I guess that's the equivalent to our National Enquirer. Except in that publication he would have been abducted by aliens.
I guess that's the equivalent to our National Enquirer. Except in that publication he would have been abducted by aliens.
So it can't be proven that Keith got depressed because he was taunted by followers on twitter not to mention a perfectionist that wanted to please his fans? It actually seems plausible to me. Something must have made him depressed.
Have you been reading this thread?Originally Posted by Digital_Man
On second thought I suppose just the pain he was having was enough to do him in. That was originally what I read anyway before I read that other thing.
I agree, Sean. I've ONLY seen Keith live once when he was recovering from hand surgery. I knew it was a test for him, and was happy just to offer my support. Never, ever felt he needed to do more than he was comfortable with - ELP's album releases could take up any slack.
I bet it's some kind of pricing error, but the Pono store has that four disc A Time And A Place box from a few years ago available in FLAC for ten bucks and change.
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"It was a cruel song, but fair."-Roger Waters
leejacksonletter.jpg
Lee Jackson Letter
Billy Childs ( for those who don't know who it is, is an Grammy award-winning jazz pianist Who is creating the modern version of the Third Stream) expands on his feelings
"Thoughts on Keith Emerson:
I’ve been interviewed a lot during my career and one of the interview questions is invariably, “Who are your influences?” I give the expected answers (Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, et al) and some not-so-expected ones (Laura Nyro, Stephen Sondheim, Paul Hindemith). The reaction from the interviewer is usually a reverent, “Ahhh…” But I find it curious (if not annoying) that the reaction, when I mention Keith Emerson is, more often than not, met with a grin - kind of a smirk that seems to say, “You mean the same guy that stabs his Hammond organ? The guy that plays on a rotating piano and dresses up like an armadillo? That Spinal Tap, big-hair, 70’s shit? That’s not serious music. I’m glad you ‘graduated’ to what I perceive as grown-up music.”
Keith Emerson and ELP represented a musical crossroads; the confluence of rock, European classical music, American classical music (jazz), electronics, chamber-like group interplay, and pianistic virtuosity - synthesized into an organic whole. This was challenging, bold music, replete with new ideas about form, structure, orchestration - ambitious music that sought to examine larger existential questions about humanity (check out the lyrics on Karn Evil 9 or the Endless Enigma). I still remember the first time I heard Keith Emerson’s music. I was walking off of a soccer field after practice (at Midland, where I went to boarding school) when my ears first heard the musical explosion that was Tarkus; someone (I forget who, now) was blasting it from their stereo in their room. Like a siren song, the music demanded my attention and compelled me to listen through to the end of the 20 + minute suite. I knew my life was being changed as I was listening. I had heard (and loved) the Hammond B3 being played by Jimmy Smith, Charles Earland, Richard “Groove” Holmes, and Larry Young. But I had never heard it used in this context, where the language wasn’t exactly jazz, wasn’t exactly fusion, wasn’t exactly rock, but all three and much more. I had never heard the organ used like that, where it was an integral part of such a complex and layered composition. From then on, all I talked about was Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. I was 14 and this was 1971.
