by Greg Lake
During my time in Israel, I was given the privilege of sitting among the Bedouins in the desert at sunset. Somebody who had a connection to them had arranged to meet them in the desert at eleven in the morning. We drove out to an oasis with palm trees and a small spring of water. In every direction that I looked, I could see all the way to the horizon. There was nothing but sand dunes.
We waited but there were no Bedouins.
Finally, I asked a security guy where they were.
He said, ‘Don’t worry, they’ll be here shortly.’
‘Yeah, but look,’ I replied, ‘I can see right to the horizon, and there are no Bedouins. How do you think they’re going to get all the way from the horizon in the next fifteen minutes?’
‘What you don’t know is that the Bedouins don’t walk over sand dunes,’ he explained. ‘They walk in between the hills, so you never see them. They’re always in the dips of the sand dunes until they get within perhaps 100 yards of you, and then you see them. They never go over a sand dune. It’s too much effort, you see.’
Eventually they turned up, almost out of nowhere, just as he said. They were the most beautiful-looking people: pearl-white teeth and teak colouring.
We sat together and were filmed while I played the guitar and they listened. It was an amazing experience. I had the sense of being close to the beginning of civilisation: I was sitting with these ancient people whose story is as old as the sand itself. I didn’t know what they were thinking, but they made me feel welcome.
When we returned to the UK and the single was released in November, we were taken aback by the reaction of the public. The song rocketed up the charts. The daily sales figures were astronomical and the only song to outsell it was Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – it was ironic because I think, in a way, King Crimson and ELP helped opened the door for bands like Queen to draw on European classical music, which they did to great effect. In any other circumstances, I would have been quite peeved to miss out on the number-one slot at Christmas. But with a record like that, which for Queen was also a once-in-a-lifetime recording, I don’t think you can complain. I got beaten by one of the greatest records ever made. But I would have been pissed off if I had been beaten by Cliff Richard.
Since then, ‘I Believe in Father Christmas’ has become a Christmas classic and cover versions have been recorded by numerous artists, from Elaine Paige to U2.
I get a strange feeling when I hear the song playing in department stores at Christmas but when I think about the bigger picture – and its message of peace on Earth and goodwill to all men – I have to say that I’m now quite proud of it. And that means a lot more to me now than the money. That’s what people normally want to know. Greg – what’s it like getting those royalty cheques every Christmas? I wouldn’t know. They don’t turn up until August.
CHAPTER 12
Fanfare in the Works
Works was too ambitious. To be honest, if it had been left up to me I would not have done it. There were enormous financial risks, which we were warned about repeatedly. In the end it lost us millions of pounds. It was not what ELP fans either wanted or expected from us. There were artistic high points, though, for which I am now grateful, including ‘Closer to Believing’, ‘C’est La Vie’ and ‘Pirates’, which was one of the collective efforts and involved some wonderful music by Keith Emerson.
In the end, it was a simple choice. It came down to either keeping ELP together by incorporating an orchestra or watching the band fall apart. I was still a firm believer in the simple three-piece creative formula, which had delivered such great records and brought so much success for us in the past. Keith, on the other hand, wanted to start work on solo orchestral projects. He was adamant that unless we were prepared to go along with this concept, he did not want to make another Emerson, Lake & Palmer record.
The problem for me was that so many of the qualities that made ELP a great band did not fit into a formal orchestral context: the trademark screaming Hammond organ, for example, or the exciting use of the Moog synthesiser and other pieces of cutting-edge technology, or the use of free-form visionary music on the albums Tarkus, Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery, or even the use of creative production.
At the time, I think that Keith felt performing with an orchestra would somehow validate him. My view was that the acclaim his work for ELP had received should have been enough. Also, I was concerned that channelling our music through the prism of an orchestra would diminish rather than enhance our power. Everyone other than Keith felt the same way.
