Though Emerson Lake and Palmer’s 1970s-era lineup had ended on a decidedly down note, there was no reason to believe that Greg Lake couldn’t make a go of it as a solo act. Certainly, his self-titled debut — released on September 25, 1981 — fit in with the period aesthetics, as Lake mixed prog and pop in much the same fashion as Asia and a retooled Yes soon would.
Something strange occurred on the way to the coronation so many expected.
“I moved onto a label called Chrysalis Records, and I think when they signed me, they thought I was just going to take over for ELP and sell platinum records instantly,” Lake tells us, in an exclusive Something Else! Sitdown. “That doesn’t happen. When you leave a band, the public doesn’t just automatically swap their allegiance and their loyalty from that act to you being a solo artist. It’s something you have to earn.”
Greg Lake also featured an all-star cast, including the late and lamented Gary Moore (notably on the radio hit “Nuclear Attack”); Steve Lukather, David Hungate and Jeff Porcaro from Toto; fellow King Crimson co-founder Michael Giles; and Clarence Clemons of E Street Band fame — not to mention a song co-written with Bob Dylan (“Love You Too Much”).
Lake was clearly ready to push at the boundaries of his own music, and in many ways the album achieved that goal. Perhaps his fans weren’t ready for that, though. Greg Lake stalled at No. 62 in both the UK and America.
“I started to work with all kinds of people,” Lake says. “I worked with Toto for a while. I learned a lot about Gary. He’s not really blues. He played the blues, but he chose that as a career. In truth, the spirit of Gary Moore is Irish. That was not the music he played professionally. But when you hear him play sort of an Irish jig or a ballad, it would break your heart.”
Though energized by the new creative input, Lake couldn’t help but feel unmoored in this new place. After leaving Crimson for Emerson Lake and Palmer, he’d forged a popular identity — and it was difficult to shake, even for Lake.
“It was a strange time, because when ELP sort of retired — or semiretired, we didn’t really break up,” Lake adds. “We just stopped playing, just because we wanted to do other things. Just get away from being ELP, really. But for a while I felt awfully dislocated. For the last decade, the only musical identity I had was ELP and, all of a sudden, it stopped. For a while, I was just sort of spun. I really had no sense of direction, because I had every freedom in the world and yet all of musical fabric had been stripped immediately by the band not being there anymore. So it was a question of doing something different.”
Lake quickly returned to the studio to complete 1983’s Manoeuvres. But when that album stalled at No. 209 on the U.S. charts, a clearly stung Lake turned away from solo studio work.
“I think what happened was, when Chrysalis saw the initial sales [of Greg Lake] — as I recall, it was somewhere around 100,000, which if you were had those sales today someone would be throwing a champagne party,” Lake tells us. “Then, of course, they looked at the sales compared to ELP and they thought: ‘Whoa, maybe this is not going to be as successful.’ I think at that point, they pulled out a lot of support — which would have made the album probably two or three times as a successful as it was. I think that was a factor. Maybe I’m overexaggerating the amount by which it affected it, but it certainly did affect it. I don’t know how good the album was, but I certainly made it with 100 percent commitment.”
Other than live projects, he’s never issued another non-group album — eventually reuniting instead with old friends. He took part in a self-titled album from Emerson Lake and Powell in 1986, and then returned for a second Emerson Lake and Palmer era in the 1990s. Lake has most recently mounted a series of solo concert dates, leading to the well-received Songs of a Lifetime album.
- The Band’s ‘Christmas Must Be Tonight’ Remains an Unjustly Overlooked Holiday Classic - December 25, 2016
- Nick DeRiso’s Best of 2015 (Rock + Pop): Death Cab for Cutie, Joe Jackson, Toto + Others - January 18, 2016
- Nick DeRiso’s Best of 2015 (Blues, Jazz + R&B): Boz Scaggs, Gavin Harrison, Alabama Shakes - January 10, 2016