My friend at Midland (Russell Bond) and I would listen for hours to the four (by that time) ELP albums: the eponymous debut album, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Tarkus, Pictures at an Exhibition, and Trilogy. Another explosion went off in my mind when I heard the piano solos of The Three Fates and Take a Pebble from the debut album, Infinite Space from Tarkus (one of the first songs I learned by ear), and the Fugue from Trilogy. It’s like a new door was opening to other possibilities of human expression - the same type of door that opened when I first heard Herbie Hancock, Paul Hindemith, The First Circle by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays (decades later), when I first read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison or 1984 by George Orwell. I wanted to walk through the door and experience all of the new exotic colors, textures, and landscapes that ELP had created. I’m still in that forest…
Later on, I went to the Community Schools (now the Colburn School) back in LA (Midland was in Los Olivos, now across the street from Neverland). I took theory class and classical piano lessons. I remember the piano teacher asked me what music I liked. I told him I wanted to play classical music like Keith Emerson. I got that same grin. I eventually graduated from USC as a composition major; I had GREAT teachers: Bob Linn, Donald Crockett, Morton Lauridsen, among others. I’ve had a rewarding career and up until two years ago, I’d met almost all of my musical heroes, except Miles. I say almost, because I hadn’t met Keith Emerson. One day, I saw that Elvis Schoenberg (a fantastic Los Angeles ensemble that does a music theatrical presentation of classical, rock and jazz pieces) was playing at Catalina’s. I somehow knew that Keith Emerson was a huge fan of theirs and would probably be there; I was right. Ross Wright, the founder of the group, noticed that I was in the audience and announced my name and Keith Emerson’s; I was honored to be mentioned in the same sentence as Emerson. After the show, I ran up to Keith in full “fanboy” mode and just told him over and over how much of an impact he has had on my life. I’d been waiting decades to do this. He was gracious and humble - just a gentle and beautiful person. In the cover picture, you can see that my smile is genuine. I gave him a copy of my latest (at the time) CD, Autumn: In Moving Pictures, and he wrote me a really nice complementary Facebook posting about how he dug it - I will treasure that message for the rest of my life.
Keith Emerson shot himself in the head on March 10, and I’m still having difficulty wrapping my mind around it. In a year where we have lost Pierre Boulez, Sir George Martin, Natalie Cole, David Bowie, and Ernestine Anderson, Emerson’s death is all the more tragic because of the depression which caused him to take his own life. I keep reading that he was very sensitive and that the nerve damage in his hand was causing him great anxiety. That coupled with certain mean spirited reviews and comments about his work might have sent him over the edge. It’s incredibly sad to me that a towering and seminal musical figure such as Emerson, who acted so thoroughly, honorably, and beautifully on his unique musical gifts - resulting in the infinitely important work of bettering the planet through his music - would be so profoundly and negatively affected by the words of critics and other people who could not fathom, in their wildest dreams, what it means to do anything approaching what Emerson has done for the world. I’m sad that severe depression caused Emerson to see no other way to end his pain; we are all poorer for it. I’m sad that he was in that kind of pain, which according to Greg Lake, started way back around the late 70’s.
Lately, I’ve been trying to live by words in the song “Here’s to Life”. They go: “But there’s no ‘yes’ in ‘yesterday’, and who knows what tomorrow brings or takes away, as long as I’m still in the game, I want to play. For laughs, for life, for love.”
Agreed, great book. It has been a while since I read it, but I really enjoyed it.
Yeah love Billy Childs-- N_Singh---we are friends on Facebook and loved what he said---I met him in January at his Laura Nyro Reinvention tour---which was amazing---and we spoke briefly of his love for prog and Laura Nyro---Billy particularly loved Keith. He knew him and hung out with him as they both live in LA---and he is very devastated by this. Love that he got smirks like many of us probably did when he told people he loved prog. Not sure how many black prog lovers there were back in the day.lol
There is an Indiegogo page to complete a movie about him. It might be good to link
it around while one can to strike while the anvil is hot:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/k...xhibitionist#/
Amazing writing by Mr Childs - thanks for sharing. Holy smokes.
I had heard plenty of songs that featured synthesizers before the first ELP album came out, but the synth sounds were always thin and lacking any kind of edge. When I heard the solo that closes Lucky Man, I was hooked; I gave up singing and playing drums, and started doing weird, experimental synthesizer music exclusively by the mid-70's. Unlike Emerson, I couldn't play keyboards worth a damn, but I became very good at coming up with unusual sounds. Anyway, it was basically Emerson who got me interested in synths. Got to see them front row on the Tarkus tour. Hell of a show... He had some kind of laser-type light attached to a hand-held keyboard or ribbon controller, and it appeared that balls of light were being shot out of the keyboard and across the stage. Here's to you, Keith...
This has made me reflect how much I completely and utterly despise the usual rock music critics-the Robert Christgau's, Dave Marsh's, Lester Bangs, and that British moron who made that quote about "waste of electricity", whatever his stupid name is.
