... and now Keith Emerson

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:04 pm

2016 is really starting to suck.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:41 pm

Dead at 71. Oh, man, I hate that. Keith was one of my personal favorites. I don't have any "idols" from the rock era, but there were some who gave me hope as a musician, and he was one of them. Marvelous player! When you think about it, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer was basically Keith with a little help on the side. Both the other guys were fine players, and Palmer had an amazing drum set — which he could certainly get a lot from — but what you heard mostly was Keith. His solo gigs sounded a lot like the band.

He was a hard-living, hard-playing musician. I guess it was predictable that he would die young, and 71 was not always considered young, so he lived a good life, I guess. Still, I'm sorry to see him go.

Shooshie

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:47 pm

I'm not sure of the cause of death but Rolling Stone implied it was a suicide. I'd been following him on Twitter and some of his posts over the last couple of months implied that he knew he was sick. It really looks like he lived life on his own terms to the very last moment.

musicman691 · Post by **musicman691** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:54 pm

cuttime wrote:I'm not sure of the cause of death but Rolling Stone implied it was a suicide. I'd been following him on Twitter and some of his posts over the last couple of months implied that he knew he was sick. It really looks like he lived life on his own terms to the very last moment.

There were a couple of Twitter accounts from Keith that I follow; I knew he still had hand and wrist issues which I thought were on the mend. Sucks when you can't do what you love to do.

Keith was a HUGE impetus for me to better my keyboard chops which had always been good but with his work he made me want to get to the top of my game. The only Emerson related albums I don't have are him with the Nice.

And Moog just a few months back came out with a new modular setup like his (the big one, not just the 35/55 models).

PS: too many musicians dying around this age - Lemmy just made 70, Bowie 69 and now Keith.

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 7:10 pm

What a musician! RIP.

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:33 pm

Yikes! The bad-news year rolls on...

Very sad indeed. RIP, Keith.

Henry Robinett · Post by **Henry Robinett** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 6:29 am

Suicide.

All the best,
www.henryrobinett.com
Check out my latest CD on iTunes.
I Have Known Mountains by Henry Robinett
https://itun.es/us/pi6C_

musicman691 · Post by **musicman691** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 8:53 am

Henry Robinett wrote:Suicide.

It's being investigated as a suicide but not officially confirmed as such by the authorities. Interesting that none of the national US tv news outlets are covering this.

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 9:34 am

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/ ... estigation

Babz · Post by **Babz** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 11:23 am

Hearing Emerson, Lake, and Palmer for the first time opened the ears of the world to a sound unlike anything ever heard before. If it had just been the fusion of rock with elements of jazz and classical music, that would have been mind-blowing in itself. But it was also the first time the synthesizer was a prominently featured instrument in rock. Just as a few years earlier when Hendrix and Cream had completely changed the sound of rock with distortion and guitar pedals, the world was utterly transformed again when it heard the Moog synthesizer solo at the end of Lucky Man.

On top of this was ELP's stage showmanship, which featured Emerson surrounded by keyboards and towering machines tangled in patch cords and knobs, as if from the laboratory of a mad scientist, and a quadraphonic sound system that spun the sound around the four corners of a stadium. Some called him the Jimi Hendrix of the keyboard, because he helped to redefine the boundaries of his instrument. In Emerson's case his instrument was often the massive Hammond organ, a beast he would slay with not only virtuoso playing technique, but by playing it backwards, stabbing it with knives, leaping over it, and hurling it around the stage to create feedback and the sounds of air raid sirens and bombs exploding.

To the kids growing up in the early 70s, no one could have ever imagined that they were in the midst of a great cosmic expansion of musical innovation the likes of which the world may never know again. The few short years of the early 70s faded fast, and time continues to snuff out the lights of its brightest stars. But somewhere in this infinite expanding universe there will always be a stadium forever resonating with the exploding sound of Keith Emerson's keyboards. RIP, Maestro.

kgdrum · Post by **kgdrum** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 1:38 pm

Well my 1st experience hearing ELP was a bit different........
I was 14 going to the Fillmore East to see Edgar Winters White Trash,the scheduled opening act was supposed to be some unknown band called Emerson Lake & Palmer,we had no idea who and what they were and thought they'd be a CS&N type of band! lol
This was right before the 1st ELP record was released.
Adding to the disorientation of the night me & all of the kids I went to the concert with "enjoyed"some orange.......

We got to the concert and unbeknownst to us supposedly Bill Graham was so smitten he reversed the bill and made White Trash the opening act and the unknown act ELP the headliner.
The show started & we were confused because Edgar's White Trash opened the show (they were very good)and now we were getting more confused and we weren't totally lucid..... We were kind of pissed off because we thought that some kind of lame CSN type of knockoff was going to finish the show......
Well all I can say the shock and confusion making the transition to the experience that was ELP was astounding !!

.

What' a performance they put on they tore the house down, & were totally amazing!.
The 1st ELP record was released a week or 2 later and ELP became the band we know now.

Sorry to hear the sad news, Keith Emerson was a brilliant charismatic performer and a great musician RIP

MOTUnation.com