Emerson, Lake & Palmer "Tarkus (2012 RM Deluxe, 2CD+DVD-A, Sony 88691937962, EU)"

Tarkus is the second studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released on 14 June 1971 on Island Records. Following their debut tour across Europe during the second half of 1970, the group paused touring commitments in January 1971 to record a new album at Advision Studios in London. Greg Lake produced the album with Eddy Offord as engineer.

Side one features the 20-minute conceptual title track written by keyboardist Keith Emerson, the opening of which created friction between Lake and himself that almost split the group, but Lake agreed to pursue it and contributed musical ideas for it and wrote the lyrics. Side two features a collection of unrelated tracks of different styles. The artwork was designed by William Neal.

Tarkus went to number one on the UK Albums Chart, becoming the only album by the band to do so. It was a top 10 album worldwide, including the US, where it peaked at number 9. The album reached gold certification in the UK and US, the latter for 500,000 copies sold. It has been reissued and remastered several times, including a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound edition by Steven Wilson, with bonus and previously unreleased tracks from the original sessions, released in 2012.

After their debut live gigs in August 1970, the band toured across the UK and Europe for the rest of the year, during which their debut album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, was released. While on tour, Emerson found that he and drummer Carl Palmer were exploring more complex rhythmic ideas. He took patterns that Palmer was playing on his practise drum pads and found that they complemented runs that he had developed on the piano, and used this as a basis for material on Tarkus. The group approached the album by having a centrepiece track in order to establish a concept, but a definite story or idea for it had not been discussed at this stage.

The group paused touring commitments in December 1970 and set the following month aside to record. As with their debut, the band recorded at Advision Studios in London with Lake handling the production duties and Eddy Offord returning as engineer. Early into the sessions Emerson presented the basis of the title track to Lake and Palmer; Lake was less than enthusiastic with its direction and threatened to leave the group. A subsequent meeting amongst the band and their management convinced Lake to stay, and he went on to contribute to the track and most of the other songs on the album including the lyrics, for which he used the artwork as inspiration. Although Lake thought the opening was "too demonstrative" for the sake of being clever, he did not want to split the group over such an issue and got into the album as recording went on. The band could only work out "Tarkus" during the January 1971 studio sessions, so they booked further time at Adivsion in February to work on side two, for which they had no material prepared.

Side one is occupied by the 20-minute title track which has seven sections. It was written by Emerson, with Lake credited for "Battlefield" and contributions to "Stones of Years" and "Mass". It is a conceptual piece in which its narrative remains ambiguous and open to interpretation, but the artwork depicts the Tarkus character in the form of an armadillo tank hybrid who is born and loses a fight with a manticore, which concludes with the appearance of an aquatic version of Tarkus named Aquatarkus. Lake said the song is about "the futility of conflict, expressed in this context in terms of soldiers and war — but it's broader than that. The words are about revolution, the revolution that's gone, that has happened. Where has it got anybody? Nowhere." He added that the songs concern "the hypocrisy of it all" and the closing march "a joke".

Emerson wrote the first musical ideas for "Tarkus" from a 10/8 rhythm that Palmer had played on his practice drum pad backstage at a gig. He composed the entire piece in six days on his upright piano at his London apartment, and wrote the score on manuscript. After the band rehearsed it for six days, they put it to tape; Emerson said once Lake and Palmer had mastered the 5/4 and 10/8 rhythms, "everything else flowed." Emerson transposed "a fleeting run of one bar" from the Allegro of Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 to bridge a transition between two parts of "Eruption". The section is played in a 5/4 time signature which was a "frustrating" meter for Lake to play. Emerson wanted the "Aquatarkus" section to have a sound that resembled a snorkel tube as he was into scuba diving at the time, so he generated one from his Moog synthesizer and played it during the marching beat. The group would not record a longer track in the studio until 1973, with the 29-minute "Karn Evil 9".

Side two features six songs unrelated to the conceptual title track. "Jeremy Bender" is a rendition of the Stephen Foster song "Oh! Susanna" and Emerson's performance was influenced by Floyd Cramer, one of his favourite pianists. It came about when Emerson was playing the song's chord progressions on a honky-tonk piano and incorporated some fifth-root chords, which the band liked. The closing features handclaps from Emerson and Palmer. "Bitches Crystal" originated from the idea of playing a boogie-woogie part in a 6/8 time signature, with Emerson naming Dave Brubeck's "Countdown" as an influence to his playing on it. The band had a firm idea on the direction of the track early on, although some parts were difficult for the group to put down. Lake was not a fan of Brubeck as Emerson was, but Palmer was into Brubeck's drummer Joe Morello and Emerson noticed his style of drumming in Palmer's performance.

