Greg Lake dead at 69
December 10, 2016 5:48 AM   Subscribe

General write ups abound. The Financial Times does a nice write up of I Believe in Father Christmas (audio version here.) Original version here With Ian Anderson here .

Less good covers mentioned in the article:
Susan Boyle;
U2;
Embrace;
Joe McElderry
posted by BWA (47 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I can't get over how young he looks in the original video; one of my favorite Xmas songs (and I don't have many). The version with Ian Anderson supports my contention that even to this atheist the Anglican Church and its offshoots can be pretty cool. I'm assuming they performed as part of a service since they were introduced by a priest in full vestments.

So soon after bandmate Keith Emerson. R.I.P. and thanks for all the great music.
posted by TedW at 6:17 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Tarkus solo.
posted by sammyo at 6:29 AM on December 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


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posted by tommasz at 6:43 AM on December 10, 2016


This is my favorite Greg Lake video on the net. It's beautiful and it's just so easy for him.
posted by allelopath at 6:58 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


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posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 7:14 AM on December 10, 2016


Someone check on Greg Palmer.
posted by SansPoint at 7:32 AM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


Someone check on Greg Palmer.

I actually did check on John Wetton. His cancer surgery a year or so ago went well and he has some dates booked in 2017.
posted by thelonius at 7:38 AM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


I've been listening to his music practically nonstop for the past couple of days, after not listening in about 30 years. It was a new revelation just how glorious his voice was.
posted by angiep at 8:49 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


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posted by Golem XIV at 8:54 AM on December 10, 2016


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posted by bjgeiger at 9:02 AM on December 10, 2016


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I never dug ELP or prog rock, but I did start my musical life as a bass player in the 1970s and was always blown away by Lake's chops and tone.
posted by spitbull at 9:32 AM on December 10, 2016


RIP . What a stellar voice. I love his King Crimson days.
posted by Liquidwolf at 9:34 AM on December 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


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great voice. pity it got sidetracked into a mostly ponderous outfit through its best years.

But that said, Lucky Man is a great, great song. A classic rock cliche to many, I'm sure, and yes, as a matter of fact, the lyrics were written by a twelve year old, but it still stands if only for the synth workout at the end. Which, it turns out, Keith Emerson did not intend to be recorded (in fact, he was just mucking around with the options on his new Moog), but Lake liked what he heard and was genius enough to say, "Thanks. That's good. That's got it." And now they're both gone to that great and ambitious prog band in the sky. Nothing to do but put the headphones on and ...
posted by philip-random at 10:30 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


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posted by grumpybear69 at 10:31 AM on December 10, 2016


It's Carl Palmer, not Greg.

RIP, Lucky Man.
posted by jonmc at 10:33 AM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


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posted by the sobsister at 10:59 AM on December 10, 2016


jonmc: Damn it. I knew it was wrong, but I was in a rush and couldn't check.
posted by SansPoint at 11:00 AM on December 10, 2016


Cozy Powell died nearly 20 years ago, but we should at least acknowledge Touch And Go existing.

Greg Lake was a giant part of my musical listening formation, as I was WAY into prog and other fiddly kinds of music (I was studying classical music, piano and string bass) and ELP were jumbled up with Yes and Rush and Jethro Tull and a lot of others in that mix. His voice and his guitar playing will forever be a part of my psyche.

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posted by hippybear at 11:05 AM on December 10, 2016


I played ELP and Crimson a good part of yesterday. Such a great voice, able to be sweet and yet still with the force to rock, with a phenomenal tone on bass. We lost a one-of-kind talent. RIP.
posted by Ber at 11:06 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


yeah I listened to King Crimson and ELP all day yesterday too. I'm a big prog rock nerd but man, Greg Lake just had the most utterly, purely, perfectly beautiful voice. flawless. I feel like the Rapture of Awesome has been happening this year and I'm nervous of these final days.

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posted by supermedusa at 11:36 AM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


An unforgettable voice timbre. Even my mother, who didn't care much for my music, remarked one time upon hearing him (From the Beginning, I believe) "Oh, what a Nice Voice", thereby defusing a fight we were having in the car. I saw them in MSP with a full symphony orchestra, every instrument with its own speaker leading to a massive wall of sound boxes on both sides of the musicians. Made quite an impression on this teenage farm boy.
I feel like a lucky man for knowing his music/voice.
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posted by primdehuit at 11:40 AM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


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posted by Joey Michaels at 11:44 AM on December 10, 2016


I wore out on ELP when I was a teen, but that first Crimson album was a game-changer for me. 21st Century Schitzoid Man is a singular masterpiece in particular. He did have a lovely voice & an easy singing style that I loved on the softer stuff & of course his bass playing influenced me -- how could it not? He was a master at his craft & I'm deeply sorry to see that generation start to pass on these last few years. It's only bound to accelerate.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:44 AM on December 10, 2016 [4 favorites]


I don't know if anyone has linked to this elsewhere, but this is a graceful and funny response by Greg Lake to a question in the Guardian's Notes & Queries about whether you can live on the royalties from a Christmas song

[poor minging Carole Mooney]
posted by finisterre at 12:06 PM on December 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


a phenomenal tone on bass.

