Carl Palmer has just wrapped up a well-received tour with his ELP Legacy band, notable because — unlike his trio work with Emerson Lake and Palmer — this group prominently features the guitar.
Palmer says there’s a reason for that.
“I played with probably the greatest keyboard player in the world,” Palmer says in the attached video. “So, why do I need to go and try to find another one? And, also the guitar is much more advanced today — the technique and what they play.”
Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy trio, as part of the Twist of the Wrist Tour, presented new arrangements of many of the most familiar instrumental cuts from Emerson Lake and Palmer, with Paul Bielatowicz reinterpreting Keith Emerson’s iconic keyboard parts on the guitar.
“If we could have found a guitar player in the early 1970s, let’s say like Paul,” Palmer adds, “I’m sure Emerson Lake and Palmer would have been Emerson Lake and Palmer — and the guitarist. But they weren’t that clever then. They weren’t that advanced. The keyboard players were more advanced.”
Palmer’s group was rounded out by Simon Fitzpatrick. He also recently issued new concert DVD called Decade.
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Well, as I understand it, ELP didn’t have a guitar player not because they weren’t advanced enough, but because Emerson did not want a guitar player in the band. Greg Lake, who was with King Crimson at the time, took-up Emerson’s offer to start their own band out of fear that Crimson would dissolve due to the recent departures of Ian McDonald and Michael Giles. Lake wanted guitarist Robert Fripp, to come with him to Emerson’s band, but Emerson was not interested in a guitarist joining the band (one would assume because it would steal attention away from his keyboard playing and etc….). This is how it is told in Sid Smith’s bio on Crimson “In the Court of the Crimson King” anyway.
Actually, ELP was talking to Jimi Hendrix about joining the band, just before Jimi died. I was at Greg Lakes and Keith Emerson’s concert a few years ago, and someone in the audience asked this question. Greg Lake said they never met, but were planning to meet to talk about it.