"The Only Way (Hymn)" contains themes from Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV 540 and Prelude and Fugue VI, BWV 851 by Bach, and features Emerson on the pipe organ at St Mark's church in Finchley, north London which was put down using a mobile recording facility. Lake wrote the lyrics after the music was recorded; Emerson and Palmer considered the religious implication in the line: "Can you believe God makes you breathe, why did he lose six million Jews?" was a bit too strong, but they went along with it. "Infinite Space (Conclusion)" features Emerson playing a 7-ft Bechstein grand piano, and came about from the band's decision to follow the profound lyrics on "The Only Way" with a laid-back piece.

Emerson said Led Zeppelin were a loose inspiration for "A Time and a Place", and was listening to the band a lot at the time. He recalled the track being put down in about three takes. Although not credited, the music to "Are You Ready, Eddy?" was largely inspired by Bobby Troup's 1956 song "The Girl Can't Help It". Its title was a phrase the band yelled out to Offord when they were ready to record. Palmer is heard saying "They've only go' 'am or cheese!", which is what an elderly lady at Advision said to the band when they sent her round to a nearby sandwich shop and announce what they had available. Emerson said Palmer could mimic her mix of Greek and cockney accents "wonderfully", and recalled the confusion from some American fans who could not understand what it was about. The track was "an impromptu jam" and a one-off take, and played in celebration of completing work on Tarkus.

One track left as an outtake was Lake's "Oh My Father", an autobiographical ballad dealing with grief over the recent death of his father. Featuring layers of acoustic guitars, piano, and a wah-wah guitar solo it might have balanced the keyboard-heavy tracks on the album but Lake ultimately thought it was too personal for release; it was eventually included on the 2012 deluxe reissue. Another outtake unearthed for the reissue, "Unknown Ballad", was a song actually titled "Just A Dream" recorded during the sessions when Emerson and Palmer were out of the studio, featuring Lake on piano and his friend Gary Margetts (of the group Spontaneous Combustion) on lead vocal, with brother Tris Margetts on bass and Lake helping out on backing harmonies.

The album was packaged in a gatefold sleeve and features artwork by Scottish artist William Neal, whose armadillo has since became an iconic image in progressive rock. Neal was involved with the London-based CCS Associates which typically produced art for reggae albums but occasionally they were given other records to work on, which was the case with Tarkus. When the band rejected the designs already completed, Neal recalled: "On one of my drawings, there was a small doodle at the bottom of the page. This was of an armadillo with tank tracks on it but it was just an idea that wasn't really going anywhere." It originated from one of Neal's initial designs of a machine gun with a belt of bullets replaced by a row of keyboard keys, which he inadvertently sketched on with a pencil during a phone conversation which produced the tank image. Emerson liked it and suggested it be developed "into more of a cartoon story", as by which point he had written "Tarkus" and thought the music fit with the imagery. Neal was given a copy of the album to listen to while he completed the final cover, which inspired the other drawings. The gatefold presents eleven panels that illustrate the events of the title track, beginning with an erupting volcano, below which Tarkus emerges from an egg. Tarkus then faces a number of cybernetic creatures, culminating in the battle against the manticore which stings Tarkus's eye, and Tarkus retreats bleeding into a river.

Emerson went away with Neal's designs and began to think of album titles. "To everyone, it represented what we were doing in that studio. The next day on my drive up from Sussex the imagery of the armadillo kept hitting me. It had to have a name. Something guttural. It had to begin with the letter 'T' and end with a flourish". Emerson acknowledged that Tarka of Tarka the Otter may have been an inspiration, "but this armadillo needed a science fiction kind of name that represented Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in reverse. Some mutilation of the species caused by radiation", at which point he came up with "Tarkus". The "Tarkus" on the front cover is made from whitened bones from the skeleton of a devoured lizard.

Tarkus was released on 14 June 1971 in the UK on Island Records, appearing two months later in the US by Atlantic Records' subsidiary label Cotillion Records. It is one of only two ELP studio albums to reach the Top 10 in the United States, making it to No. 9 (Trilogy, the following year, got to No. 5), while in Britain it is their only number-one album. Additionally, Tarkus spent a total of 17 weeks in the UK Albums Chart. In Japan the album was released on Atlantic Records. Later vinyl reissues were on the Manticore label.

Tarkus was certified gold in the United States shortly after its release on 26 August 1971.

Track listing

Original vinyl

All lyrics are written by Greg Lake

Side one

     1. "Tarkus"  Keith Emerson, Greg Lake 20:59

• "Eruption" (Emerson)  – 2:43
• "Stones of Years" (Emerson, Lake)  – 3:43
• "Iconoclast" (Emerson)  – 1:16
• "Mass" (Emerson, Lake)  – 3:15
• "Manticore" (Emerson)  – 1:54
• "Battlefield" (Lake)  – 4:13
• "Aquatarkus" (Emerson)  – 3:55"

Side two

1. "Jeremy Bender" Emerson, Lake 1:44
2. "Bitches Crystal" Emerson, Lake 3:58
3. "The Only Way (Hymn)" Emerson, Lake 3:51
4. "Infinite Space (Conclusion)" Emerson, Carl Palmer 3:19
5. "A Time and a Place" Emerson, Lake, Palmer 3:01
6. "Are You Ready, Eddy?" Emerson, Lake, Palmer 2:13

