Keith Emerson's Top Twelve

2005-11-05T18:17:00.000-08:00

In 1972, Emerson appeared as a guest on a BBC Radio program called My Top Twelve, hosted by BBC presenter Brian Matthew. The transcript below reveals much about Keith and the artists who had influenced him prior to this point in his musical life. It should be remembered that this program aired more than 30 years ago when he was a relatively young man. Brain Salad Surgery had not yet been released and the Piano Concerto of Works Volume One wouldn't have been more than a sparkle in Keith's eye at the time. Still, the track selections Keith made for this program are historically important and they provide a good starting point for gaining a deeper insight into his music and where it came from.
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BBC: Welcome to another edition of My Top Twelve. And our guest in the studio this morning from Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Keith Emerson, and a very welcome guest you are indeed. Keith, can we get quickly into the first track on your album, what's it going to be?

KE: How about On The Rebound by Floyd Cramer.

MUSIC: On The Rebound

BBC: Floyd Cramer, boy I wonder if that surprised anybody as the first choice of the creative mind behind the progressive ELP, Keith, it surprised me.

KE: Yeah? Well, it's the first piano piece that I can recall that stimulated me. His technique of playing fourths and sliding the lower tone up to make thirds gave it a very distinctive style, and he had the makings of a country music sound on the piano.

BBC: When you say it was the first piano style that influenced you or impressed you, you had of course classical training yourself, didn't you?

KE: Yes, from a local teacher. I wasn't very into classical music at the time, and this was one of the first pieces I had which really made me want to play the piano.

BBC: You went to the Royal Academy?

KE: No. That's a mistake, I had first tuition from a local teacher. I studied with this teacher from the age of eight until fourteen. I took various examinations for theory and practical playing, and also went into the occasional music festival, but I never attained any degree or anything like that.

BBC: Did you want to be a professional musician, or did you at some time want to be something else?

KE: The idea of becoming professional didn't occur to me until I was about eighteen years old.

BBC: Mmm hmm. Well, maybe we can come back to that in just a moment. Let's move on to some more music. What's your next choice?

KE: Yes, let's play Little Rock Getaway, from the Bob Crosby Orchestra, and I'd like you to listen out for the piano break in the middle.

MUSIC: Little Rock Getaway

BBC: Yeah, the Bob Crosby Band, and if you can expel the memory of that rather daft tenor solo, it was indeed a startling piano. Who was that, Keith?

KE: That's Bob Zurke. (see also: Joe Sullivan)

BBC: When did that come into your life?

KE: Quite recently, I'd always liked the stride piano technique, and, well, I liked Winifred Atwell to start off with, she was quite good at stride piano, and I just recently got to hear the Bob Crosby Orchestra on an album quite by accident, and the pianist really turned me on, he has a nice sound.

BBC: So it doesn't stem from your early listening days.

KE: No, I've just come into that one.

BBC: Let's talk just a little bit more before we get around to your own days as a professional musician, about your early days. Where were you born?

KE: I was born in Lancashire, in a place called Todmorden.

BBC: No trace of a Lancashire dialect. Did you leave there early?

KE: Yeah, I left there pretty early, age of one.

BBC: Oh, right, that could account for it. Any musical influences in your family?

KE: My father played piano by ear, and he also played piano accordion, and his mother was a piano teacher. My father's side is the most musical.

BBC: So, it's pretty much in the family, then. You told us that you took lessons yourself from a lady piano teacher. Presumably you learned to read straight away, did you?

KE: Yes, I did, yeah. Before having lessons I'd been picking tunes out by ear, and consequently, the first lessons I had there were so many rules imposed on piano playing it sort of put me off, you know, I wanted to stop having lessons to begin with, but thankfully I had very persistent parents who made me keep at it and I'm glad they did.

BBC: You told us that you became a professional musician at eighteen. Had you done any other kind of work before that?

KE: Not really, I was, playing piano at a dancing school...

BBC: Yes?

KE: Gee, you know there were these girls there, they'd begin to press up to the bar.

BBC: Oh, in the ballet school?

KE: Yeah, from that!

BBC: I'm surprised to hear it!

