided between the three primary eras of the band - soundboard quality collections of "the early 1970s," taking us up through the band's 1974 tour; "the late 1970s," rounding up the Works tours of 1977-1978; and "the 1990s," capturing the reunions…

It really includes most of their essential work in a single CD. Here are all their major singles, like the stunning version of Jerusalem but not only their most popular songs, it does include some stuff that would not be found in other best of, like the complete Tarkus Suite and the entire 8:54 minute Trilogy title track. All three band members were virtuosos and had a lot to show. This CD does them justice. Unlike a lot of this kind of albums, it does give a very good overview of one of prog´s most influential and important bands ever.

New 2016 remaster, includes booklet with 2016 band interviews & rare band photos.
Upon its release, the 1973 LP Brain Salad Surgery had been hailed as Emerson, Lake & Palmer's masterpiece. A long tour ensued that left the trio flushed and begging for time off. Before disbanding for three years, they assembled a three-LP live set (something of a badge of achievement at the time, earned by Yes in 1973 with Yessongs and, somewhat more dubiously, Leon Russell with Leon Live). Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends gives a very accurate representation of ELP's shows at the time, including their uncertain sound quality. It isn't that the group didn't try hard to give a good show; they did, but left to just his two hands, without the use of multi-tracking and overdubs to build layer-upon-layer of electronic keyboard sounds, Keith Emerson was at a singular disadvantage on some of the boldest material in the trio's repertory…

The Shout! Factory label continued its series of reissues from progressive rock masters Emerson, Lake & Palmer with 2011's Live at the Mar y Sol Festival '72. Keyboardist Keith Emerson, vocalist/bass guitarist/guitarist Greg Lake, and drummer Carl Palmer were only three years into ELP and were riding high on their massive success at the time of the show on April 2, 1972, the second day of this three-day festival in steamy, scorching Puerto Rico. (Other acts on the bill included Alice Cooper, the Allman Brothers Band, B.B. King, Dr. John, Faces, J. Geils Band, and several lesser-known artists. It was a pivotal gig for a then essentially unknown Billy Joel. Several bands like Black Sabbath and Fleetwood Mac were scheduled to perform but either didn't show up or were prevented from playing due to a variety of logistical nightmares, including serious problems that promoter Alex Cooley was having with the Puerto Rican government)…

After a break in the eighties Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Carl Palmer reunited in the early nineties and took to the road once more. In 1997 they made their debut at the Montreux Jazz Festival with a performance that included all their trademark virtuosity and showmanship. The concert includes classic tracks from across their career including "Karn Evil 9", "Hoedown", "Take A Pebble", "Lucky Man", "Tiger In A Spotlight", "Tarkus" and "Fanfare For The Common Man".

Recorded in February of 1978, this performance was only available as a bootleg until the folks at Shout! Factory expertly cleaned it up for an official release by going back to the original tapes and creating one of the best-sounding live ELP records on the market. The two-disc live set captures Emerson, Lake & Palmer at a crucial point in their careers: they were on their final tour, and though things would soon turn sour, these recordings show that on-stage they were still at the peak of their powers. The previous year, they released the two-volume Works, which exemplified the degree to which the three men were moving in different directions by giving each member an LP side to himself. At the end of 1978, they would release the universally reviled Love Beach album to fulfill their contractual obligation and would disband soon after, not performing together again until 1992…