2012 Edition

All lyrics are written by Greg Lake (except "Unknown Ballad")

CD 2 – The Alternate Tarkus New 2012 Stereo Mixes

     1. "Tarkus"   Emerson, Lake 20:46

• "Eruption" (Emerson)
• "Stones of Years" (Emerson, Lake)
• "Iconoclast" (Emerson)
• "Mass" (Emerson, Lake)
• "Manticore" (Emerson)
• "Battlefield" (Lake)
• "Aquatarkus" (Emerson)"

1. "Jeremy Bender" Emerson, Lake 1:57
2. "Bitches Crystal" Emerson, Lake 3:59
3. "The Only Way (Hymn)" Emerson, Lake 3:47
4. "Infinite Space (Conclusion)" Emerson, Palmer 3:23
5. "A Time and a Place" Emerson, Lake, Palmer 3:03
6. "Are You Ready, Eddy?" Emerson, Lake, Palmer 2:12

Bonus tracks

1. "Oh, My Father" Lake 4:07
2. "Unknown Ballad" Gary Margetts/Mike Rowe 3:04
3. "Mass (Alternate take)" Emerson, Lake 4:30

Greg Lake – production for E. G. Records

Eddy "Are You Ready" Offord – engineer

William Neal – paintings (C.C.S. Assoc.)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer "Tarkus (2011 RM, Sony 88697830082, EU)"

Tarkus is the second studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released on 14 June 1971 on Island Records. Following their debut tour across Europe during the second half of 1970, the group paused touring commitments in January 1971 to record a new album at Advision Studios in London. Greg Lake produced the album with Eddy Offord as engineer.

Side one features the 20-minute conceptual title track written by keyboardist Keith Emerson, the opening of which created friction between Lake and himself that almost split the group, but Lake agreed to pursue it and contributed musical ideas for it and wrote the lyrics. Side two features a collection of unrelated tracks of different styles. The artwork was designed by William Neal.

Tarkus went to number one on the UK Albums Chart, becoming the only album by the band to do so. It was a top 10 album worldwide, including the US, where it peaked at number 9. The album reached gold certification in the UK and US, the latter for 500,000 copies sold. It has been reissued and remastered several times, including a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound edition by Steven Wilson, with bonus and previously unreleased tracks from the original sessions, released in 2012.

After their debut live gigs in August 1970, the band toured across the UK and Europe for the rest of the year, during which their debut album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, was released. While on tour, Emerson found that he and drummer Carl Palmer were exploring more complex rhythmic ideas. He took patterns that Palmer was playing on his practise drum pads and found that they complemented runs that he had developed on the piano, and used this as a basis for material on Tarkus. The group approached the album by having a centrepiece track in order to establish a concept, but a definite story or idea for it had not been discussed at this stage.

The group paused touring commitments in December 1970 and set the following month aside to record. As with their debut, the band recorded at Advision Studios in London with Lake handling the production duties and Eddy Offord returning as engineer. Early into the sessions Emerson presented the basis of the title track to Lake and Palmer; Lake was less than enthusiastic with its direction and threatened to leave the group. A subsequent meeting amongst the band and their management convinced Lake to stay, and he went on to contribute to the track and most of the other songs on the album including the lyrics, for which he used the artwork as inspiration. Although Lake thought the opening was "too demonstrative" for the sake of being clever, he did not want to split the group over such an issue and got into the album as recording went on. The band could only work out "Tarkus" during the January 1971 studio sessions, so they booked further time at Adivsion in February to work on side two, for which they had no material prepared.

Side one is occupied by the 20-minute title track which has seven sections. It was written by Emerson, with Lake credited for "Battlefield" and contributions to "Stones of Years" and "Mass". It is a conceptual piece in which its narrative remains ambiguous and open to interpretation, but the artwork depicts the Tarkus character in the form of an armadillo tank hybrid who is born and loses a fight with a manticore, which concludes with the appearance of an aquatic version of Tarkus named Aquatarkus. Lake said the song is about "the futility of conflict, expressed in this context in terms of soldiers and war — but it's broader than that. The words are about revolution, the revolution that's gone, that has happened. Where has it got anybody? Nowhere." He added that the songs concern "the hypocrisy of it all" and the closing march "a joke".

Emerson wrote the first musical ideas for "Tarkus" from a 10/8 rhythm that Palmer had played on his practice drum pad backstage at a gig. He composed the entire piece in six days on his upright piano at his London apartment, and wrote the score on manuscript. After the band rehearsed it for six days, they put it to tape; Emerson said once Lake and Palmer had mastered the 5/4 and 10/8 rhythms, "everything else flowed." Emerson transposed "a fleeting run of one bar" from the Allegro of Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 to bridge a transition between two parts of "Eruption". The section is played in a 5/4 time signature which was a "frustrating" meter for Lake to play. Emerson wanted the "Aquatarkus" section to have a sound that resembled a snorkel tube as he was into scuba diving at the time, so he generated one from his Moog synthesizer and played it during the marching beat. The group would not record a longer track in the studio until 1973, with the 29-minute "Karn Evil 9".

