by Greg Lake
A short while after that, Phil Carson revealed that he had found someone in Los Angeles, whom he felt confident could handle the job. The person he suggested was Mark Mancina, who is now very well known as a composer of film scores but he had also worked with Trevor Rabin and Yes. It is, of course, a big thing for any artist to hand over the reins and put their trust in someone else. However, after meeting Mark and very quickly realising his extraordinary musical talent and warming to his endearing personality, I had every confidence that he could deliver a great recording.
Mark introduced us to his own recording engineer, Steve Kempster, who is in a class of his own. Together they formed a formidable team and were a real pleasure to work with. During the recording of what became Black Moon, Mark, Steve and I became extremely close friends, a friendship that, I am proud to say, endures to this very day.
I have always seen Black Moon, our eighth studio album, as unique. In some ways, it is not simply an ELP album; in truth, it is actually an ELPM album: Emerson, Lake, Palmer & Mancina. Such was the extraordinary contribution made by Mark.
After the band had left the studio to go home at night, Mark and Steve would stay behind and either play or replay a lot of the parts on the album themselves. The truth of the matter was that by the time Black Moon got made, the standard of playing inside ELP had deteriorated. On one occasion, I remember being in the studio together with Mark and Steve, just the three of us, recording my vocals. After a while, Mark came out of the control room, into the studio and walked over, very close to where I was standing, and quietly said, ‘Tell me something, how did you do it?’
At first I really didn’t understand and so I asked him what he meant.
He then said, ‘Well, as a producer how did you manage to get the results you did on those early ELP recordings?’
He then went on to tell me, as diplomatically and respectfully as he could, how surprised he was by the poor standard of playing and by the level of mistakes that were occurring. Mark was a really big fan of ELP during its formative years and I think he was probably a little disillusioned to find that the band he was now recording did not appear to have the same capabilities as it had done twenty years previously.
I explained to him that on those early recordings, apart from doing an intense amount of rehearsal beforehand, I did quite a lot of editing – much of the material for a track was recorded in relatively short bursts before finally being joined up as a single entity. Nonetheless, when we played the music live, the sound was great.
In spite of all the difficulties, Mark and indeed the whole band were determined to make a record of which we could all be proud. Listening back to it today, I must say that all things considered it is an outstanding record and deserves to take its place among the best of ELP, even if it did not really trouble the charts – the days of being in the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic were well and truly behind us.
All three of us, Keith, Carl and myself, co-wrote the ‘Black Moon’ title track, and my lyrics were inspired by the Gulf War and seeing the smoke from the oil wells black out the sun. We also all co-wrote ‘Paper Blood’, while Keith and I wrote ‘Farewell to Arms’ and ‘Better Days’. I also contributed an acoustic ballad, ‘Footprints in the Snow’, and we included a section from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Mark wrote a song, ‘Burning Bridges’, specifically for the band. Keith’s playing on ‘Close to Home’ shows that, even if some mistakes were being made in the studio, he was still a genuine keyboard virtuoso.
I wrote the single ‘Affairs of the Heart’ with Geoff Downes of Yes and Asia in the summer of 1988 when we were devising a project called Ride the Tiger that did not come to fruition. The six songs we wrote and performed together were finally released in 2015, although one of the songs, ‘Love Under Fire’, was recorded prior to then by Asia for their Aqua album in 1992.
Keith praised ‘Affairs of the Heart’, which had been inspired by a trip to Venice, as one of my best ever songs. He decided that the keyboard parts should be quite low-key to give space to my singing and guitar. I think we had all grown up a bit by then and appreciated each other’s skills more rather than demanding attention for ourselves.
After the release of the Black Moon album on 27 June 1992, ELP undertook a worldwide tour and played three sold-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London, with Alan Freeman, who had always supported our music, introducing the first of them. It was over twenty years since the flag-burning incident at the Royal Albert Hall, so Keith’s antics had been forgiven. The 3 October performance there was recorded for a live album released in 1993.
Although the tour was generally well received, and some people called the show ‘high octane’, I think by this time the cracks were beginning to show and the performances did not really match the quality or energy level that the band had been able to capture in its former years.
The next album we recorded was entitled In the Hot Seat, which we released on 27 September 1994. It was produced at the Goodnight LA Studios in Los Angeles by Keith Olsen, previously known for his work with Fleetwood Mac.
I have to be honest and say that for many years my perception of this album was one of it just being a complete failure. However, after listening back to the album, I can hear that, despite the chaos and confusion at the time, there are still some little jewels of creation that, had they happened under different circumstances, might very well have gone on to become a more important element of ELP’s catalogue. ‘Hand of Truth’, ‘One by One’, ‘Heart on Ice’ and ‘Gone Too Soon’ have some elements of the real ELP about them.
