Rest in Peace... Keith Emerson
During my career as an entertainment news journalist I've had the honor of hanging out with and interviewing musicians across all genres of the music spectrum. One of the most memorable of these was when I got to spend the better part of an hour with Keith back in 2000, at a Moog keyboard convention.
Keith did a walk and talk interview with me, the first time I had ever dared try something like that as a producer. Moog collectors were showing off their machines in a low key atmosphere in a hotel ballroom. We came upon a version of the Moog with the telephone operator patch bay that he played. Keith asked the owner if he could play it. After turning nine shades of pale, the gobsmacked attendee nodded in the affirmative. Keith proceeded to re-patch the cables and began playing. I am too floored by today's news to remember what exactly he played beyond demonstrating his prowess through a jam. Keith Emerson was by far one of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of holding a mic in front of.
If you've never experienced the music of Emerson Lake & Palmer, please take a moment and let Keith's incredible Moog solo from 1970 enter your ears.
Keith Emerson was the quintessential keyboard player and composer, who arranged numerous works of classical music into pieces recorded and performed by Emerson Lake & Palmer. For a truly amazing example of these compositions, one need only listen to ELP's rendition of "Fanfare for the Common Man" by Aaron Copland.
While that promotional clip was a studio version over rehearsal footage, seeing and hearing Keith play live alongside his bandmates, Greg Lake and Carl Palmer is the best way to appreciate his genius.
I only got to see Emerson Lake & Palmer play live once, with Deep Purple and Dream Theater in 1998 at the Universal Amphitheater. But sitting in the seventh row, stage left, I was treated to the master at work, as the played and punished the keys of his instrument, driving his legendary dagger between the ivories during a solo and generally blowing the minds of everyone in the theater that night. Do you have a favorite Keith Emerson memory? Please take a moment and share it in the comments.
Keith Emerson, gone, but never to be forgotten. Rest in Peace...
Source: Keith Emerson of Emerson Lake and Palmer Dies
Photo Credit: Keith Emerson St. Petersburg, Russia, August 08 - Photo by Mari Kawaguchi, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
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