Side two features six songs unrelated to the conceptual title track. "Jeremy Bender" is a rendition of the Stephen Foster song "Oh! Susanna" and Emerson's performance was influenced by Floyd Cramer, one of his favourite pianists. It came about when Emerson was playing the song's chord progressions on a honky-tonk piano and incorporated some fifth-root chords, which the band liked. The closing features handclaps from Emerson and Palmer. "Bitches Crystal" originated from the idea of playing a boogie-woogie part in a 6/8 time signature, with Emerson naming Dave Brubeck's "Countdown" as an influence to his playing on it. The band had a firm idea on the direction of the track early on, although some parts were difficult for the group to put down. Lake was not a fan of Brubeck as Emerson was, but Palmer was into Brubeck's drummer Joe Morello and Emerson noticed his style of drumming in Palmer's performance.

"The Only Way (Hymn)" contains themes from Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV 540 and Prelude and Fugue VI, BWV 851 by Bach, and features Emerson on the pipe organ at St Mark's church in Finchley, north London which was put down using a mobile recording facility. Lake wrote the lyrics after the music was recorded; Emerson and Palmer considered the religious implication in the line: "Can you believe God makes you breathe, why did he lose six million Jews?" was a bit too strong, but they went along with it. "Infinite Space (Conclusion)" features Emerson playing a 7-ft Bechstein grand piano, and came about from the band's decision to follow the profound lyrics on "The Only Way" with a laid-back piece.

Emerson said Led Zeppelin were a loose inspiration for "A Time and a Place", and was listening to the band a lot at the time. He recalled the track being put down in about three takes. Although not credited, the music to "Are You Ready, Eddy?" was largely inspired by Bobby Troup's 1956 song "The Girl Can't Help It". Its title was a phrase the band yelled out to Offord when they were ready to record. Palmer is heard saying "They've only go' 'am or cheese!", which is what an elderly lady at Advision said to the band when they sent her round to a nearby sandwich shop and announce what they had available. Emerson said Palmer could mimic her mix of Greek and cockney accents "wonderfully", and recalled the confusion from some American fans who could not understand what it was about. The track was "an impromptu jam" and a one-off take, and played in celebration of completing work on Tarkus.

One track left as an outtake was Lake's "Oh My Father", an autobiographical ballad dealing with grief over the recent death of his father. Featuring layers of acoustic guitars, piano, and a wah-wah guitar solo it might have balanced the keyboard-heavy tracks on the album but Lake ultimately thought it was too personal for release; it was eventually included on the 2012 deluxe reissue. Another outtake unearthed for the reissue, "Unknown Ballad", was a song actually titled "Just A Dream" recorded during the sessions when Emerson and Palmer were out of the studio, featuring Lake on piano and his friend Gary Margetts (of the group Spontaneous Combustion) on lead vocal, with brother Tris Margetts on bass and Lake helping out on backing harmonies.

The album was packaged in a gatefold sleeve and features artwork by Scottish artist William Neal, whose armadillo has since became an iconic image in progressive rock. Neal was involved with the London-based CCS Associates which typically produced art for reggae albums but occasionally they were given other records to work on, which was the case with Tarkus. When the band rejected the designs already completed, Neal recalled: "On one of my drawings, there was a small doodle at the bottom of the page. This was of an armadillo with tank tracks on it but it was just an idea that wasn't really going anywhere." It originated from one of Neal's initial designs of a machine gun with a belt of bullets replaced by a row of keyboard keys, which he inadvertently sketched on with a pencil during a phone conversation which produced the tank image. Emerson liked it and suggested it be developed "into more of a cartoon story", as by which point he had written "Tarkus" and thought the music fit with the imagery. Neal was given a copy of the album to listen to while he completed the final cover, which inspired the other drawings. The gatefold presents eleven panels that illustrate the events of the title track, beginning with an erupting volcano, below which Tarkus emerges from an egg. Tarkus then faces a number of cybernetic creatures, culminating in the battle against the manticore which stings Tarkus's eye, and Tarkus retreats bleeding into a river.

Emerson went away with Neal's designs and began to think of album titles. "To everyone, it represented what we were doing in that studio. The next day on my drive up from Sussex the imagery of the armadillo kept hitting me. It had to have a name. Something guttural. It had to begin with the letter 'T' and end with a flourish". Emerson acknowledged that Tarka of Tarka the Otter may have been an inspiration, "but this armadillo needed a science fiction kind of name that represented Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in reverse. Some mutilation of the species caused by radiation", at which point he came up with "Tarkus". The "Tarkus" on the front cover is made from whitened bones from the skeleton of a devoured lizard.

