Goodbye Greg Lake- 1970s progressive rock scene

Greg Lake was a great musician and composer of the 1970s progressive rock scene. He is best known for his work with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. He was also part of the band King Crimson, which has always been one of my favorite progressive rock bands. He died last week, of cancer. His contribution to rock music will not be forgotten. -SJ Otto

From The New York Times:

Greg Lake, of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Dies at 69

By WILLIAM GRIMES

Greg Lake, a singer, guitarist and songwriter who was a founding member of the 1970s progressive-rock bands King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, died on Wednesday in London. He was 69.

The cause was cancer, his longtime manager, Stewart Young, wrote in a post on Mr. Lake’s Facebook page. His death came nine months after Mr. Lake’s former bandmate, Keith Emerson, committed suicide.

Mr. Lake was a seminal figure in the movement to Europeanize rock ’n’ roll by blending it with classical music and presenting it with symphonic grandeur. “In the Court of the Crimson King,” the first King Crimson album, has often been cited as the first progressive rock album and the model for the others that followed.

The movement reached its swelling, grandiose climax in the work of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, whose adaptations of classical compositions and lengthy tracks, given operatic expression in lavish stage shows, epitomized the vaulting ambition of a style that was vehemently repudiated with the rise of punk in the late 1970s

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I Believe In Father Christmas - Greg Lake