Carl Palmer is still stung bit over the time ELP reformed in the mid-1980s, except with Cozy Powell drumming alongside Keith Emerson and Greg Lake.
When Emerson Lake and Powell, featuring the single “Touch and Go,” arrived in June 1986, Palmer had been working with Asia — a then-new supergroup featuring John Wetton, Steve Howe and Geoff Downes — for some four years. The founding members of ELP had last recorded together on 1978’s Love Beach. The logistics of a reunion just couldn’t be worked out at that time.
Palmer had already blocked off three weeks to record another album, and asked Emerson and Lake to wait for a month: “They decided they couldn’t wait four weeks after we hadn’t played together for 10 years,” Palmer tells Metal Express Radio, “so they got in another drummer, Cozy Powell — which was fine by me. The way I looked at it was that they were promoting my back catalog. I let them use the logo and didn’t stop them doing anything but I thought it was a little petty that they couldn’t wait.”
Palmer later formed the band 3 with Emerson, as well as Robert Berry. The original lineup of Emerson Lake and Palmer then reformed for 1992’s Black Moon. Powell died in 1998 after an auto crash.
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