Tarkus was released on 14 June 1971 in the UK on Island Records, appearing two months later in the US by Atlantic Records' subsidiary label Cotillion Records. It is one of only two ELP studio albums to reach the Top 10 in the United States, making it to No. 9 (Trilogy, the following year, got to No. 5), while in Britain it is their only number-one album. Additionally, Tarkus spent a total of 17 weeks in the UK Albums Chart. In Japan the album was released on Atlantic Records. Later vinyl reissues were on the Manticore label.

Tarkus was certified gold in the United States shortly after its release on 26 August 1971.

Track listing

Original vinyl

All lyrics are written by Greg Lake

Side one

     1. "Tarkus"  Keith Emerson, Greg Lake 20:59

• "Eruption" (Emerson)  – 2:43
• "Stones of Years" (Emerson, Lake)  – 3:43
• "Iconoclast" (Emerson)  – 1:16
• "Mass" (Emerson, Lake)  – 3:15
• "Manticore" (Emerson)  – 1:54
• "Battlefield" (Lake)  – 4:13
• "Aquatarkus" (Emerson)  – 3:55"

Side two

1. "Jeremy Bender" Emerson, Lake 1:44
2. "Bitches Crystal" Emerson, Lake 3:58
3. "The Only Way (Hymn)" Emerson, Lake 3:51
4. "Infinite Space (Conclusion)" Emerson, Carl Palmer 3:19
5. "A Time and a Place" Emerson, Lake, Palmer 3:01
6. "Are You Ready, Eddy?" Emerson, Lake, Palmer 2:13

Greg Lake – production for E. G. Records

Eddy "Are You Ready" Offord – engineer

William Neal – paintings (C.C.S. Assoc.)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer "Tarkus (1989, Atlantic 18P2-2851, Japan)"

Tarkus is the second studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released on 14 June 1971 on Island Records. Following their debut tour across Europe during the second half of 1970, the group paused touring commitments in January 1971 to record a new album at Advision Studios in London. Greg Lake produced the album with Eddy Offord as engineer.

Side one features the 20-minute conceptual title track written by keyboardist Keith Emerson, the opening of which created friction between Lake and himself that almost split the group, but Lake agreed to pursue it and contributed musical ideas for it and wrote the lyrics. Side two features a collection of unrelated tracks of different styles. The artwork was designed by William Neal.

Tarkus went to number one on the UK Albums Chart, becoming the only album by the band to do so. It was a top 10 album worldwide, including the US, where it peaked at number 9. The album reached gold certification in the UK and US, the latter for 500,000 copies sold. It has been reissued and remastered several times, including a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound edition by Steven Wilson, with bonus and previously unreleased tracks from the original sessions, released in 2012.

After their debut live gigs in August 1970, the band toured across the UK and Europe for the rest of the year, during which their debut album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, was released. While on tour, Emerson found that he and drummer Carl Palmer were exploring more complex rhythmic ideas. He took patterns that Palmer was playing on his practise drum pads and found that they complemented runs that he had developed on the piano, and used this as a basis for material on Tarkus. The group approached the album by having a centrepiece track in order to establish a concept, but a definite story or idea for it had not been discussed at this stage.

The group paused touring commitments in December 1970 and set the following month aside to record. As with their debut, the band recorded at Advision Studios in London with Lake handling the production duties and Eddy Offord returning as engineer. Early into the sessions Emerson presented the basis of the title track to Lake and Palmer; Lake was less than enthusiastic with its direction and threatened to leave the group. A subsequent meeting amongst the band and their management convinced Lake to stay, and he went on to contribute to the track and most of the other songs on the album including the lyrics, for which he used the artwork as inspiration. Although Lake thought the opening was "too demonstrative" for the sake of being clever, he did not want to split the group over such an issue and got into the album as recording went on. The band could only work out "Tarkus" during the January 1971 studio sessions, so they booked further time at Adivsion in February to work on side two, for which they had no material prepared.

Side one is occupied by the 20-minute title track which has seven sections. It was written by Emerson, with Lake credited for "Battlefield" and contributions to "Stones of Years" and "Mass". It is a conceptual piece in which its narrative remains ambiguous and open to interpretation, but the artwork depicts the Tarkus character in the form of an armadillo tank hybrid who is born and loses a fight with a manticore, which concludes with the appearance of an aquatic version of Tarkus named Aquatarkus. Lake said the song is about "the futility of conflict, expressed in this context in terms of soldiers and war — but it's broader than that. The words are about revolution, the revolution that's gone, that has happened. Where has it got anybody? Nowhere." He added that the songs concern "the hypocrisy of it all" and the closing march "a joke".