However, it seemed such a waste to allow what I felt was a great band to split over the issue. I went against my gut instinct and committed to making the new album a success. In hindsight, this was a critical moment. I should have been stronger and changed direction myself for new pastures green.
Instead, we tried to have it both ways. I cannot remember who came up with the idea, but there was a proposal that we could make a double album which embodied both the solo and the orchestral concepts, and a joint effort from the band. This eventually became Works Volume 1: three sides of solo material (one from each of us) and just one side from the three of us working together as a band.
It represented the beginning of the end of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s collective spirit. We had become a group of solo artists collaborating together for the wrong reasons. I no longer felt comfortable producing the records, but I did continue trying to fan a flame that was no longer burning. It was one of my biggest mistakes.
Shortly after the decision about Works had been taken in 1976, James Callaghan became Prime Minister. His time in office would see great industrial unrest such as the Winter of Discontent in 1978. The Labour government of the 1970s under Harold Wilson and Callaghan moved to the harder left and pushed forward the belief that wealth should be shared equally. It seemed to me that anyone doing well financially was labelled an enemy of the state.
The Labour solution to the financial crisis was to tax the rich severely. In 1974, they imposed a top rate of tax of 83 per cent on all earned income over £20,000 and 98 per cent on invested income. I’m not saying that people who earn a lot of money shouldn’t give back to society, but the mantra at the time seemed to be variants on: Tax the rich until they squeak.
Although some rock stars, film actors and writers at the time did undoubtedly earn relatively large sums of money – me included – they were not in the same league as the major property developers and oil tycoons of the day. As a result, there was an exodus of talent from the UK, and many of the people who left were not what you would call ‘super-rich’.
None of us in ELP or the road crew wanted to move out of our homes and be forced to live abroad – many of us had young families, and schooling would be disrupted among many other logistical nightmares – but we felt that we had little choice. At the recommendation of our friend Peter Zumsteg, who ran Manticore records and who was a Swiss citizen, we decided to live in Switzerland. Peter told us there was a top recording studio located in Montreux and from there we could easily get back to the UK if need be. We would only be allowed to return to the United Kingdom for a small number of days per year if we did not want to be deemed ‘resident’ and hit with a huge tax bill.
This instability was deeply emotionally unsettling for some members of the band and crew, and it is clear to me in retrospect how this in turn led to other negative creative, financial and behavioural consequences further down the line. Keith later said that recording in Montreux was the worst mistake we ever made because he thought it made us feel bored and isolated, but it wasn’t exactly a hell on earth.
Switzerland is, of course, a beautiful and wealthy place. There are undoubtedly far worse places on earth in which to have to spend a little time. We all lived by the lake in Montreux and it was peaceful and idyllic. The chalet I rented was high up in the mountains overlooking the lake, and I often found myself above the clouds. It was here that Pete Sinfield and I wrote the lyrics to the track ‘Pirates’, with music
by Keith. This was undoubtedly one of the most unusual and vivid of my experiences as a songwriter. There we were, sitting above the clouds in the Swiss alps, writing about sun-drenched Caribbean Islands, pirate ships and buried treasure.
The recording sessions at Mountain Studios in Montreux were a strange affair because we had the studio booked out twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, so there were no time restrictions on us. We ended up with recording costs of over $1 million.
During one of the final sessions, we spent an afternoon taping with our Swiss orchestra. Thirty seconds from the end of the piece, the orchestra leader suddenly stood up and pointed to his watch. It was time to go. He instructed everyone to put down their instruments. Only thirty seconds left and he was about to ruin an entire afternoon’s recording! I was infuriated by how unprofessional and ungracious this was and promptly strode out into the studio and told the musicians that they could now all fuck off and that their services would no longer be required.
The gentleman who owned Mountain Studios was Alex Grobb, who became our friend and helped us in numerous ways during our stay in Switzerland. When he heard about the way the Swiss orchestra had behaved, he was shocked and told us not to worry: he would immediately sort out an alternative. A few hours passed and he came back and told us that he had managed to book a great studio in Paris called Pathé Marconi EMI, and that he could arrange for selected musicians from the Paris Symphony Orchestra to play with us.
