Emerson Lake & Palmer - A Time And A Place (1977) UPDATE

A lot has happened since I posted this album a week ago, the main one being that we finally got to the bottom of the question of why 'Just A Dream' didn't sound like a Greg Lake vocal, or even Emerson's keyboards. Thanks to YNJ for pointing me to the discussion on the stevehoffman site which explained:

The first song ever recorded by Spontaneous Combustion was erroneously included on the deluxe reissue of ELP's 'Tarkus' as a bonus track, after the re-mix engineer Steven Wilson decided to include it, and to title it 'Unknown Ballad', saying it was written by Keith Emerson with lyrics by Greg Lake. It was an honest mistake, because the recording was on one of the 'Tarkus' master recording tapes, and Wilson didn't know that another band had come in to record at the same time.

Carl Palmer and Keith Emerson had to leave a recording session about two hours earlier than planned one day, so Greg Lake called his friend and neighbor Gary Margetts of Spontaneous Combustion to ask whether they'd like to come in and record something during the available studio time. The three teenagers in the group didn't have anything prepared on the spur of the moment, but Gary brought along lyrics to a song written by his friend Mike Rowe titled 'Just A Dream', and Gary wrote the music, and the three teens and Greg worked out the arrangement in the studio. Producer Greg didn't ask for a separate tape for the recording, so famed engineer Eddy ('Are You Ready, Eddy?') Offord recorded it onto the same tape ELP were recording 'Tarkus' on.

This is how the song's impromptu arrangement therefore got included on an ELP deluxe reissue, credited to ELP.

Keith Emerson protested to Wilson, and also in interviews, that he didn't write or perform the song, and he didn't know who did. This was absolutely true: Keith and Carl had left the studio before the song got recorded.

As it has now come to light that this song had no ELP involvement I've removed it from the album. 

The other thing that had emerged was that Brian Currin has informed me that an instrumental version of 'Brain Salad Surgery' exists, and was included on the 2014 box-set re-issue of the album, and which I had somehow missed, so that gives me the perfect excuse to include a song that has already been released on 'Works (Volume 1)', but in a different form. 

I have therefore redone the whole album to make those two amendments, and the new version can be downloaded below.

Track listing

01 The Barbarian (live in London 1970)

02 Oh, My Father ('Tarkus' out-take 1971)

03 Prelude & Fugue ('Tarkus' out-take 1971)

04 Rondo (live at The Lyceum 1970)

05 A Time And A Place (single b-side version 1971)

06 From The Beginning (single version 1972) 

07 Brain Salad Surgery (instrumental) (out-take 1973)

08 The Pancha Suite (Carl Palmer out-take 1977)

09 Bo Diddley (out-take 1975)