Emerson wrote the first musical ideas for "Tarkus" from a 10/8 rhythm that Palmer had played on his practice drum pad backstage at a gig. He composed the entire piece in six days on his upright piano at his London apartment, and wrote the score on manuscript. After the band rehearsed it for six days, they put it to tape; Emerson said once Lake and Palmer had mastered the 5/4 and 10/8 rhythms, "everything else flowed." Emerson transposed "a fleeting run of one bar" from the Allegro of Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 to bridge a transition between two parts of "Eruption". The section is played in a 5/4 time signature which was a "frustrating" meter for Lake to play. Emerson wanted the "Aquatarkus" section to have a sound that resembled a snorkel tube as he was into scuba diving at the time, so he generated one from his Moog synthesizer and played it during the marching beat. The group would not record a longer track in the studio until 1973, with the 29-minute "Karn Evil 9".

Side two features six songs unrelated to the conceptual title track. "Jeremy Bender" is a rendition of the Stephen Foster song "Oh! Susanna" and Emerson's performance was influenced by Floyd Cramer, one of his favourite pianists. It came about when Emerson was playing the song's chord progressions on a honky-tonk piano and incorporated some fifth-root chords, which the band liked. The closing features handclaps from Emerson and Palmer. "Bitches Crystal" originated from the idea of playing a boogie-woogie part in a 6/8 time signature, with Emerson naming Dave Brubeck's "Countdown" as an influence to his playing on it. The band had a firm idea on the direction of the track early on, although some parts were difficult for the group to put down. Lake was not a fan of Brubeck as Emerson was, but Palmer was into Brubeck's drummer Joe Morello and Emerson noticed his style of drumming in Palmer's performance.

"The Only Way (Hymn)" contains themes from Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV 540 and Prelude and Fugue VI, BWV 851 by Bach, and features Emerson on the pipe organ at St Mark's church in Finchley, north London which was put down using a mobile recording facility. Lake wrote the lyrics after the music was recorded; Emerson and Palmer considered the religious implication in the line: "Can you believe God makes you breathe, why did he lose six million Jews?" was a bit too strong, but they went along with it. "Infinite Space (Conclusion)" features Emerson playing a 7-ft Bechstein grand piano, and came about from the band's decision to follow the profound lyrics on "The Only Way" with a laid-back piece.

Emerson said Led Zeppelin were a loose inspiration for "A Time and a Place", and was listening to the band a lot at the time. He recalled the track being put down in about three takes. Although not credited, the music to "Are You Ready, Eddy?" was largely inspired by Bobby Troup's 1956 song "The Girl Can't Help It". Its title was a phrase the band yelled out to Offord when they were ready to record. Palmer is heard saying "They've only go' 'am or cheese!", which is what an elderly lady at Advision said to the band when they sent her round to a nearby sandwich shop and announce what they had available. Emerson said Palmer could mimic her mix of Greek and cockney accents "wonderfully", and recalled the confusion from some American fans who could not understand what it was about. The track was "an impromptu jam" and a one-off take, and played in celebration of completing work on Tarkus.

One track left as an outtake was Lake's "Oh My Father", an autobiographical ballad dealing with grief over the recent death of his father. Featuring layers of acoustic guitars, piano, and a wah-wah guitar solo it might have balanced the keyboard-heavy tracks on the album but Lake ultimately thought it was too personal for release; it was eventually included on the 2012 deluxe reissue. Another outtake unearthed for the reissue, "Unknown Ballad", was a song actually titled "Just A Dream" recorded during the sessions when Emerson and Palmer were out of the studio, featuring Lake on piano and his friend Gary Margetts (of the group Spontaneous Combustion) on lead vocal, with brother Tris Margetts on bass and Lake helping out on backing harmonies.

The album was packaged in a gatefold sleeve and features artwork by Scottish artist William Neal, whose armadillo has since became an iconic image in progressive rock. Neal was involved with the London-based CCS Associates which typically produced art for reggae albums but occasionally they were given other records to work on, which was the case with Tarkus. When the band rejected the designs already completed, Neal recalled: "On one of my drawings, there was a small doodle at the bottom of the page. This was of an armadillo with tank tracks on it but it was just an idea that wasn't really going anywhere." It originated from one of Neal's initial designs of a machine gun with a belt of bullets replaced by a row of keyboard keys, which he inadvertently sketched on with a pencil during a phone conversation which produced the tank image. Emerson liked it and suggested it be developed "into more of a cartoon story", as by which point he had written "Tarkus" and thought the music fit with the imagery. Neal was given a copy of the album to listen to while he completed the final cover, which inspired the other drawings. The gatefold presents eleven panels that illustrate the events of the title track, beginning with an erupting volcano, below which Tarkus emerges from an egg. Tarkus then faces a number of cybernetic creatures, culminating in the battle against the manticore which stings Tarkus's eye, and Tarkus retreats bleeding into a river.

Emerson went away with Neal's designs and began to think of album titles. "To everyone, it represented what we were doing in that studio. The next day on my drive up from Sussex the imagery of the armadillo kept hitting me. It had to have a name. Something guttural. It had to begin with the letter 'T' and end with a flourish". Emerson acknowledged that Tarka of Tarka the Otter may have been an inspiration, "but this armadillo needed a science fiction kind of name that represented Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in reverse. Some mutilation of the species caused by radiation", at which point he came up with "Tarkus". The "Tarkus" on the front cover is made from whitened bones from the skeleton of a devoured lizard.

