Greg Lake

Greg Lake attained his foremost renown and sway as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist within the progressive rock ensemble Emerson, Lake & Palmer, after serving as an original member of King Crimson. Moderate solo success also came his way in a harder-rocking mode. Childhood years spent in an impoverished section of Bournemouth, the English seaside resort, brought him his first guitar on his twelfth birthday, presented by his mother. Lessons followed from local instructor Don Strike, whose other pupils included Robert Fripp; the two boys soon formed a lasting friendship. Near that same age Lake penned the folk-flavored composition “Lucky Man,” a piece destined to shape his later path.

He acquired the ability to read music and tackled works by Paganini alongside additional classical composers, yet his true goal was to replicate the style of Cliff Richard & the Shadows, especially lead guitarist Hank B. Marvin. A series of bands followed, among them the local quartet Unit Four, where he handled guitar and vocals. With Unit Four guitarist David Genes he next launched the Time Checks; around 1967, together with another former Unit Four colleague, John Dickinson, he joined the Shame, a group that issued a single in 1968. He further contributed vocals to a recording by the Shy Limbs. In 1968 Lake replaced Mick Taylor in the Gods, whose lineup featured future Uriah Heep founders Ken Hensley on keyboards and vocals plus Lee Kerslake on drums; there his songwriting began to flourish. He departed the Gods just before their recording sessions commenced, recruited by boyhood friend Robert Fripp for the new band emerging from the remnants of Giles, Giles & Fripp. Lake entered the quintet—Fripp on lead guitar, Ian McDonald on keyboards, saxophones and flute, Michael Giles on drums, and Peter Sinfield as lyricist—as lead singer and bassist.

King Crimson quickly established a singular place in rock history as the preeminent progressive band of their period. Their debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, set the benchmark for ambitious progressive rock releases. Overnight Lake and his bandmates became stars. The original lineup endured only a year; by December 1969 Giles and McDonald had grown weary of touring and withdrew, while Lake declined further involvement, though he remained long enough to supply vocals for the second King Crimson album, In the Wake of Poseidon (1970).

At the urging of Tony Stratton-Smith, keyboardist Keith Emerson—fresh from three years with the Nice—sought Lake out while assembling a new ensemble. The Nice’s chief shortcoming had been the absence of a genuine lead singer, and Emerson recognized the solution in Lake, whose voice had anchored In the Court of the Crimson King. Together they enlisted drummer Carl Palmer, thereby forming progressive rock’s inaugural supergroup, Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Success arrived immediately with their self-titled 1970 debut, which closed with Lake’s earlier composition “Lucky Man.” The track became one of the band’s infrequent hit singles and one of their rare bids for AM radio airplay, establishing Lake among the most recognizable voices in progressive rock, on par with the Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward. His production background from King Crimson’s self-produced debut album proved invaluable to ELP, and his songwriting formed the creative core of the group’s first three studio releases.

ELP ruled the charts and the progressive rock landscape until 1977, when the broader “art rock” movement began to wane. Internal tensions prompted a split after a 1979 tour, sending Lake into a solo career. He assembled a new band featuring ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore, ex-Rory Gallagher drummer Ted McKenna, and ex-Joe Cocker/Gerry Rafferty keyboardist Tommy Eyre, and recorded the debut solo album Greg Lake (1981). Its guitar-driven sound departed sharply from ELP’s keyboard foundation, and Lake adopted a harder, more assertive vocal delivery. Onstage he revisited King Crimson material while presenting vigorous renditions of the new songs. A follow-up, Manoeuvres, appeared in 1983, yet commercial and creative momentum had faded; Lake stepped away from music for the first time. He fronted Asia on their 1985 tour but did not stay with the group.

In 1986 he rejoined Emerson and drummer Cozy Powell as Emerson, Lake & Powell, releasing an album on Mercury Records and mounting a world tour. After collaborating with ex-Asia member Geoff Downes and King Crimson drummer Michael Giles in Ride the Tiger, Lake reunited with Emerson and Palmer for an unfinished film project that ultimately yielded their first studio album in thirteen years, Black Moon (1992). Throughout the mid- and late 1990s he continued working with both Emerson and Palmer while maintaining solo activities, including a 1994 U.S. tour. Extensive charitable efforts on behalf of missing children formed another focus; his song “Daddy,” inspired by one such tragic case, gained national attention as the theme for a television series highlighting the issue. Into the twenty-first century Lake toured with the Greg Lake Band, and a reunited ELP performed a single concert at a London rock festival in 2010. Following a battle with cancer, Lake died in December 2016 at age 69, nine months after Keith Emerson’s suicide in March of the same year.