One good thing that did come out of the album was ‘Daddy’, which was written in memory of a young girl, Sara Anne Wood, who went missing in New York state; it was released as a charity single to raise money for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Unfortunately, things at the time were really not conducive to the making of a great record. Keith was starting to encounter problems with his ulnar nerve, which led to problems controlling his right hand and, from what we could gather, the prognosis for recovery did not look good. He was forced to overdub the right-hand parts with his left hand because of the problem. I think that it was around this time that Carl was having some trouble with carpal tunnel syndrome – a common problem for drummers – leading to numbness in his fingers, too, but unlike Keith’s problem, it was remedied by an operation.
Unlike the Black Moon record we made with Mark Mancina, this album with Keith Olsen often felt to me as though it was being made purely for commercial reasons – I think Victory had lost money on other major bands’ recent albums and they needed a hit. Olsen apparently told Keith that classical adaptations were no longer wanted, and there seemed to be some strange mix-up that meant that a version of Sibelius’s Karelia Suite that we recorded remained unfinished and wasn’t included on the album. You just have to look at the writing credits, many of which involve Keith Olsen and Bill Wray, to know that the three band members weren’t really collectively driving the project. Of course, everyone loves to have success, but I have never felt comfortable with financial reward being the driving factor – after all, that’s why my stint with Asia did not go very well. For me, success should come about as a by-product of being inspired by artistic values. Not that In the Hot Seat reaped any financial rewards anyway. It was our worst-selling album.
ELP continued to tour the world in the 1990s, but throughout this entire period I could feel inside of me that the band was not performing in the same way it had in its former years. Keith’s hand condition was certainly one factor, but I also believe that the band was never really the same after the disintegration and splintering that took place during the Works period.
Although we never really spoke about it, I believe that both Keith and Carl had by now come to accept that not allowing me to continue producing the ELP records had probably been a mistake. Having said that, I think it is only right to point out that the dramatic drop in sales from our early records was in no way a
reflection on the capability or the quality of the outside producers that were hired; it was simply a fact that by producing the early records in-house, we had stumbled on a formula that worked for us and, as the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
In the Hot Seat, our ninth studio album, was our last.
CHAPTER 16
A Starr and a Crusader
In 2001, I had just returned home one day after walking my dog, a Dalmatian called Astor, in Richmond Park in London when the phone rang. I picked up the receiver and immediately recognised the voice at the other end.
It was Ringo Starr. He wanted me to join his group, the All-Starr Band.
Although he and I had never met before, it immediately felt as if I was talking to someone I had known all my life. The first thing that struck me was how down to earth and humble he was. I’m sure most people would agree that the Beatles were the biggest rock band in the world, and that they changed our cultural heritage through the power of their music. Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan are perhaps two others that, to me, deserve a similar kind of recognition.
One of the things I came to understand about Ringo, which I had not fully realised before we worked together, was just how important he was to the success of the Beatles. As a musician, I personally find his drumming mesmerising. If you listen to any Beatles recording and focus on the drum part, you will hear that it is simply flawless. Ringo always did the right thing at the right time, never too little and never too much, never self-indulgent and always uplifting, empowering the music to do its work.
Apart from good musicianship, the other thing that really makes a great band is chemistry. It is simply this cocktail of personality, energy, karma, call it what you will, that when mixed together in the right way becomes effervescent, perhaps even explosive. Ringo’s contribution to the Beatles in this respect was enormous.
You will often hear people talking about a drummer in terms of feel. Ringo sometimes describes his own feel as being laid-back and perhaps just slightly on the back end of the beat, and I think this is pretty near the truth. The other thing is, of course, consistency: that feeling of reliability you get when playing with a drummer who has this gift of feel means that you can almost switch to autopilot and then just sit back and enjoy the ride. That is the feeling you get when playing with Ringo.
Rehearsals for the Ringo Starr & His New All-Starr Band tour took place at the Niagara Fallsview Casino in Canada. The first thing I wanted to do when I arrived was to make sure that all my guitars and equipment were in good shape and ready to go, so I made my way over to the rehearsal room to take a look. When I walked in, the whole place was already buzzing with activity so I decided to just take a quick peek and maybe come back a bit later when things had settled down.
Before I turned to leave, I briefly picked up my bass and strolled back to adjust my amplifier when I suddenly realised that Sheila E. – known for her work with Prince as well as her own solo work – was already sitting there behind her drum kit. We smiled and said a quick hello and I played a few lines on my bass. All of sudden, I felt the sound of thunder strike me right in the middle of my back just as if I’d been hit by a train. Sheila had started to play along with the bass and the power she generated was truly formidable. Any reservations I might have previously had about female drummers not being powerful enough were instantly eradicated. Apart from being a lovely, spiritual person, Sheila is a masterful musician.
The next person to come in to the room was Howard Jones. Of course, I was already familiar with Howard’s music. I might not have liked all new music in the 1980s, but I always thought Howard had an extraordinary and unusual songwriting talent and I had enjoyed watching him perform back in the UK.
