Tag Archives: Greg Lake

Goodbye 2016 (we will not miss you)

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I have been dreading having to write a wrap-up piece about the year 2016. The last post that I made was in November when Leonard Cohen died. Since then, it seems to have been difficult to write anything. It has never been my intention to have my blog look like an obituary column but, it quite often feels like that.

In recent years, I have been reminding people that the musicians whose music we have enjoyed since the ’60s and ’70s are now mainly in their 60s and 70s. That means that the inevitable signs of mortality will surely take hold. This has certainly been the case in 2016.

The year seemed to start off on a high note with a brilliant new release (Blackstar) by David Bowie. However, this event seemed to quickly get overshadowed when Bowie died a couple of days after its release.

The death of Bowie seemed to resonate hard and deep within both the music industry and among his long-time fans. As someone who had been a fan for 45 years, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. This seemed to be a shared experience as many people that I talked to or exchanged messages with appeared to be doing their best to hold back a wellspring of tears. Many tried but did not succeed. The last time that I can honestly recall such a reaction was when John Lennon was brutally gunned down.

But, that was just the start of a year that appeared to be voracious in its appetite to take away so many musicians and music related personalities away from us. It didn’t matter which genre of music was your favourite, the losses touched all aspects of music from rock, pop, R&B, jazz, classical and avant-garde.

Bowie, Cohen and Prince were among the biggest or most influential names for most of the year and then word of the death of George Michael slipped in on Christmas day.

I’ve owned records by many of the people who have passed this year. I’ve seen some of them in concert. I’ve even had the pleasure to meet a couple of them. The sad fact is that as time marches on, more of these people will make the headlines as they continue to leave us. So, let’s enjoy their music while they are still here and continue to honour their memory after they are gone.

Music can make us happy. Music can make us sad. Music can make us think. Music can make us feel how great it is to be alive. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you like, it just matters that it means something to you. Be grateful for that. It is rare.

Here is a very brief list of some of the musicians and music-related people we lost in 2016:

Signe Anderson (Jefferson Airplane)

Gato Barbieri

Paul Bley

Pierre Boulez

David Bowie

Leonard Cohen

Tony Conrad

Keith Emerson

Glenn Frey (Eagles)

Dale Griffin (Mott the Hoople)
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Merle Haggard

Sharon Jones

Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane)

Greg Lake

Neville Marriner

George Martin

George Michael

Scotty Moore

Alphonse Mouzon

Pauline Oliveros

Rick Parfitt (Status Quo)

Prince

Leon Russell

Dave Swarbrick (Fairport Convention)

Rudy Van Gelder

Alan Vega (Suicide)

Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire)

For a much more detailed (and depressing) list of the people that we lost this year, please visit Musicians Who Died in 2016.

47th Anniversary for King Crimson debut LP

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47 years ago today, King Crimson unleashed its debut album in the UK.

I can still recall that the “underground” FM radio stations in the Windsor/Detroit area were quick to jump on it. There seemed to be a great sense of anticipation for when the next airing of 21st Century Schizoid Man would jump out of the stereo speakers. The aggressive metronomic guitar slashes of Robert Fripp’s guitar coupled with the overdriven distorted vocals of Greg Lake seemed to create a tension which made even the previously aired strains of the Velvet Underground’s Sister Ray seem suddenly somehow tame.

When playing the LP, it seemed like a shock to hear the quiet beauty of the following track – I Talk to the Wind. But, such was the mystery and awe inspiring monster that was King Crimson.
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Throughout the rest of the album’s lengthy excursions, this balance of light and dark, loud and quiet, beauty and ugliness was exploited to its fullest extent.

The second most broadcast song was the title track. The use of Ian McDonald’s mellotron seemed to take the sound into the stratosphere. By the end, the listener would inevitably be attempting to put their dropped jaw back into proper facial alignment as well as catch their breath. It was a sound that would literally leave the listener gasping for air.

The sounds of thousands of albums have come since this record was released in 1969. However, extremely few have managed to create such a stunning impact upon first listen and then continue to do so over the years.