KE: A lot of chicks around there...

BBC: It could have its advantages.

BBC: Alright, let's have band three on your album, what's coming up now?

KE: Before I started doing gigs at local places, it was out of necessity that I bought an organ cause I was getting pretty sick of going to places and finding out of tune pianos and hammers coming out all over the place so I thought "well, I've gotta get my own instrument," and the organ was like my choice and it didn't take me long to discover Brother Jack McDuff. He had a very attacking sound on the organ, and this is Jack McDuff playing Rock Candy.

MUSIC: Rock Candy (two minute excerpt)

BBC: That's Brother Jack McDuff recorded in live performance, a thing called Rock Candy. I'm very interested in what you were saying about getting tired of bad pianos and gigging around because Alan Price almost said exactly the same thing, the reason for him trying an organ but he did nevertheless say that piano, if well tuned and of good quality remained his first love. Do you have any preference?

KE: Yes, I did, and I can say the same, actually, the piano is my first love.

BBC: I remember when I first met you way back in the days of Nice, when you were with P.P. Arnold, weren't you?

KE: Yes to that, heh heh..

BBC: And you were sort of thumping your organ around on the stage to sort of produce the unusual sound, shall we say?

KE: Yes...

BBC: I see, you would prefer to not go into it...

KE: No, I don't mind, not at all, I remember that program, actually, it was, oh yeah, five years ago.

BBC: All of that, I would have thought...

KE: Billy Preston, Billy's Bag...

BBC: Yes, yes, you are right. We'll talk a little bit more about that, perhaps, when we've heard the next record, which is, back to piano, I believe, not one that I know, it's one that you brought from the states.

KE: Yeah, that's right. One night with The Nice we played a festival in Austria, and when we arrived I was introduced with a shortish middle-aged guy who said he enjoyed listening to our music and was looking forward to hearing us play, and I noticed he was sitting in the front row for the performance. After the show, I realized that this was Friedrich Gulda, and I wasn't familiar with what he was doing, what he was playing at the time, so while I was there I bought one of his records and listened to it, listened to about two minutes of it in the booth there, and was so wiped out with his piano playing, I took the record back to the festival, found him, and got him to autograph it. Very impressed, I'd never done that before.

BBC: So what are you going to play from it?

KE: Okay, this is Friedrich Gulda, Play Piano, Play.

MUSIC: Play Piano, Play.

BBC: Hello, fascinating. Distinct classical influences there. I've never heard of Friedrich Gulda. Is he Austrian?

KE: Yes, he's based in Vienna, I think.

BBC: Now I said that we'd talk a little bit about The Nice. How did the group come together?

KE: It was formed for P.P. Arnold as her backing band. P.P. Arnold asked me to form a band and I'd worked with Lee Jackson previously, and he was the first one that I asked, and then together we found two other players, and we decided upon the name of The Nice going to our first gig.

BBC: I see, and then after P.P. left or at least there was this kind of a split, the band went on very much in its own right.

KE: That's right. She went back to America because her visa expired and then we carried on on our own.

BBC: And with tremendous success. Why do you suppose that came to an end?

KE: I've been asked this so many times! Well, I don't know, just the natural course of events I guess, our heads in different musical directions...

BBC: Is this not bound to happen to any band?

KE: Oh yes, it's very easy, because you're on top of each other all the time, it's not like being an accountant or something where you go to the office and you clock out and that's it, I mean, once you start playing music you can never really have a free time and forget it. You're always with the people that are involved.

BBC: But is there any way around this danger? I mean, does it inevitably follow that any group is going to split after a while together?

KE: There are lots of sort of rules to observe I think that one of them is to be completely open. If you feel that anything has gone wrong then we'll get together and talk about it before the situation blows up, and you really have to analyze each point, you know, everything that the band does is a different step forward. You have to speak about it and find out if everybody is thinking the same way.

BBC: Yeah... Maybe not too many musicians are...

KE: If your friends feelings become submerged and held back, and nobody speaks his mind, things tend to blow up, and I think most bands sort of split because of that.

