Welcome Back My Friends - ELP 50 - The Return of Emerson, Lake & Palmer at The Parker, Fort Lauderdale, Fl. On 02/20/2024. 🔥 INSANE 🔥⚡️ THUNDEROUS ⚡️ 🔥 DRUM SOLO 🔥 by THE LEGENDARY VIRTUOSO, The ONE and ONLY CARL PALMER. Featuring Paul Bielatowicz on Guitar and Simon Fitzpatrick on Bass. Carl Palmer Idolized Buddy Rich, whom he came to know personally (after brazenly showing up at his hotel on one occasion when the American legend was on tour in England), Philly Joe Jones, Art Blakey, Gene Krupa, and other figures from jazz and the big-band swing era. Palmer -- all of 16 years old -- revealed a prowess that might have made Keith Moon (who was practically a drumming god moving among mortals), if he'd been listening, start keeping an ear pointed in his direction.
Carl joined The Crazy World of Arthur Brown in 1968 with Vincent Crane. In the summer of 1969 Carl and Vincent Crane left to form Atomic Rooster. In June 1970 Carl left to form Emerson, Lake & Palmer ; with Keith Emerson of The Nice and Greg Lake of King Crimson. THE REST IS HISTORY . . . .
Palmer was the Vertex of the triangle formed by the three personalities, a Beatles fan and a pop/rock listener like Greg Lake, but also a Jazz enthusiast like Keith Emerson.
Within a year of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's debut in the summer of 1970 and release of their eponymous album “Emerson. Lake & Palmer”. Palmer had become one of the most idolized rock drummers in the world, the group's debut album showcasing a level of speed, dexterity, and taste that was wholly removed from the kind of playing -- by the likes of Keith Moon in the Who, John Bonham in Led Zeppelin, or Charlie Watts in the Rolling Stones -- that had previously captured the ears and imagination of rock listeners. This was playing -- especially on the instrumental "Tank" and the extended bridge of "Take a Pebble" but also woven through "The Barbarian" -- of a kind with which Jazz listeners were familiar, and classical audiences could understand, but it completely dazzled rock audiences. And when the group toured, and Palmer showed that he could also do this on-stage, he was suddenly a major lure for the trio's concerts. He also demonstrated precisely how formidable he could be on the creative side when it came to recording what became the second ELP album, Tarkus. The title track grew out of a piece of music that Palmer devised around an incredibly complex time signature and Emerson elaborated into a side-length conceptual piece that became a major part of their concert repertoire. He only had a couple of rivals during this period, Michael Giles, of the same first incarnation of King Crimson whence Lake had come, and Bill Bruford, of Yes and a slightly later version of King Crimson, and Palmer was more extroverted as a musician than either of them and enjoyed by far the biggest public reputation -- it wasn't unusual for his fans to compare him with his longtime idol Buddy Rich, with whose band he sometimes played.
Following a string of ever-more ambitious albums, “Tarkus 1971”, “Pictures at an Exhibition 1971” , “Trilogy 1972”, “Brain Salad Surgery 1973”and culminating with Works Volume I 1977” , which gave Palmer the chance to write and produce the music on a whole side of an LP, the group split up, principally due to the changing musical aspirations of its members, who wanted to express themselves independently of each other, and amid a precipitous decline in their popularity as the 1970s drew to a close.
By the 1990s, however, Palmer was back working with Emerson, Lake & Palmer (following a brief sojourn by his former bandmates in collaboration with Cozy Powell in Emerson, Lake & Powell. As of the early 21st century, and just into his fifties, Palmer probably enjoyed the highest level of musical respect of the three members of the trio, mostly by virtue of his sustained (and still overwhelming) virtuosity.
Says Palmer: "I have the best of both worlds now. I have an active schedule with The Carl Palmer Band, and I continue to tour and record the original line up of ASIA. It is very satisfying and gratifying to know the fans are still out there and willing to support and enjoy the music I create. I hope to keep doing this for many more years to come."