Emerson, Lake, and Palmer- Anthology pt 3- Greg Lake, Carl Palmer

It turns out that the final curtain did indeed come down on “the show that never ends, my friends…” in March 2016 with the sudden death of Keith Emerson followed shortly after with Greg Lake. The Emerson, Lake, and Palmer keyboard maestro had been struggling with a repetitive stress injury in his right hand for almost twenty years, according to Carl Palmer, so debilitating to Emerson’s keyboard playing that he had major surgery, similar to what professional baseball pitchers call “Tommy John surgery”, in an attempt to repair the motor nerve in his right forearm. Against the musical backdrop of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s most popular album, 1974’s Brain Salad Surgery with its “Karn Evil 9” and “Still You Turn Me On“, guitarist/ singer/ songwriter Greg Lake pointed to uncanny prescience in the lyrical themes predicting the coming microprocessor Computer Age, while percussionist Carl Palmer reveals heroic efforts here in part three to allow the increasingly frustrated Keith Emerson to carry on right up to his death.- Redbeard