BBC: It does seem to happen all to often, doesn't it? It was inevitable, I suppose, that your top twelve should sound a bit like Kings of the Keyboard, but we've got a vocal item coming up.

KE: Yeah, this next one is Steeleye Span. I know very little about this band, actually, but I have one of their albums at home, and I'm very, very impressed with the singer. I don't even know what her name is, but she has so much soul in her voice, and I think they're very good exponents of playing English country music in a modern style.

BBC: So what's the example of their work?

KE: This is Spotted Cow...

MUSIC: The Spotted Cow

BBC: Steeleye Span. I should have leapt in with the name of that lady singer, Keith, which I would have done if I'd have known it. Thank heavens for Paul Williams who filled me with shame. It is, of course, Maddy Prior.

KE: Right.

BBC: Now, I presume that it was with Nice that you got your first taste of extensive international touring, wasn't it?

KE: Yeah.

BBC: You went to the States with them?

KE: We went to the States about three times.

BBC: How did you find it, I mean, had it always been a kind of Mecca for you as a musician to go there?

KE: Yes, we were all really looking forward to it, the first time that we went, because it had been cancelled, and then we were going one minute, and we weren't going the next, and the I think the first time that we got on the plane to go to America it was a very memorable experience for all of us.

BBC: What about when you got there?

KE: Yes, we played at The Sin Club in New York, and we had a residency there for two weeks, which is pretty good, it was alright, but then after that it was just a bit of a hard grind. I don't remember too well places that we played, but they were little out of the way clubs, you know?

BBC: This has been a pretty general reaction to that question from British musicians, they all have been dying to get over there and have been a little bit brought down because of these kind of pressures of work and so on...

KE: Yeah...

BBC: Did you have any opportunity to get around and hear any other musicians that you might have always wanted to hear?

KE: Yes, we got down to Greenwich Village occasionally, and we found all of our old favorites playing down there, you know, Hank Mobley and Wynton Kelly, musicians which I'd been listening to for a long time. It was really great to hear them live, you know?

BBC: Yeah. How much would you say you're into jazz?

KE: A lot. Jazz was the first thing which really made me want to play the piano and through playing bebop and listening to people like Charlie Parker, I gradually began to see a connection there with classical music, particularly with Bach and some of Bach's lines were very influenced... I found them very jazzy, they were a jazz influence, and other sort of people that were to find this out were like the Swingle Singers and Jacques Loussier.

BBC: I think that this is very interesting because you've always been put forward as the prime example of the pop musician who has used classical influences very much but you're saying that the dividing line between classical and jazz is perhaps not as broad as some people might...

KE: That's the first fissure line and that's sort of so easy merged together... (sic)

BBC: But I mean, when you get down to fundamentals, isn't the one hand is improvisation basically and the other is very much a formulaic type of music, where is the similarity?

KE: Well actually, classical music has changed so much because it used to be good grounds for improvisation. The idea of having cadenzas within violin concertos are really there for the soloist to explore himself, and this is one of the things that I think is wrong with classical music today is that they have lost this improvisation quality. A violinist will come to the end of a movement and do a cadenza which was previously done by Heifetz or something.

BBC: But don't jazz musicians tend to do this as well?

KE: Well, yes, there are, but the idea of jazz is that it's better when it's created spontaneously, that that's really where jazz is to go.

BBC: Well, I suppose it was inevitable in view of what you said that we should have jazz somewhere or other in your favorite album that we're putting together here.

KE: Yeah.

BBC: So what's it gonna be?

KE: Thelonious Monk was one of the first albums, first jazz albums which I listened to, and while Monk has had a bad reputation for falling asleep at the piano, he still manages to get it together, and this record apparently had no rehearsals at all, but they all had the chart and the just blew it straight at the concert. The finished result, I think, has become a jazz classic. This is Thelonious Monk playing Rootie Tootie.

MUSIC: Little Rootie Tootie (3 minute excerpt)

BBC: And that's part of a very long track by the Thelonious Monk Orchestra, Little Rootie Tootie, and I'm sure you'll all agree, extremely interesting and unusual choice so far, six tracks that no one else has chosen on My Top Twelve, and we look forward to hearing the six tracks on the other side of Keith's top twelve album.

