ELP Underrated?

In the mid to late 80s I remember a program called For Headphones only on WMMR in Philadelphia that played music that sounded good with headphones. It wasn't strictly prog but a lot of it was. 

Then in the late 80s I remember Ed Sciaky from WYSP had a show called the Progressive Music show which I believe was usually on Sunday nights. He played music from "the progressive era" although JA's "embryonic journey" was the theme music (opening and closing). I don't remember him going really, really deep but I do remember him mentioning Camel and I do remember him playing Renaissance. At that time most people weren't aware of any contemporary bands so this was all late 60s and 70s stuff. 

Maybe. 

Philadelphia was also one of the biggest places for Yes. Yes were huge in Philadelphia. However, you wouldn't know that now because these days the local classic rock station really only plays "owner of a lonely heart" and maybe very occasionally something else (probably usually roundabout).

Maybe it depends on where you live. In the Philadelphia area (where I live), which is suppose to be this big prog town, I never hear them on the classic rock stations and over the past few years I've been looking at their play list and to be honest I can't remember the last time I've seen them listed (let alone heard them) on there. I'm not saying nobody plays them but it just seems like they have been mostly forgotten by most. GG, VDGG and Camel were never really on anyone's radar (not counting prog fans) to begin with so it's not like they are forgotten since they were never rermembered. Anyway, of course I was referring to prog fans when mentioning them. 

I just looked at spotify and it appears that King Crimson have more listeners than ELP does (KC around 900,000 and ELP with 690,000). King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have more than both. ;)

I agree with a lot of this of course. Memoirs Of An Officer And A Gentleman was still Keith writing music in a symphonic vein and after ELP split he continued working working with noted orchestral conductor Godfrey Salmon for his first 2 solo albums. In fact his first 3 solo albums all featured orchestra. Emerson, Lake and Powell (although I'm not a fan in all honesty) was a genuine attempt to resurrect ''prog'' in its original form and no one else out there was trying to do that back in 1986. Unfortunately though another falling out with Lake lead to the truly awful Emerson, Berry and Palmer project (known as '3 to the power of 3' although they played at the Atlantic anniversary bash around 1988 calling themselves 'Emerson and Palmer', Robert Berry was a spare wheel by all acounts lol). I enjoyed ELP's reunion album Black Moon and saw them on that tour in 1993, they were really good (let's not mention that Harvey Weinstein was also a fan and his company did the promotion). In The Hot Seat was a sh*t show sadly beset by carpal tunnel syndrome issues. no good ideas and a record company fast going under. I do like Hand Of Truth , the last ELP track I like a lot and better than anything else on that disastrous album. They then went off to tour South America in 1997 and that was a lot of fun for the,. But another falling between Lake and Emerson lead to then near permanent break up of the band although around 2007 the two of them got back together and did some gigs using a drum machine instead of Carl Palmer. I can only wonder what Carl thought of that! Then ELP did their final and last ever performance at The High Voltage festival in Victoria Park, East London. I was there and they sold out all their XXL t-shirts and played a gig that was nowhere near the glory days of the 70's and they were done. 

In later years Emerson formed a very productive musical relationship with American singer and guitarist Marc Bonilla eventually together recording The Three Fates Project with a German orchestra. You need to hear this as it's very good indeed. Keith Emerson will always remain my hero in music. Are we allowed those? I do hope so. 

Ramble over.