He got a very warm, round tone, especially for a pick player.
posted by thelonius at 12:20 PM on December 10, 2016


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posted by Splunge at 12:56 PM on December 10, 2016


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And yes, bass tone.

(For his outstanding contributions to KC and very early ELP we can forgive later offenses e.g. 'Taste of My Love').
posted by remembrancer at 1:16 PM on December 10, 2016


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One of the two Christmas songs that reliably make me cry. I'll be crying harder this year, I think.
posted by rhiannonstone at 1:30 PM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


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Gee, after this year, Robert Fripp must be beside himself right now.
posted by droplet at 1:38 PM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Gee, after this year, Robert Fripp must be beside himself right now.

?
posted by kenko at 4:43 PM on December 10, 2016


Fripp worked with a number of the British musicians who have died this year, Bowie and Lake among them.
posted by droplet at 5:36 PM on December 10, 2016


Sigh, goodbye. ♥
posted by valetta at 6:37 PM on December 10, 2016


Saw ELP once in college. They were an hour late due to weather, and proceeded to phone-in a truncated show.

Still...

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posted by Thorzdad at 6:45 PM on December 10, 2016


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Such a rich voice.

My introduction to ELP was on a late Saturday night early in freshman year in college when a boy ran drunkenly down the hall shouting, "They broke my brain salad surgery. My brain salad surgery!"
posted by vers at 7:17 PM on December 10, 2016 [4 favorites]


The year was 1992. I'd won a radio contest. Front row, the Black Moon tour.

I was 8 months pregnant with my son. He danced away as Greg Lake et al performed.

My son is a fine musician now, and I'll always tribute to him being in my belly, listening to ELP.

God bless.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 7:31 PM on December 10, 2016 [6 favorites]


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posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 8:28 PM on December 10, 2016


And: my first rock concert, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Brain Salad Surgery tour. We were one of the few cities to get the quad show before that was abandoned, and we sat four rows back of the board. The encore was the whole of Pictures at an Exhibition ("We're gonna give you Pictures at an Exhibition!"). A great, indelible memory...
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 8:32 PM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


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Really glad 2016 is almost over.
posted by Fibognocchi at 11:07 PM on December 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


So many feels. He always came across as such a lovely, gracious man.

Thanks so much for links too - that is my hands down favourite christmas song ever, and just seems to get ever more relevant each year. The rendition in St Bride's is especially poignant, that's also one of my favourite places in London - the site has a fascinating, still-tangible history of service and worship going back 2,000 years, and the current incumbants' mission really embraces it's wider secular resonances.
posted by freya_lamb at 6:16 AM on December 11, 2016


Back in the days when almost no one knew Photoshop existed, I used to spend many hours on the phone talking with John Knoll, the co-creator of the program. There's a bunch of my DNA in that software, but there's also some Greg Lake in there, too: from the beginning, the rule regarding filter names (enforced by John), was that they needed to be verbs, at least, that's how it started. John had come up with a cool effect based on something called Dirichlet Domains, which yield cellular shapes, a lovely look that desperately needed a proper verb name. John had challenged me to help him come up with fitting names for a handful of features, among other tasks. Late one night, I was in my studio mucking around, and in the background, I had ELP's "Still You Turn Me On" playing away, and when the line "though your flesh has crystallized" happened, it struck me - "crystallize" was indeed a verb, there it was. I shot John an email with the idea and the reasoning, and a day or two later, the "Crystallize" filter was appropriately labeled. It's still there, under Filter>Pixelate>Crystallize.

One of the deepest, finest voices in contemporary music, if his only contribution to history had been "In The Court Of The Crimson King", that would have been enough. ELP was a part of the tapestry of my life, so much pleasure was had listening to their collective virtuosity, the raw skill of those guys blew my mind. By all accounts, Lake was also a profoundly decent, kind man. May his soul be at peace, jamming somewhere with Keith.

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posted by dbiedny at 8:04 AM on December 11, 2016 [11 favorites]


Also, my favorite Greg Lake song, live. What a voice. If there are indeed angels, I'd like to think they sound like this.
posted by dbiedny at 8:09 AM on December 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


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"C'est la Vie" and that whole album got me through a summer far from home when I was 17. My host brother had it on a cassette that I probably wore out during my three-month stay. (Yellow Submarine was on the other side.)

Greg Lake's voice was a revelation to me. Deep, smooth, manly, suggestive of uncharted depths of feeling. Adult sexy. Wow.
posted by GrammarMoses at 10:57 AM on December 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


also Knife's Edge ...
posted by philip-random at 1:58 PM on December 11, 2016


My first big concert. Tarkus tour, ABC Theatre Blackpool. 1971 but it seems like it was yesterday.
posted by unliteral at 3:45 PM on December 11, 2016


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posted by luckynerd at 7:30 PM on December 11, 2016


Trying to play some sort of bass to two high school friends, on drums and organ and both far better musicians than me, was very humbling. Much worse than trying to keep the drum beat for Radar Love ;)

I will ask for some Pirates love, and Fanfare which was Greg being the team player for sure, laying it down for Keith and Carl to show chops.
posted by billsaysthis at 3:53 PM on December 13, 2016


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posted by Sys Rq at 9:22 AM on December 14, 2016


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