Tarkus was released on 14 June 1971 in the UK on Island Records, appearing two months later in the US by Atlantic Records' subsidiary label Cotillion Records. It is one of only two ELP studio albums to reach the Top 10 in the United States, making it to No. 9 (Trilogy, the following year, got to No. 5), while in Britain it is their only number-one album. Additionally, Tarkus spent a total of 17 weeks in the UK Albums Chart. In Japan the album was released on Atlantic Records. Later vinyl reissues were on the Manticore label.

Tarkus was certified gold in the United States shortly after its release on 26 August 1971.

Track listing

Original vinyl

All lyrics are written by Greg Lake

Side one

     1. "Tarkus"  Keith Emerson, Greg Lake 20:59

• "Eruption" (Emerson)  – 2:43
• "Stones of Years" (Emerson, Lake)  – 3:43
• "Iconoclast" (Emerson)  – 1:16
• "Mass" (Emerson, Lake)  – 3:15
• "Manticore" (Emerson)  – 1:54
• "Battlefield" (Lake)  – 4:13
• "Aquatarkus" (Emerson)  – 3:55"

Side two

1. "Jeremy Bender" Emerson, Lake 1:44
2. "Bitches Crystal" Emerson, Lake 3:58
3. "The Only Way (Hymn)" Emerson, Lake 3:51
4. "Infinite Space (Conclusion)" Emerson, Carl Palmer 3:19
5. "A Time and a Place" Emerson, Lake, Palmer 3:01
6. "Are You Ready, Eddy?" Emerson, Lake, Palmer 2:13

Greg Lake – production for E. G. Records

Eddy "Are You Ready" Offord – engineer

William Neal – paintings (C.C.S. Assoc.)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer "Emerson, Lake & Palmer (2012 RM Deluxe, 2CD+DVDA, Sony 88691937972, EU)"

Emerson, Lake & Palmer is the debut studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. It was released in the United Kingdom by Island Records in November 1970, and in the United States by Cotillion Records in January 1971. After the group formed in the spring of 1970, they entered rehearsals and prepared material for an album which became a mix of original songs and rock arrangements of classical music. The album was recorded at Advision Studios in July 1970, when the band had yet to perform live. Lead vocalist and bassist/guitarist Greg Lake produced it.

Upon release, the album went to No. 4 in the UK and No. 18 in the US. Lake's song "Lucky Man" was released as a single in 1970 and helped the group achieve radio airplay; it peaked at No. 48 in the US. After a warm-up gig in Plymouth, the band performed songs from the album at their next, a spot at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival which propelled them to widespread fame. In 2012, Steven Wilson prepared a special edition that features a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes, plus bonus material.

"The Barbarian" is an arrangement of Béla Bartók's 1911 piano piece Allegro Barbaro, but original early pressings of the album credit the track to the group. Bartók's widow contacted the band shortly after the album's release to request that the credit be corrected.

"Take a Pebble" was penned by Lake, with the primary sections being a jazz keyboard arrangement by Emerson, and the middle section being a folk guitar work by Lake with water-like percussion effects from Palmer, plus bits of clapping and whistling.

"Knife-Edge" is based on the first movement of Leoš Janáček's orchestral piece Sinfonietta (1926), with an instrumental middle section that includes an extended quotation from the Allemande of Johann Sebastian Bach's first French Suite No. 1 in D minor, BWV 812, but played on an organ rather than a clavichord or piano. Lake provided the lyrics, with assistance from Richard Fraser, a member of the group's road crew.

"The Three Fates" is a three-part "pseudo suite", written and predominantly performed by Emerson. Each section is named after the three sisters of Greek mythology known as the Three Fates, or Moirai: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. The "Clotho" movement was recorded at the Royal Festival Hall in London, with Emerson playing the venue's pipe organ. "Lachesis" is a short piano piece that features baroque and jazz influences, ending in grand, sweeping arpeggios. "Atropos" sees Emerson play a piano vamp in 7/8 with percussion accompaniment from Palmer. An improvisational section is played on top, which transforms into a polymetrically played repeated sequence in 4/4 time. The resonance of the final chords is curtailed by the sound of explosions.

Palmer's solo spot "Tank" was composed with Emerson. The first section features Emerson on clavinet and piano, Lake on bass and Palmer on drums. The middle section is a drum solo. The final section features Emerson on clavinet and Moog synthesizer.

"Lucky Man" is a song written by Lake on the acoustic guitar when he was 12. It features an improvised Moog synthesizer solo by Emerson at the end, liberally using portamento. A 5.1 surround sound mix of the song was released on a 2000 reissue of Brain Salad Surgery.

