Endless Enigma: A Musical Biography of Emerson, Lake and Palmer (review)

Endless Enigma: A Musical Biography of Emerson, Lake and Palmer by Edward Macan must rate as one of the most substantive and meticulous critical biographies of a rock band ever written. The work represents an enormous scholarly effort that examines this influential and often polarizing band from a myriad of perspectives and in intricate detail.

Author of the well-known Rocking The Classics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), Macan situates his book in the context of several recent critical studies of progressive rock including Paul Stump's The Music's All That Matters: A History of Progressive Rock (London: Quartet Books, 1997), Bill Martin's Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1998), and the book edited by Kevin Holm-Hudson, Progressive Rock Reconsidered (New York: Routledge, 2002). He also places his work in relation to several recent biographical studies dedicated to Emerson, Lake and Palmer (hereafter ELP), notably Emerson Lake and Palmer: The Show That Never Ends by George Forrester, Martyn Hanson and Frank Askew (London: Helter Skelter, 2001) and Keith Emerson's autobiography Pictures of an Exhibitionist (London: John Blake, 2003).

Macan's goals for his book are clearly delineated in his introduction. In addition to providing a "comprehensive biography of the band," he endeavors to provide "a comprehensive critical survey of the recorded output of ELP ... and to undertake an analysis of the band's music,... lyrics, and cover art ... [that] considers the band's aesthetic and philosophical worldview" (p. xxix). While these substantial objectives are well met, the larger question that Macan tries to address, and the enigma to which the title refers, is "how could a band that was so influential between 1970 and 1977 ... self destruct so spectacularly so quickly?" (p. xxxii) Macan finds the answer in the deteriorating interpersonal chemistry within the band but also provocatively claims that their decline was precipitated when Keith Emerson began emulating Copland's musical "graceful" aesthetic instead of Bartók and Ginastera's "Muscular style" (p. 651).

Largely constructed out of secondary source materials, the first three chapters of the book consist of detailed biographies of each band member. Macan narrates Emerson, Lake and Palmer's lives from childhood days, through early band experiences up to the formation of ELP. For example, there is a detailed summary of each of Keith Emerson's bands that led to ELP, including his stints in the T-Bones, The VIPs and, most importantly, The Nice, the group which formed the most immediate precursor to ELP. Macan gives a thorough account of the four albums released by the Nice and their early fascination and exploration of classical music and rock crosspollinations. In the chapter on Greg Lake we are similarly led through his early bands including The Shame, and The Gods before a lengthy discussion of his time with King Crimson. What emerges from the study of these early years is the picture of well trained earnest musicians idealistically fascinated by the project of merging both classical and rock styles.

Chapters 4 through 13 consist of a chronological examination of each album released by ELP including digressions into the band's various tours and changing influences. Chapter 4, for example, encompasses the band's first seven months of existence in 1970 with a song-by-song analysis of their first self-titled album. Of note in this discussion is Macan's debunking of the popular belief that "Lucky Man," the most well known song from the album, was included only as an afterthought. Chapter 5 delves into the band's second album, the concept-based Tarkus. Here Macan concentrates on detailing the influence of the music of Alberto Ginastera and Bela Bartók on Keith Emerson's music. Notably, Macan also interprets William Neal's well known cover art as a visual representation of the album's abstract concept of "the conflict between materialist and mystic/Gnostic...