-=[Break in interview]=-

BBC: Hello, we're on Keith Emerson's Top Twelve, and Keith, how are we going to start off side two of your imaginary album?

KE: Okay, I'd like to start off this side with my opinion of today's best composer and arranger. This is Frank Zappa, and Lumpy Gravy.

MUSIC: Lumpy Gravy (2 minute excerpt)

BBC: That was just a short illustration of the work of Zappa. A rather sweeping statement, Keith, you thought to say he's the best of today's arrangers and composers, won't you care to amplify that a bit, would you?

KE: Yeah, well, that's just my opinion, I guess.

BBC: Oh, fair enough. You just sort of left that open to discussion...

KE: Right.

BBC: We move on, now to classical music, I see... Tell us about this choice.

KE: This piece of music I heard on the radio once traveling from A to B somewhere in Europe. A foreign announcer said something about a festival in the title. That was all I got, anyway, I was so impressed with the piece I hunted it for about six months to find the recording, going to record shops and asking them for anything with "festivals" in the title; and I went into a radio shop to buy a pickup for my record player, and as I was coming out I saw this cover on the wall, and looked on the back, and I saw this "Roman Festivals" or something, I wondered if that was the one, and so I bought it, took it home, and I was really knocked out when I found that this was the piece I'd been looking for. Respighi's October Harvest Festival.

MUSIC: October Harvest Festival (4 1/2 minute excerpt)

BBC: You must in your way to acquiring that have got together the largest collection of classical festivals albums... (laughs)

KE: (laughs) Yeah, it's quite a few.

BBC: Do you have an extensive record collection?

KE: Yeah, it's pretty huge. I never get around to listening to all of them, obviously.

BBC: It must have been very difficult to choose your twelve particular tracks, I would think, was it?

KE: Yeah. Very difficult indeed.

BBC: Do you get into any other slightly esoteric areas, I mean have you got any very unusual items in your collection?

KE: I've got an album of fairground organ music. Sound effects and things like that.

BBC: We started to talk a little bit about the presentation side, I mean I believe your band had the reputation of having the largest amount of equipment of any group on tour. It was pretty extensive, wasn't it?

KE: It was quite a lot, yes.

BBC: What sort of things do you take with you?

KE: On the last European tour, we took our own stage with us. Lighting and special effects. We had to employ something like 75 road managers.

BBC: To keep a three piece band on the road. Quite a lot of room...

KE: Very heavy, yeah.

BBC: Why the need to take a stage around with you?

KE: Well, a lot of places that we've played before haven't had the right facilities. I mean by lighting and things like that, it's one of the things that your band really needs to perform well. We've been plunged into darkness so many times onstage by relying on the lighting that's been there at the time. Another reason for taking our own stage around was really to get our own equipment set up in one place and have it set at each stage all the time till we go on. There's a lot of complicated electronics involved, and they all need very careful tuning. If they're moved before a performance, anything can go wrong; a lead can come out and cause a delay. So taking our stage around with us with the front curtaining was the only answer.

BBC: Right. Well, let's have more music, and it's back to the piano.

KE: Yeah, the next favorite of mine is George Shearing. He might sound quite a bit old fashioned, but I saw him play in Chicago, and on the second time I took Carl along as well, and George Shearing's a really, really great person. I was introduced to him at the club, we had a brief conversation at the end of which I asked him to play this next number, and he said "sure, which version do you want, the trio or the quartet?" Now most jazz musicians who fall into the category of jazz have a bad reputation for disregarding their audience, but George Shearing certainly doesn't. Apparently, he was offered his sight back. It would have involved a simple operation, and a donor, but he turned down the offer; and his lack of vision is certainly made up in his perception of sound. This is George Shearing playing The Beatles' song Yesterday.

MUSIC: Yesterday

BBC: George Shearing Quartet, and Yesterday. You said you saw George in the States, Keith, where exactly did you see him, Chicago, I think you said. Was it a big club?

KE: It's called the London House. It's a club where you can go and you can eat.

BBC: Is it large?

KE: Fairly large, yes, that was, well, a bit bigger than the Marquee.