The album's cover is a painting by British artist Nic Dartnell. Although it has been said to be originally intended for the American group Spirit, and that the bald-headed man on the left of the cover is Spirit's drummer, Ed Cassidy, the artist denied this in an interview with Mike Goldstein of RockPoP:

"I'd like to take a moment and dispel a rumor that, according to Wikipedia, the image is somehow linked to the LA band Spirit. The fact is that, at the time I painted the ELP 'Bird', I also painted a portrait of Spirit which I sent to them in LA. A very similar bird was featured in the corner of that painting. I got a message from Spirit to say that if they had received their painting in time they would have put it on the back of Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus. I became friendly with Randy California over the years and I took the photograph that is on his 1982 12" EP All Along the Watchtower. The bald image in "Bird" has no connection to Ed Cassidy of Spirit and doesn't look anything like him. Ed still has the Spirit portrait – so I'm told."

— Nic Dartnell, 

The album was initially released to highly positive reviews in influential publications like New Musical Express and Rolling Stone, the latter raving "this is such a good album it is best heard as a whole". One notable exception was Robert Christgau, who disdained nearly all progressive rock, who stated: "This opens with 'The Barbarian,' a keyboard showpiece (not to slight all the flailing and booming underneath) replete with the shifts of tempo, time, key, and dynamics beloved of these bozos. Does the title mean they see themselves as rock and roll Huns sacking nineteenth-century 'classical' tradition? Or do they think they're like Verdi portraying Ethiopians in Aida? From such confusions flow music as clunky as these heavy-handed semi-improvisations and would-be tone poems." Retrospective reviews have continued to be largely positive, with AllMusic awarding four-and-a-half stars and The Daily Vault hailing it as a "dizzying mix of keyboard solos, incredible bass work, excellent vocals and powerful drums". Paul Stump's 1997 History of Progressive Rock commented of the album, "Still hailed by many as the band's best effort, it established the blueprint for a musical style which, for all the bullish puffing of the band's 'progressive' credentials, they would develop hardly at all."

Track listing

1. "The Barbarian" (instrumental) Béla Bartók (arr. Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Carl Palmer) 4:27
2. "Take a Pebble" Lake Lake 12:32
3. "Knife-Edge" Lake, Richard Fraser Leoš Janáček, J. S. Bach (arr. Emerson) 5:04
4. "The Three Fates"  (instrumental) Emerson 7:46
5. "Tank" (instrumental) Emerson, Palmer 6:49
6. "Lucky Man" Lake Lake 4:37

2012 reissue

In May 2012, Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree remixed the album for a three-disc reissue containing the original mix, the Wilson remix, and a DVD-Audio with Wilson's 5.1 surround sound version and a higher-bitrate version of his stereo mix.

CD 2 – The Alternate ELP New 2012 Stereo Mixes

1. "The Barbarian" (Bartók, arr. Emerson, Lake & Palmer) 4:32
2. "Take a Pebble" (Lake; arr. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, but not always credited) 12:36
3. "Knife-Edge (with extended outro)" (Janáček & Bach, arr. Emerson, lyrics by Lake and Fraser) 5:38
4. "Promenade" (Modest Mussorgsky, arr. Lake and Emerson, lyrics by Lake) 1:29
5. "The Three Fates: Atropos" (Emerson) 3:11
6. "Rave Up" (Emerson, Lake & Palmer) 5:02
7. "Drum Solo" (Palmer) 3:02
8. "Lucky Man" (Lake) 4:39

Total length: 40:09

Bonus tracks

1. "Take a Pebble (alternate take)" (Lake) 3:40
2. "Knife-Edge (alternate take)" (Janáček & Bach, arr. Emerson, lyrics by Lake and Fraser) 4:19
3. "Lucky Man (first Greg Lake solo version)" (Lake) 3:02
4. "Lucky Man (alternate take)" (Lake) 4:41

Total length: 55:51

The remixed versions have different track listings from the original album. The first two sections of "The Three Fates" ("Clotho" and "Lachesis") and "Tank" were omitted, for multitrack tapes for these pieces were unavailable; meanwhile, unreleased material was added. "Knife-Edge" has an extended ending; due to the difficulty of reproducing the song's original tape slowdown ending digitally, Wilson decided to include the end of the original album session at its original speed. The 5.1 remix replaces "Tank" with an unreleased instrumental called "Rave Up", which bears some similarity to the instrumental section of "Mass" on Tarkus.

The remixed stereo versions include all of the above while adding more unreleased material: a vocal version of Modest Mussorgsky's "Promenade" (the first live version of which appears on Pictures at an Exhibition) replaces the missing sections of "The Three Fates"; a new otherwise untitled "Drum Solo" by Carl Palmer (similar but not identical to a section of "Tank") is added between "Rave Up" and "Lucky Man"; "Lucky Man" is followed by an unfinished alternate take of "Take a Pebble", complete with some studio banter, an unreleased take of "Knife-Edge" (lacking vocals and final section), and two versions of "Lucky Man", the first being Greg Lake's original demo, the second an unreleased complete band version.

Greg Lake – producer

Eddy Offord – engineer

Emerson, Lake & Palmer – arrangement, direction

Nic Dartnell – cover painting