One week later, we were sitting in the control room in Pathé Marconi listening to ‘Pirates’ being performed. It was a joy. Alex then informed us that some of the musicians in the orchestra were due across the road at the Opéra National de Paris to perform a classical concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein. He added that he had known Leonard for a long time and that it might just be possible to get him to come over and take a listen to our new recording of ‘Pirates’. We were thrilled at the chance of meeting one of the most famous conductors and composers in the world, and Keith in particular was keen for him to listen to his newly recorded ‘Piano Concerto No. 1’. Keith was nervous, though, after all the fuss there had been over his version of Bernstein’s ‘America’ when he was in the Nice.
Alex left the studio and went over to the opera house to meet with Leonard Bernstein while we carried on working. Half an hour later, the studio doors suddenly burst open and Alex returned with the composer and a young friend. Aside from his musical genius, Leonard Bernstein was obviously a colourful character. He wore a red polka-dot neckerchief and was waving a French breadstick around in his right hand. After exchanging greetings, he came and sat down beside me at the recording desk.
‘So you’ve got something to play me then?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘It’s called “Pirates”. I hope you like it.’
I pushed the play button and ‘Pirates’ began to play. Bernstein rested his head on his hands and listened intently as the piece unfolded. When it finished, everyone stood silent waiting for the great man’s words. Bernstein slowly turned towards me in his chair and said:
‘Singer’s not bad.’
He did not seem to realise I was actually the singer. He had probably just assumed that I was the producer. Still, it was one of the best compliments I have ever been paid.
Bernstein made no further comment on the orchestration or the music and so I asked him if he would listen to Keith’s ‘Piano Concerto No. 1’.
‘Sure,’ he said.
We played the entire piece through. Again, when it came to an end there was an anxious silence. Bernstein looked thoughtful and then pronounced:
‘It reminds me of Grandma Moses.’
Bernstein bade his farewells and disappeared out of the studio to head back to the opera house. We later found out from our record-company president Ahmet Ertegün that Grandma Moses was a renowned American amateur folk artist whose naive paintings suddenly caught the public’s imagination when she was in her late seventies.
We returned to Montreux to continue mixing the recordings for Works. Despite my concerns that we had lost some of the magic of the original three-piece band, I was starting to feel proud of what we had achieved on the record.
Keith’s concerto, on which he was accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, took up the whole of side one, while my solo side was number two and featured five orchestral numbers, including ‘Closer to Believing’, ‘C’est la Vie’ and ‘Lend Your Love to Me Tonight’, all co-written with Pete. I played acoustic and electric guitar, as well as harmonica on ‘Nobody Loves You Like I Do’, while ‘C’est la Vie’ featured a choir and Keith on accordion.
Having my own side on the record at least enabled me to put out in a single go a few of the ballads I had been writing. In normal circumstances, I would only have wanted to put one or a maximum of two ballads on an ELP record because it would have unbalanced the album. Keith was very much about dissonance and I was more of a romantic – even if some of my lyrics were quite dark – and you could say that Carl was somewhere between the two. The reason why ELP worked was because of that dynamic – the contrast of light and shade, power and fragility. Too much of one or the other would have tipped the scales. ELP were still my first priority when it came to music, more than the prospect of going solo – I still thought of us as a family and the balance of the three of us working together was important to me.
Carl Palmer’s side had a remake of ‘Tank’ from our very first album, the funk-rock song ‘L.A. Nights’, with Joe Walsh from the Eagles on guitar, a big band number called ‘Food for Your Soul’, and arrangements of pieces by Bach and Prokofiev.
The final side showed that we could still work together as a band, through both ‘Pirates’ and our arrangement of Aaron Copland’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’.