BBC: Ah. Are you much concerned with the vocal content in your music?

KE: Yes, I am. It took me some time to find out how Greg likes to sing, and what his range is, and everything. Obviously it's hopeless writing outside somebody's range, you've sure got to know that, you know? And after about three years working together I think I can safely say that we know each other pretty well.

BBC: You compose at the piano, I imagine.

KE: Yes, the piano's the instrument I like to compose at, although I do occasionally take manuscript books with me when we're touring and going from one place to another.

BBC: What about the lyric side of your work?

KE: Well, I can't get involved in that, so I get no sort of inspiration from lyrics. I've tried writing them, but they always come out pretty disastrous. That's Greg's job, he's very good.

BBC: Tell us about your record company that you've recently started.

KE: Manticore, yeah. It was started about six months ago. We had very many bands introduced to us; an Italian band called PFM which we thought were really good and people should hear this band. And there were two others. We decided to just form a record company and get this music out so people could hear it. We take an active concern in where they play, when they play, and Greg has involved himself in producing some of them.

BBC: Are you personally involved with any of them?

KE: I don't get too involved with the business side of it. Occasionally I do. But I like to concentrate my output on writing music.

BBC: You've been described from time to time as the "ultimate loner." Is this true?

KE: (laughs) I don't know. I can't see myself as other people see me.

BBC: No, well, what I'm getting at is do you have a very active social life?

KE: Not really, no.

BBC: So it's probably true.

KE: Yes, it could be true. It's pretty deserted down in Suffolk.

BBC: I'm sure it is. What do you look to for your kicks, aside from music, if anything?

KE: Flying...

BBC: Oh, you pilot?

KE: Yes, I'm going for my PPL. Private Pilot's License. Clay pigeon shooting, water skiing, motorcycling...

BBC: Ah! Now then, how long has that been a passion?

KE: Ah! (laughs) About a year.

BBC: What do you like about it?

KE: Well, it's become a necessity, really, for me to get around London quickly. I get very screwed up sitting in traffic jams, and the bike is one quick way of getting around.

BBC: Yeah. The speed appeals to you too, does it?

KE: Yes, yes, very much.

BBC: On the flying, then, you presumably have flown solo already, haven't you?

KE: Yes, I've done about eighteen hours solo.

BBC: Do you aim to get a plane?

KE: Yeah, that's my intention, so I sort of go to concerts a bit quicker.

BBC: You will use it seriously?

KE: Oh yeah! yeah.

BBC: Hey, how about that? Right... Back to the music, and a rather short clip coming up, I think.
KE: Oh yeah, this is from The Well Tempered Synthesizer and Wendy Carlos, playing Sonata in D Major by Scarlatti.

MUSIC: Sonata in D Major

BBC: Yeah. Short, but I must say I love that one, it's always been a favorite of mine. How long have you been using a synthesizer yourself?

KE: The first time I used it was with the Nice, in a concert involving the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and I had Mike Vickers to program it; Mike Vickers is with Manfred Mann; uh, he just left them. And he was huddled down behind the instrument and tuning it and tweaking all the knobs, and at the start of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, I wrote to Bob Moog and got him to send over one of his new contraptions, and since then, well he's just been modifying it all the time. I've just come back from the Moog factory, actually.

BBC: Oh yeah? Is it possible to explain simply and basically really how the thing works?

KE: It would take a long time.

BBC: It would...

KE: It's a way of controlling voltage. The sound is made by an oscillator, of which you can get a variety of waves, a sawtooth, a sine wave, whatever, and then, by means of a jack plug, you take that output signal and put it into another module, such as an envelope generator, which would control the attack time and the sustain and decay. There's other things, the fixed filters, but quite simply, it's a way of controlling voltage.

BBC: Right. It can be programmed in an infinite number of ways, I imagine...

KE: It's got quite an endless amount of tone variety.

BBC: On your recent visit to the factory, are there any new developments?

KE: Yes, there's a lot more with the synthesizer which has got to be invented to make it more useable for stage performance. One of the things they've just come up with is the polyphonic keyboard.

