RIP Greg Lake, "Lucky Man" (1947-2016)

Greg Lake, in his element

These days, and especially this year, I get nervous whenever I see the name of a famous person from the Baby Boomer generation trending on Facebook. Sometimes it just means that person has done something to return to newsworthiness: a new album, a successful tour, a controversial statement, or some such thing. But, often (and especially in 2016), it means that person is dead.

Such was the case with musician Greg Lake, whose trending status on Facebook was how I learned the progressive rock pioneer died today at age 69, after a long battle with cancer. Lake is probably best known for the popular 1970s progressive rock supergroup Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, who somehow filled stadiums and sold millions of albums with an eclectic sound that drew as much from the raucous energy of rock as from the structure and sound of classical music and jazz (my father and I are particularly fond of "Karn Evil 9 Part II"). Their popularity and influence--as well as that of other acts, such as Yes and Pink Floyd--helped bring progressive rock, probably my favorite genre of music, into the musical mainstream.

But before ELP, Lake was involved in King Crimson, one of the founding groups of progressive rock. He produced and performed lead vocals on King Crimson's first album, 1969's In the Court of the Crimson King, which may be as well known for its cover as for the music it spawned:

I wonder what's going on inside this guy's head...

The sound of In the Court of the Crimson King, with its combination of Mellotron, bizarre time signatures, impossibly dense lyrics, jazz-influenced improvisation, and long, multi-segmented compositions, would define the then-nascent genre of progressive rock. And Lake's voice was at the vanguard of this young movement. I recommend the whole album; I own it on vinyl, in fact. But Lake's best performance is on "Epitaph," the final song of the album's first side. The lyrics describe the steady descent of a civilization into apocalypse; Lake's voice guides us along the way, starting soft yet foreboding, and ending with passionate desperation. I could only find versions of the song online that removed much of the music, but this may have been for the best, as they end up isolating Lake's vocal and providing further evidence of his talent:

As mentioned above, Lake was a cornerstone of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. He was arguably its primary creative force; inarguably so with "Lucky Man," the unlikely--and ironic; listen to the lyrics--hit single Lake wrote in his teens that launched the band to international fame:



Lake also enjoyed a successful solo career. The highlight of it--in my opinion, anyway--is 1979's "I Believe in Father Christmas," a Christmas song that has all the chimes, bells, choirs, and soaring vocals you'd expect of classic Christmas music, but undercuts it all in a sneaky fashion with a somewhat cynical message in the lyrics:


Even though Christmas is the time of year when we are collectively more tolerant of treacle than usual, I still perk up when "I Believe in Father Christmas" comes on the radio, as it means I'm getting a Christmas song with high production values, progressive rock roots, and a contrarian spirit for the time of year. Seek it out on the radio this Christmas season, and give it a full listen.

Greg Lake's death is particularly noteworthy due to its proximity to other recent passings. This past March, Lake's ELP bandmate, keyboardist Keith Emerson, died (I eulogized him here); drummer Carl Palmer is now the sole surviving member of the band, a fact he sadly noted today. Palmer's sole survivor status is not unique, and will become more common as the years go on; Barry Gibb, for example is the sole surviving member of the Bee Gees, the genre-defining disco act of the late 70s. 2016 as a whole has been rather brutal; on this blog, I have also eulogized two of the many other notables 2016 has claimed: David Bowie and Gene Wilder. Indeed, on the same day as Lake, Ohio Marine, astronaut, and senator John Glenn died at 95.

I have written elsewhere about what all these deaths mean, but it bears repeating: An entire generation of our culture has begun the slow yet steady process by which it will pass away. John Glenn was a holdout from an earlier age that largely handed over the commanding heights of culture long ago; it is now the Baby Boomers who are in the long, slow process of passing the torch. They have defined our culture for a generation, but, as the years go on, more and more of them will pass away. Only time will tell what they leave in their wake (of Poseidon).

As for Greg Lake, I don't think that confusion will be his epitaph, as he sang in the King Crimson song posted above. His epitaph, I hope, will be that of a great talent, lost sooner than any of us would have liked. But lost it now is. What a lucky man he was.

Unlike Lake in the the ELP song linked above, I don't mean that ironically.