Elegy | ||||
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Live album by | ||||
Released | April 1971 | |||
Recorded | 19–20 December 1969 | |||
Venue | Fillmore East, New York City | |||
Genre | Progressive rock | |||
Length | 39:27 | |||
Label | UK: Charisma CAS 1030 US: Mercury SR 61324 France, Germany: Philips | |||
Producer | The Nice | |||
The Nice chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
George Starostin's Only Solitaire | 8/15 [2] |
Elegy was the final official album release by The Nice, Keith Emerson having since moved on to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Lee Jackson to Jackson Heights and Brian Davison to Every Which Way. It consists of live versions of songs from earlier releases, a studio take of a Tchaikovsky piece ("Pathetique") that had been released live on the previous album and a previously unheard cover of Dylan's "My Back Pages". Released a year after The Nice's final show in March 1970 in an attempt to capitalize on ELP's burgeoning success, the album achieved number 5 in the UK album chart. [3]
"Hang on to a Dream" and "America" were recorded live at Fillmore East, New York during the group's 1969 tour. It was during this tour that The Nice shared a bill with King Crimson, which led to Keith Emerson and Greg Lake hooking up to form a new band, Emerson, Lake & Palmer. "Hang On To A Dream" features extensive use of Emerson striking the interior piano strings, while "America" closes with several minutes of Hammond organ feedback. The two studio outtakes, "My Back Pages" and "Third Movement, Pathetique" had been recorded in 1969; "My Back Pages" featured a section which would be requoted on ELP's "Blues Variations" while a live orchestrated version of "Pathetique" had already seen release on Five Bridges .
The UK edition came in a gatefold sleeve. It was designed by Hipgnosis (Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell), well known as designers of album covers for Pink Floyd and other progressive rock bands. The front and back covers show a Sahara desert scene with a line of fifty red footballs (credited to Mettoy Playcraft) receding towards a distant dune. The inside of the cover shows, in the distance, a mesa or plateau; in front is a gravelly landscape strewn with memorabilia of the Nice such as older album covers, publicity shots, press releases and a scrapbook of press cuttings.
The CD release 1990 contains six additional bonus tracks taken from 1972 compilation Autumn '67 - Spring '68 and the length of the original four tracks is slightly different.[ citation needed ]
"Azrial" had been the B-side of the single release "The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack," and "Diamond-Hard Blue Apples of the Moon" that of "America."
The arrangement of "My Back Pages" was inspired by Keith Jarrett's 1968 Vortex recording of the song but the majority is Emerson's creation.[ citation needed ] The performance is in two parts with the first featuring piano and the second featuring Hammond organ.The 2009 Digital Remastered CD contains only two additional bonus tracks and the length of the original four tracks is slightly different.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer were an English progressive rock supergroup formed in London in 1970. The band consisted of Keith Emerson (keyboards) of the Nice, Greg Lake of King Crimson and Carl Palmer of Atomic Rooster. With nine RIAA-certified gold record albums in the US, and an estimated 48 million records sold worldwide, they are one of the most popular and commercially successful progressive rock groups of the 1970s, with a musical sound including adaptations of classical music with jazz and symphonic rock elements, dominated by Emerson's flamboyant use of the Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer, and piano.
Keith Noel Emerson was an English keyboardist, songwriter, composer and record producer. He played keyboards in a number of bands before finding his first commercial success with the Nice in the late 1960s. He became internationally famous for his work with the Nice, which included writing rock arrangements of classical music. After leaving the Nice in 1970, he was a founding member of Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP), one of the early progressive rock supergroups.
The Nice were an English progressive rock band active in the late 1960s. They blended rock, jazz and classical music and were keyboardist Keith Emerson's first commercially successful band.
The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, also known as the Pathétique Symphony, is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer entitled the work "The Passionate Symphony", employing a Russian word, Патетическая (Pateticheskaya), meaning "passionate" or "emotional", which was then translated into French as pathétique, meaning "solemn" or "emotive".
The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack is the 1968 debut album by the English psychedelic rock and progressive rock group the Nice.
James Timothy Hardin was an American folk and blues musician and composer. As well as releasing his own material, several of his songs, including "If I Were a Carpenter" and "Reason to Believe", became hits for other artists.
