Greg Lake was one of my biggest influences on bass. Over the many years, my musical tastes went to a different place than ELP, but I still love Greg's playing and tone. He has quite an amazing explosive pick attack and really defines the piano bass tone and the really intense string rolls he throws in tehre.
I'll second an earlier post - you hear ELP at the very best on Welcome Back My Friends, a triple live LP, and Pictures At An Exhibition (also live) is great too. I loved Brain Salad Surgery back then, perhaps like Tarkus a bit better now because it isn't so drowned in reverb. By Works I (next to their last official album), it's pretty much nothing but reverb - I've always wondered what Pirates would sound like if you could actually hear it.
The problem with the solo albums are that the true combo stuff is pretty sterile from overdubs. The band members are quite famous for not getting along at all, but in a live environment, they really connect and feed off of each other.
ELP's last tour was with a orchestra - at least the first half of it was. I happened to be at the last show with the full orchestra in Des Moines Iowa. Quite a day to remember - the ELP concert was at Veteran's Memorial Auditorium, across the street from the best movie theater in the state. My best friend, Dave Rougvie, said let's go catch that Star Wars movie that just opened a week or two ago. So we had our minds blown there, then walked across the street and saw this amazing show. Greg played his 8-string graphite Alembic for much of the show (I think he had a Pirates one as well as the more famous Manticore bass).
I guess I know what I'm listening to the rest of tonight.
Check around on YouTube - some very interesting video. I believe there was some soundcheck video from Montreal, which was the last date of the Pirates tour (and where they brought back the full orchestra). If I remember correctly, you'll see Greg with a Zemaitis doubleneck...
David Fung