People who know absolutely nothing about music, who couldn't differentiate a tritone from their asshole, declare themselves smugly and maliciously has the arbiters of taste. What viciousness, imbecility, capacity for spite they possess: all wrapped around a general know-nothing cluelessness.
They are vile beyond belief. They can all just completely fuck off. Someone wrote that many years ago, reviewer's were supposed to merely review and provide information so the reader could make up her mind.
How things changed for the worse!
Those miserable critics who live in a bubble about their preconceived ideas of what music should be and sound like. I always hating them too. It also used to be that someone who was an expert in the genre would review genre---not a bunch of fools who had no understanding of the language of a genre. There was never a chance they would or could be objective listeners to prog.
Actually it was The Small Faces who had the crab races on P.P. Arnold's glass coffee table.
John Peel
Re: critics. Sure, ELP had some professional critics who didn't like them at all. However, I have a big stack of articles about ELP from American and British rock magazines and ELP certainly were praised enough, especially from the debut > Trilogy. For every Lester Bangs there was a Chris Welch, people who were fans.
...or you could love
The art and craft of criticism is not to "merely review and provide information", but to take and make a stand by underlining a sense of subjective character from which one's authority of judgement is supposed to emannate. "That British moron's" name was John Peel, and he was one of the main championers of progressive rock music in the UK between ultimo 1967-75, by which time his stance had changed considerably. Very few if any actually did more to boost adventurous, eclectic, experimental and transcendent rock music in Britain during his day, and his distaste for ELP (he'd been an avid early fan of The Nice) was more thoroughly grounded than just that silly quote about them wasting electricity. The logic of his assessment was thus that of acknowledgement and following disappointment - NOT of ignorance.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
That was John Peel, not a critic but a very influential DJ. I think he said it as a throw-away comic line and didn't mean it to be a lasting damning indictment. In the 60's/70's he was a champion of all left field music. True he swallowed the punk pill hook line and sinker, but he had a real passion for the obscure too. He's not around to question, but I bet he would have been devastated by Keith's passing too.
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I got to meet Keith Emerson following an Emerson, Lake, and Powell show in LA back in the late 80's. It was one of those heady "O my god Im about to meet a real hero" moments, and also one of the most dunderheaded things I've ever done. Some dude in a suit was introducing his children to Keith. I seized a slow moment to ask the guy if I could borrow his pen. With a disdainful look he gave me one out of his pocket and I turned to Keith and asked for his autograph (the only time Ive ever done this, as afterwards I decided autographs just create distance, and who gives a shit anyways? Its the moment of meeting someone that is important, not this scrawl on a scrap of paper) Keith graciously signed it, shook my hand, and I said "Its great to have you back" to which he replied "Its great to be back." I then gave the pen to the dude in the suit and said "thanks buddy". As I walked away I heard Keith introduce the pen guy to someone else as "hey, this is Lee Jackson..." So yeah, I borrowed a pen from a non-plussed Lee Jackson to get Emersons' autograph, and called him 'buddy', all in front of his children. Not one of my prouder moments but wtf, I was only 18 and didn't yet know much about The Nice
Whilst I understand some of your sentiment, I have to say that, given all the circumstances surrounding Keith's very sad death, writing something like "that British moron who made that quote about "waste of electricity", whatever his stupid name is" only seems to replicate the very things you are railing against in your post, & indeed, to continue the process by which online abuse is normalised.
Just for the record: John Peel made this now notorious claim. Peel was a passionate advocate of The Nice, & as has been pointed out before, enabled them to record numerous sessions for his Top Gear radio programme, as well as having them record a version of the Top Gear theme tune which he subsequently played at the top of each of his radio shows. Like many people, Peel felt that Emerson had done badly by Lee Jackson & Brian Davison when he disbanded The Nice in order to form ELP; that he had gone behind their backs to do so; & that the music that ELP produced was a let down after The Nice. It's not at all uncommon for fans to invest in bands, & to make judgements that the band members themselves wouldn't endorse - &, as it turns out, Lee & Brian never bore Keith any ill will.
