Even as he acknowledges that Emerson Lake and Palmer’s first five albums were some of his best work, Greg Lake doubts that the creative stars will align like that ever again.
“I don’t think you really look to repeat those things,” Lake says in this video Q&A. “Of course, one always looks for inspiration. I would hope, as would any artist, that your best work is ahead of you. But often your best work takes place in your formative years. So, I honestly don’t know.”
Lake specifically mentions ELP’s work between 1970-73 — including the trio’s self-titled debut, Tarkus, Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery — as moments in which the spark with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer burned the brightest. Lake was then coming off a pair of seminal 1969 collaborations with Robert Fripp on King Crimson’s initial two studio efforts, as well.
Emerson Lake and Palmer issued another five studio efforts through 1994; Lake also issued two original solo projects in the early 1980s. Still, the bulk of his Songs of a Lifetime tour focuses on Lake’s work from the late-1960s and early-1970s period.
“The creativity was very effervescent,” Lake says. “I do look back on those albums, and realize that they were extremely special. Whether that’s going to be visited again, whether that sort of creative circumstance would come by again, I really couldn’t tell you. But I’m certainly grateful to have been part of the ones that were there.”
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