Emerson, Lake& Palmer

This is the definitive critical review of the music of Emerson, Lake and Palmer in concert, on record and on stage. During the seventies ELP were the biggest band in the world playing to colossal crowds and mounting ever more spectacular and flamboyant stage shows. When the band split in 1978 the legacy disappeared almost overnight. Featuring rare archive footage, every ELP studio album is reviewed and critically assessed by a leading team of critics, working musicians and musicologists to explore the secrets behind the phenomenal rise to success and the equally spectacular fall from grace of this legendary band.

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)…

Emerson, Lake and Palmer in Concert is a live album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP), recorded at 26 August 1977 show at the Olympic Stadium, Montreal, which is featured on the album cover. It was released by Atlantic Records in November 1979, following ELP's breakup…

Shout! Factory's Essential Emerson, Lake & Palmer retrospective features 28 remastered tracks from the seminal progressive rock trio's '70s heydays. The collection, which was overseen by the band itself, features all of the usual suspects like "Lucky Man," "Still…You Turn Me On" and "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Part 2," as well as deeper cuts such as "Bitches Crystal" and "Medley: Jeremy Bender/The Sheriff," the latter of which is presented live…

After the rather dull Works, Vol. 1, the highly underrated Works, Vol. 2 is a godsend. Works, Vol. 1 took their pompous, bombastic, keyboard-driven prog rock epics to the limit; had it been stripped of its excesses and coupled with the strongest cuts from Works, Vol. 2, the band may have had an enormous success with critics and fans alike…

In 1977, after three years' time off working on various solo projects – which were to have culminated with a trio of solo albums – Emerson, Lake & Palmer reunited to release Works, Vol. 1, a double LP containing the best of the solo works plus a side of group-conceived pieces. All in all, it was the most ambitious and wide-ranging body of music they'd ever released, and was followed by the more modestly proportioned but still successful Works, Vol. 2 in November of that year, and a tour that fall and winter; in keeping with the albums that spawned it, the concerts initially featured a 90-piece orchestra supporting the trio…

Lively, ambitious, almost entirely successful debut album, made up of keyboard-dominated instrumentals ("The Barbarian," "Three Fates") and romantic ballads ("Lucky Man") showcasing all three members' very daunting talents. This album, which reached the Top 20 in America and got to number four in England, showcased the group at its least pretentious and most musicianly – with the exception of a few moments on "Three Fates" and perhaps "Take a Pebble," there isn't much excess, and there is a lot of impressive musicianship here…