Just as Howard began to settle on to his keyboards, into the room came Roger Hodgson of Supertramp. Although we had never met before, I could immediately sense that Roger was a gentle and spiritual soul who really communicated through his songs and his love for music. Of course, I was aware of the enormous success of Supertramp and was certainly looking forward to having the chance of playing with him in concert on a few of the songs he had composed – ‘The Logical Song’, ‘Give a Little Bit’ and ‘Take the Long Way Home’.
The next person to arrive was Ian Hunter, the former lead singer of Mott the Hoople. Ian really is a larger-than-life character and it did not take long to also discover what a down-to-earth guy he is. He is a great songwriter who lives for rock and roll. Although quite uncompromising where his music is concerned, he is an extremely likeable and generous person, and we became really good friends as the tour went along.
Next to arrive was the musical director Mark Rivera. Apart from being an MD, Mark is an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist. His main instrument is the saxophone and some of his solos are truly breathtaking. He is in demand from some the world’s great artists such as Elton John, Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen, and has been playing in Billy Joel’s band for thirty-five years. Again, quite apart from being a first-class musician, Mark is also an extremely charming person with an infectious smile.
Well, there we were, all assembled and ready to go, none of us having played together before and no one knowing quite what to expect. Very soon, Ringo arrived and we began to work through the set. I think everyone there was quite thrilled at how good the band sounded. Having two drummers a certainly made the whole thing very strong rhythmically and there was an unmistakable joy in the music – and that lasted throughout the two-month tour. We only rehearsed for ten days and put together a two-and-a-half-hour show, which was a great achievement as most of us had never performed any of each other’s music before.
The set consisted of Beatles and Ringo Starr songs, which were great fun to play, alongside a selection of songs from each of the different band members, so we played ‘The Court of the Crimson King’, ‘Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression – Part 2’ and ‘Lucky Man’. The version of ‘Lucky Man’ was captured on the 2002 live album King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Ringo and His New All-Starr Band.
One of the many fond memories that I took away from that tour was when we travelled after the show. As soon as we had finished the last song, we would immediately rush out and get into the waiting cars. Invariably we would have a police escort that took us directly to the airport. It was always amusing to see how the motorcycle cops used to love riding up alongside the car and giving Ringo a thumbs up or a wave. Upon our arrival at the airport we would board the jet and take off pretty much immediately. As soon as we got up to cruising altitude, everyone would then unbuckle their seat belts and begin chatting.
Most nights Ringo and all the band would sit together and we would listen to him tell stories. Everyone was interested in hearing about the Beatles, of course, and we were given many fascinating insights into their life together as a band. However, I think Ringo had been asked so many questions about the Beatles during his lifetime that he would far prefer to reflect on the period before the Beatles, when rock and roll was in its infancy. Another thing that I found really interesting was that, due to the fact that he was in the band himself, he never got to experience the Beatles in the same way that everyone else did. He was inside that very small bubble looking out while the whole world was looking in.
That tour with Ringo and His All-Starr Band was one of the most enjoyable I had ever been on. The people were great, the music was great and Ringo really is a star.
A couple of years later, on 22 June 2003, I was invited to attend the wedding of James Sellar, the son of a long-standing friend, Irvine Sellar, best known among other things for having built the remarkable Shard skyscraper in London. Irvine and I had originally met through our daughters, who attended the same school in Surrey, and I had known James from back when he was just a small boy.
The wedding was taking place at Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire. Cliveden is more of a palace than it is a house, with spectacular landscaped views overlooking the River Thames. It became particularly notorious during the late 1960s
as it was often used as a discreet place where politicians would entertain their weekend girlfriends, and also as the setting for what is now referred to as the Profumo affair. Apart from its history, the whole setting is truly breathtaking.
All the guests checked in to their rooms, and then we began to assemble out on the grand terrace for drinks. After a short while, Irvine came over to me and said, ‘I have someone here I think you might like to meet. He’s a musician just like you.’
The musician was, in fact, Richard Desmond, the owner of the Northern & Shell publishing group, which owns the Daily Express, the Daily Star, OK! magazine and Channel 5.
After we shook hands, Richard told me that, contrary to most people’s perception of him, his first love is music. He began playing drums during his early teenage years and had originally intended for that to become his career. He couldn’t make enough money as a drummer and he was unable to pay his mother the rent they had agreed upon, so she basically forced him to go out and earn some money. He started selling advertising in small trade magazines, and that was the beginning of his phenomenally successful career in publishing.
Richard continued: ‘I still enjoy playing the drums when I can and I’m actually putting together a band with Roger Daltrey to raise money for charity. We were wondering if you would like to be involved? The band will be called the RD Crusaders.’
Apart from my involvement in supporting animal shelters and campaigning for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the United States, it had been quite a while since I had been involved in charity work so I willingly agreed.