Come and see the Show – Best of Emerson Lake & Palmer (Razor & Tie, 2012)
This Best of Emerson Lake & Palmer compilation is a taste of what’s to come later this year from the Razor & Tie label. Come and see the Show was originally released in 2008 and it’s re-released now as part of a campaign to reissue remastered expanded versions of the Emerson Lake & Palmer back catalog.
Emerson Lake & Palmer was one of the legendary bands of the 1970s. They were progressive rock pioneers and one of the first acts to use synthesizers outside of experimental academic circles.
Loved by hundreds of thousands of music fans and and despised by fad-obsessed pop music critics, Emerson Lake & Palmer brought together three top British instrumentalists. Keyboardist Keith Emerson was the leader of an early classically-influenced progressive rock band called The Nice. Vocalist and bassist Greg Lake was the familiar voice of the seminal progressive rock band King Crimson. And Carl Palmer had performed with another early progressive band called atomic rooster.
Come and see the Show – Best of Emerson Lake & Palmer is an excellent introduction to the first progressive rock supergroup. I have to admit that I have a special fondness for Emerson Lake & Palmer. When I was very young, before I was interested in buying albums, I heard the song ‘Lucky Man’. I was totally captivated by the minimoog solo. Since then, I’ve been hooked to progressive rock and electronic music. That was a time when commercial radio was still a place for exploration and discovery, before corporate radio turned the commercial airwaves into a wasteland.
There is not a bad song in Come and see the Show – Best of Emerson Lake & Palmer which is a great achievement. The compilation features Emerson Lake & Palmer’s radio hits: ‘From The Beginning,’ ‘Lucky Man,’ ‘Jerusalem,’ ‘Still… You Turn Me On,’ ‘Karn Evil 9,’ and Greg Lake’s beautiful ‘I Believe In Father Christmas.’
But Emerson Lake & Palmer was also well known for its spectacular instrumental virtuosity. Come and see the Show includes some of its most popular instrumental pieces such as ‘Hoedown’, ‘Tank,’ ‘Fanfare for the Common Man,’ ‘Toccata,’ ‘Peter Gunn’ and ‘Nutrocker’.
The material used in the compilation comes from Emerson Lake & Palmer’s progressive rock era albums, including Emerson Lake & Palmer (1970), Pictures at an Exhibition (1971), Trilogy (1972), Brain Salad Surgery (1973), Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends… Ladies and Gentlemen (1974), and Works Volume 1 (1977). Material from the masterful classic album Tarkus (1971) and Works Volume 2 (1977) was left out.
Come and see the Show – Best of Emerson Lake & Palmer shows the masterful craft of three of the finest and most influential progressive rock musicians of the early 1970s.