No one ever accused ELP of being modest, and nowhere is that more evident than on “Tarkus.” Side A of the group’s sophomore album is broken down into seven movements – totaling more than 20 minutes of music –that fold fusion and classical elements into a mythic prog sprawl revolving around a fantastic creature. Emerson himself had the spark of inspiration. “With Tarkus I went through all sorts of Greek mythology books to think of a name for this animal,” he said in a 1972 interview with Disc, “and I didn’t come up with anything. Then suddenly we were driving home from a gig one night, and I said ‘Tarkus.’ And the others said, ‘Tarkus?’ And that was it.” The entire lifecycle of the being – depicted on the album cover’s iconic artwork by William Neal – is detailed in the song, which features some of Emerson’s most lush and dexterous keyboard work. J.H.
“From the Beginning” (1972)
Although it’s undeniably a showcase for Greg Lake’s moody acoustic guitar and vocals, “From the Beginning” from ELP’s Trilogy provided the space for one of Emerson’s most noteworthy keyboard solos. The final minute of the otherwise sparse, simple song are launched into another dimension by Emerson’s cosmic synthesizer jam. It’s a swirling, pinging symphony of outer space static – complete with overdubbed effects randomly generated by his synth – that expands the song’s scale from love-song intimacy to something that might have to do with the Big Bang. The band’s highest-charting single in the States, it also helped draw attention to Emerson’s beloved arsenal of Moogs, the synthesizers that ELP helped make legendary. J.H.
“Hoedown” (1972)
A showstopper that was actually a show starter for two tours, “Hoedown” was the first ELP adaptation of composer Aaron Copland, as brassy a show-off (in his way) as the trio itself. Keith Emerson began work on the piece after returning from a classical festival in Romania, so East European elements find their way into his rollicking organ and Moog arrangement alongside American folk tunes like “Shortnin’ Bread” and “Turkey in the Straw.” Emerson stumbled onto the track’s signature synth sound by chance: “We’d started working on that arrangement and then I hit, I don’t know what, I switched a blue button and I put a patch cord in there, but anyway, ‘whoooeee.'”
“Trilogy” (1972)
Emerson’s lilting, melodic piano opens “Trilogy,” the longest and most ambitious track from ELP’s third album. Co-written by Emerson and Greg Lake, it starts out with uncharacteristic restraint: The song is almost a conventional, straightforward, even Zombies-esque love ballad – that is, until the monstrous riffs and baroque synth workouts that hold layers upon layers of intricacy. As Emerson told Disc magazine the year of the song’s release, “I try to cover all sorts of things in my music so there are lots of things to be discovered in it maybe a little later. That’s one of the important points in music, the discovery by the listener of new things every time they hear a piece of music.”
“Toccata” (1973)
Keith Emerson’s brash and playful arrangement of the 4th Movement of Alberto Ginastera’s Concerto for Piano No. 1 combined ELP’s passion for classical music with their fascination with state-of-the-art musical technology — the track may have been the first commercial recording to feature pre-programmed electronic percussion. The band initially met with resistance from Ginastera’s publishers when they asked for permission to include “Toccata” on 1973’s Brain Salad Surgery, so Emerson flew to the composer’s home in Switzerland to plead his case in person. “I had a nice lunch with Alberto and his wife and then I played the tape for him,” Emerson recalled in 2014. “When it was over he had this strange look on his face. He looked like he was in pain! And he said something like, I can’t remember the exact words but something like, ‘That is horrible!’ I thought, Oh God, he hates it! And I was ready to go home. But his wife said to us: ‘No, no, no, he says ‘diabolical’ in a good way, like ‘unbelievable!'” Ginastera’s personal endorsement of the track — “Keith Emerson has beautifully caught the mood of my piece” — would be included in Brain Salad Surgery‘s liner notes. D.E.
“Still… You Turn Me On” (1973)
“Rock technology is just not yet advanced enough,” Emerson lamented in a New York Times interview in 1973. Like the rest of the band, he was always groping for the next innovation that might fuel ELP’s evolution — although on “Still… You Turn Me On” from the group’s fourth album, Brain Salad Surgery, the notoriously tech-driven outfit pared things down. Relatively speaking, anyway; the Lake-penned tune doesn’t go in for many frills, relying instead on a luscious melody and Emerson’s tasteful synth flourishes — not to mention a startling dose of a different kind of innovation, at least for ELP: funk. Mostly it’s the balance between Lake’s songcraft and Emerson’s atmosphere that makes “Still… You Turn Me On” so timeless. Even when obsessed with the sounds of the future, ELP knew a good tune was always at the heart of their art. J.H.
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