But just because John Peel preferred The Nice to ELP, just because he felt hurt when Keith disbanded The Nice to form ELP, & just because he expressed his opinions about this, doesn't make him a "moron". In fact, Peel endlessly sought to support new bands who were breaking through - this often meant turning his back on bands who became established - but, really, the latter was almost a condition of possibility for the former. And it was that sort of support for upcoming bands that was the hallmark of his career that he showed to The Nice from the beginning. And, anyway, successful bands hardly need the support of John Peel.
In fact, in his support for young, upcoming, bands & musicians, Peel actually shared a guiding spirit that was also shown by Keith Emerson - as so many of the posts on this thread have made clear. Like Keith, Peel was, apparently, a kind, gentle, humble soul, someone who lived for music & for his family.
Like many on here, I was turned on to music by Keith Emerson - first when I saw the video of ELP playing Fanfare at the Montreal Olympic Stadium; & then, when I started exploring their back catalogue. It was Tarkus that really blew me away - & is the one piece of ELP music that, to this day, still does. But at that time, I found my musical spirit gravitating towards The Nice - I bought the first 3 Nice studio lps on Charly Records discs; along with the Five Bridges & Elegy - for me, the influence of jazz is stronger in The Nice, there's more space in the band, & there is an astonishing *feel* to the music which is somewhat sacrificed by the more "clinical" approach of ELP. Also - there's that incredible sound, the way that they were able to conjure up that enormous sound from just the organ/bass/drums combo, & which was so inspirational to so many other bands, not least Yes (Chris Squire susbequently said that Yes were desperate to recreate the huge sound of The Nice).
I drifted away from ELP, & prog in general, in my later teens & 20s - indeed, I had no idea that ELP had reformed & recorded Black Moon (never mind that there had been an ELPowell!), & so missed out on the possibility of ever seeing them live - much to my regret. Everyone I know who saw ELP in the early 70s, even those who have no interest in prog, has vivid memories of their experiences of the ELP live show. It must have been some thing to have witnessed ELP in their full pomp! And, of course, for Keith, it was always about playing the music live.
Somehow, in 2002, I got wind of the release of Emerson Plays Emerson - in my opinion, a very special record, to rank alongside the equally outstanding Inferno -& found out that The Nice were reforming to support the release of this record.
I feel utterly privileged to have been able to see The Nice perform live (as priviledged as I feel to have seen VdGG play as a quartet - two things I never dreamed would be possible!). Sure, they were pretty rusty, & a bit rough around the edges - but they'd lost none of the magic, none of that quality of soaring in the music. I confess that I have no recollection of the first 10 minutes of America & Rondo - because I cried through every second of it - tears of amazed joy.
And I cried again when I learnt of Keth's sad, sad, death.
Each band had virtues that the other didn't. And in that light, the first ELP album is interesting in that it's stylistically transitional between The Nice and the later ELP sound. Most of it sounds like ELP, with their distinctive guitar-less take on hard rock, the odd bodged-together quality, the equally odd clunkiness, and the biggest sound possible for a trio, the sound that made them stars. But "Take a Pebble" could almost have come from one of the later Nice albums, with its jazzy elaborations upon what amounts to a folk tune.
Last edited by Baribrotzer; 03-15-2016 at 06:09 AM.
No. That's not how clinical depression or other mental health issues associated with suicide work.
We don't know why Emerson made the decision he did. There could be all sorts of issues we don't know about. We do know that ~90% of suicides are associated with mental health problems and that Emerson had deperession. Mental health problems can mean that the individual is not acting rationally. In that context, looking for some logical explanation can be a fool's errand. Depression may be triggered by life events, but it may be more meaningful to say it is caused by a disordered brain chemistry, a neurochemical disorder. It's probably most accurate to say that it's caused by a complex interaction of genetics, neurology, experiences across a lifetime and specific events acting and feeding back on themselves.
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
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