"My Back Pages" is a song written by Bob Dylan and included on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is stylistically similar to his earlier folk protest songs and features Dylan's voice with an acoustic guitar accompaniment. However, its lyrics—in particular the refrain "Ah, but I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now"—have been interpreted as a rejection of Dylan's earlier personal and political idealism, illustrating his growing disillusionment with the 1960s folk protest movement with which he was associated, and his desire to move in a new direction. Although Dylan wrote the song in 1964, he did not perform it live until 1988.
Jackson Heights was a British progressive rock band from England. It formed in 1970 after The Nice organist and pianist, Keith Emerson, decided to leave the trio to form another band, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, leaving bassist-vocalist Lee Jackson and drummer Brian Davison on their own.
Five Bridges is a live and studio album and fourth overall by English progressive rock band The Nice, released in June 1970 by Charisma Records. Most of the album was recorded live in concert at Fairfield Halls in Croydon, London, in October 1969. The final track, "One of Those People", is a studio recording. The album's centrepiece is "The Five Bridges Suite", a five-part composition about Newcastle upon Tyne that features the group performing with the Sinfonia of London session orchestra conducted by Joseph Eger.
Ars Longa Vita Brevis is the second album by the English progressive rock group the Nice.
Brian Davison, was a British musician. He is best known for playing drums with The Mark Leeman Five, The Nice, Brian Davison's Every Which Way and Refugee.
Lee Jackson is an English bass guitarist known for his work in the Nice, a progressive-rock band, as well as his own band formed after the Nice, Jackson Heights, and finally Refugee with Nice drummer Brian Davison and Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz. Jackson plays bass left handed.
Nice was the third album by The Nice; it was titled Everything As Nice As Mother Makes It in the US after Immediate broke their distribution deal with Columbia. Nice had been initially released in the US with a slightly longer version of "Rondo 69" not available on the UK or on the independently distributed US versions. The first US version of Nice was briefly reissued in 1973 by Columbia Special Products.
From the Beginning is a box set which presents aural and visual documentation celebrating Emerson, Lake & Palmer's career; consisting of five discs that include a number of single b-sides, significant live recordings, alternative studio mixes and material taken from band rehearsals, plus a bonus DVD featuring 'The Manticore Years' documentary, presented in a deluxe book-style sleeve complete with a 60-page picture booklet containing extensive sleeve notes by the band discussing the ELP years. It also contains rare and previously unseen photographs and images.
"How Can We Hang On to a Dream" is a song composed and recorded by Tim Hardin. It was Hardin's first single after his signed with Verve Folkways, released around six months before his debut album Tim Hardin 1. The single was titled "Hang On to a Dream" in some territories.
Vivacitas is a live album recorded by the Nice, who reformed for a set of concerts, augmented by the Keith Emerson Band for the second half of the concert. David O'List, The Nice's original guitarist, did not take part, and was replaced by Dave Kilminster. The album consists of versions of pieces which had been live favourites during the Nice's heyday between 1967 and 1970, three piano solo pieces by Emerson, some pieces from the Emerson, Lake & Palmer repertoire performed by the Keith Emerson Band, and a 2001 interview with Emerson, Lee Jackson and Brian Davison by Chris Welch.
"Fanfare for the Common Man" is an instrumental piece of music adapted and played by the English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, from the group's 1977 Works Volume I album. Adapted by Keith Emerson from Aaron Copland's 1942 piece of the same name, it is one of their most popular and enduring pieces.
Autumn '67 – Spring '68 is a 1972 compilation by the English psychedelic rock and progressive rock group the Nice. The album consists of outtakes and alternate versions of previously released songs, which were recorded between Autumn 1967 and Spring 1968.
Live in Concert Newcastle City Hall 1974 is a live album by the British progressive rock group Refugee, recorded on 16 June 1974 onto cassette straight from the soundboard. It was released under the Voiceprint Records in 2007. The album includes The Nice song "The Diamond Hard Blue Apples of the Moon" and a cover of Bob Dylan's "She Belongs to Me", all songs from the debut album and the four-minute "Refugee Jam".