BBC: That's something that you've talked about in the past because you've multitracked it on record.

KE: Yeah, that's right. It's an obvious progression for the synthesizer, and it's a hang up having something which is monophonic and using it on stage.

BBC: Yeah, great. Alright, what shall we hear next on your album?

KE: What we got here then? (laughs) Song for the Bearded Lady by Nucleus.

BBC: Right, okay, here it comes.

MUSIC: Song for the Bearded Lady (4 minute excerpt)

BBC: Well, I'd hope that'd be enough; that's from the Nucleus album called We'll Talk About It Later. We'll talk about it now, if we may, why did you choose that, Keith?

KE: I think it's a good example of British jazz musicians having got out of the rut that British jazz was in for a time and doing something together which has been accepted on a wider field.

BBC: It's been suggested that of late ELP have struck a sort of less productive area than they've been in in the past, do you agree with that? Less creative, perhaps, is a better word.

KE: Less creative? Oh, I wouldn't say that.

BBC: I mean have you found ideas drying up at all on the composing side, because of the pressure of work?

KE: Well, it's very natural to get these drying-up periods anyway. We're finding that we're getting very self-critical about what we've put out. Our last album, Trilogy, was, I think released about a year ago, and we're right now in the stages of getting out our next album.

BBC: And did it take longer than previous albums had done?

KE: It is, but I think it's for the good. I'm really pleased with what we're doing now.

BBC: We can look forward to some new ideas, new sounds on it, can we?

KE: Oh, most definitely, yeah.

BBC: Without giving anything away, what are the immediate plans for ELP. Are you going to tour at all, again?

KE: Yes. There's nothing definite, nothing official. We've got plans to play England and America.

BBC: I know a lot of people are looking forward to you doing concerts here in England. Would it have to be in some enormous venue? I suppose it would.

KE: Yes, there's only a which come to mind. But otherwise, play in a place for about a week, a smaller place.

BBC: Would that be possible, I mean you would consider that?

KE: I think so, yes. It makes more sense to play a place for a week rather than just do a big place once. I mean, you've got more control over acoustics in smaller buildings.

BBC: Yeah. Are you going back to Japan?

KE: Yes, we're getting that arranged as well. We were there about a year ago.

BBC: There were minor hassles over that last trip, weren't there?

KE: There were a few, yeah. We played in a typhoon in Tokyo...

BBC: That's a minor hassle.

KE: ...and had a riot in Osaka.

BBC: Oh. Well, but you'll still go back.

KE: Yeah.

BBC: Well, it's obviously still an active scene for you. All too soon we've come to the end of this Top Twelve album. At least we've got one track to go. So, what have you chosen to close it, Keith?

KE: This is an acoustic guitar player, actually, away from keyboards. I was introduced to this guitarist by Ronnie Wood from Faces. When we were in the States, I heard that this guy was playing down in Greenwich Village and I went down and I caught one of his shows, and he really is a fine guitar player, named Leo Kottke, and the track I'd like to finish up with is Stealing from the Leo Kottke album Mudlark.

MUSIC: Stealing

BBC: And that's Leo Kottke. I believe you said to me that you've tried to bring him over to this country, didn't you, Keith?

KE: Yes, we did, we had some negotiations with his manager, but there were a few hassles, I don't know, I think that he'd been given an offer by a university to teach his style of guitar playing. But he has been here, since that time he's played in London, but not enough concerts to my mind.

BBC: No, indeed; tremendous talent. As a final word, do you yourself play any instruments apart from those that you play onstage?

KE: (laughs) Japanese knee trumpet?

BBC: Well, it's a thought? (laughs)

KE: No, I've tried playing guitar, but (laughs) I can't get into that at all.

BBC: So it's keyboards all down the line?

KE: Yeah, yeah.

BBC: Well, thank you once again for a tremendously fascinating selection of records and twelve tracks that no one else has chosen and all of which were wonderful to listen to. Keith Emerson, thank you very much indeed.

KE: Thank you.

BBC: And that wraps up another edition of My Top Twelve.

Emerson Unmasked

The Runner

Keith Emerson's Top Twelve

Welcome