Emerson Lake & Palmer - A Time And A Place (1977)
I know that in certain circles Emerson Lake & Palmer have endured derision and criticism from people who felt that their music was pompous and overblown, but I've always loved their exceptional take on progressive rock. Coming together from the ashes of The Nice, King Crimson and The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, each member of the group was a first-rate musician in their chosen field, and together they produced some of the most exciting and innovative progressive rock of the 70's. Throughout their long career they recorded very little music that wasn't included on their studio albums, and what leftovers could be found were compiled on the 'Works (Volume 1)' and 'Works (Volume 2)' albums in 1977, but in recent years some further out-takes and newly discovered live performances have surfaced, and this albums collects the best of those into one place. The live recording of 'The Barbarian', from a concert in London in 1970, shows their superb musicianship, and I defy anyone who hears it not to be blown away with Keith Emerson's keyboard prowess. The recording sessions for the 'Tarkus' album produced a few extra songs which wouldn't fit on the record, with 'Oh, My Father' being a lovely ballad sung by Greg Lake, while 'Prelude & Fugue' shows Emerson as his best. A live recording of the old Nice favourite 'Rondo' from 1970 is a welcome find, and this is followed by a couple of album tracks edited for single release, one as an a-side, and the other as the flip to 1971's 'Stone Of Years' release. Although the song 'Brain Salad Surgery' never made it to the album of the same name, it was given away as a free flexi-disc with the NME music paper in 1973, and I still have my copy in it's miniature paper replica of the album sleeve. This was included on 'Works (Volume 1)', but an instrumental out-take appeared on the 2014 box-set re-issue, so that's included here. Carl Palmer recorded one tune for the 'Works (Volume 1)' album which didn't make the final track listing, but which is well worth hearing, and we close with a great cover of Big John Patton's 'The Yodel' from 1975, renamed 'Bo Diddley' for some reason. I'm sure fans of ELP will enjoy this album, but I also hope that people who have been put off by all the negative criticism will try it as well, and they might discover that the band are nowhere near as bad as they've been painted. 
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)
ELP have always been a guilty pleasure of mine, so I'm looking forward to this. Big thanks!
ReplyDeleteI have been a fan for years. Got to see the last show on the Works tour with the orchestra, the night before they decided to quit traveling with the orchestra. They did a couple more shows later, but Des Moines was kind of the last straw. There were probably 2-3000 of us there, in a room that held 12000.
ReplyDeleteShame, it was a great show.
It should probably be pointed out that "Just A Dream" has been determined not to be ELP but another band. It was on the tapes that Steven Wilson received from the band's management or label when he was doing the remix projects for the the first two ELP albums. This is a bit anecdotal but apparently there was a lack of communication between the band/management and Wilson during the process of the project. The track made its way onto the initial pressing of the Tarkus CD/DVD combo and then the band heard it AFTERWARDS and said that's not us. So the remainder of the initial pressing was pulled and a second run was done without "Just A Dream". It seems the song is by a band called Spontaneous Combustion which Greg Lake was producing around the same time. You can read more about this here, starting near the bottom:
ReplyDeletehttps://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/steven-wilson-to-remix-elp-s-t-and-tarkus-official.286940/page-33#post-20295208
Strangely enough this was brought up in en email to me from zeetrash, and we both agreed that it wasn't Lake singing, and the piano didn't sound like Emerson, but in the end we agreed to trust that the record company knew what they were doing. It now appears that they didn't. Spontaneous Combustion released two albums in 1972, and are most famous for having a cover of Love Sculpture's 'Sabre Dance' as a 1973 single. Luckily this album is long enough to be able to remove the song without making it too short, so I've decided that as it isn't ELP then it shouldn't really be on here.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this wonderful mix... and the info re: Bo Diddley... I knew it wasn't a Bo Diddley cover, but didn't know about the Big John Patton connection!
ReplyDeleteBTW I am sure you know there is an instrumental version of the song Brain Salad Surgery on the 2014 re-issue of that album of the same name.
A mix I made re-imagining Brain Salad Surgery as a double album: https://briancurrinmusic.blogspot.com/2020/06/emerson-lake-palmer-brain-salad-surgery.html
DeleteActually I had missed that instrumental version of BSS, and that now gives me the perfect excuse to include it on the album even though the original was on 'Works', so watch out for an updated post. I'm also checking out your double-album mix right now. Many thanks
DeleteThanks!
Delete