I enjoyed making ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ – I had kept on playing Copland’s original when we were working in the studio and Keith and Carl agreed to work on it. The three of us had barely played together in recent times. We were in the studio in Montreux in 1976 and Keith was playing his initial arrangement on his new synthesiser, a Yamaha GX1, when I started to add this shuffle bass line and Carl joined in on the drums – the sound was quite rhythm and blues. The engineer, John Timperley, was recording that first run-through, thank goodness, because that’s what is on the record – caught on a single microphone and a two-track tape machine – plus a bit of overdubbing. That piece is the essence of the instrumental side of ELP – it’s us in a nutshell.
An edited version of ‘Fanfare’ became our most successful single ever, reaching number two in the UK charts in July 1977. I wasn’t so keen on the edited version because it’s like cutting off the corner of a painting – it’s not the whole picture – but no one was about to play a nine- or ten-minute track on Radio 1. Aaron Copland’s reaction probably brought Keith more happiness than the chart position.
Our manager, Stewart Young, had to get permission from Aaron Copland before we could release it. Copland’s publishing company (Boosey & Hawkes again) refused permission and told Stewart that we had no chance of getting it from Copland personally. Stewart persevered and got hold of Copland’s home phone number. The composer was upset that the publishing company had not checked with him first, but he told Stewart that it was very unlikely that he would agree to allow us to use ‘Fanfare’. Nonetheless, he said he would listen to our version if Stewart sent him a cassette.
The full version was just under ten minutes long and featured a six-minute improvised section. Keith was worried what Copland would think of the improvisation, so he told Stewart to send a three-minute version instead. Stewart then spoke to Copland, who was very friendly, but told him that he could see no reason to allow it, as it was basically just his original theme with a shuffle added. Stewart then told him about the improvised section and sent him the whole piece. In the end, the composer called Stewart back to say, ‘This is brilliant, this is fantastic. This is doing something to my music.’
Like A
lberto Ginastera when it came to ‘Toccata’, Copland was willing to go on record praising the piece. Before he died in 1990, he told the BBC (in an interview included on the 2007 ELP compilation From the Beginning):
Of course, it’s very flattering to have one’s music adopted by so popular a group, and so good a group as Emerson, Lake & Palmer . . . there was something that attracted me about the version that they perform, which made me think I’d like to allow them to release it. Of course, I always prefer my own version best, but what they do is really around the piece, you might say, rather than a literal transposition of the piece, and they’re a gifted group.
The album was released as Works on 17 March 1977. By that year everyone was starting to say that ‘progressive rock’ – whatever that was – was on the decline because of the rise of both disco and punk. We were already having to endure quite a lot of criticism, and because there was, in some people’s eyes, a link between progressive rock and pomposity, some journalists were quite personally vitriolic while expressing their glee that our star seemed to be waning. When you are a person in the public eye, you very soon learn to treat the good and bad comments very much the same. I have never thought of myself as a star because – it may be trite to say this but it’s absolutely true – we’re all the same, we all go to the bathroom and we all have the same problems. So, in a way, by then we had developed an immunity to vicious insults – although I think Keith suffered late in life.
The knives were out but, nonetheless, the album still reached the top ten in the United Kingdom and peaked at number twelve in the United States.
Works soon became known as Works Volume 1 because we had also written and recorded enough material for another record, Works Volume 2, a single album released on 1 November 1977. The album included songs from the Brain Salad Surgery era – the song ‘Brain Salad Surgery’ itself, ‘Tiger in a Spotlight’ and ‘When the Apple Blossoms Bloom in the Windmills of Your Mind I’ll Be Your Valentine’ – that did not make it on to that album. Works Volume 2 did not sell as well as Volume 1 because it was regarded as a compilation of leftover and reissued tracks. Despite this, I’m quite proud of the songs ‘Watching Over You’, which was a lullaby I wrote for my daughter, ‘So Far to Fall’ and the ELP versions of ‘I Believe in Father Christmas’ and ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’. Works Volume 2 shows some different sides to our music and I don’t think it should just be written off.