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JD View Drop Down
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Points: 18446 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2016 at 16:45
Just saw this from the Yes home page from Rick. Not to flog the proverbial horse.

Health wise I’m heading in the right direction which is great as the current working hours are very demanding. We have the band recordings coming up as well as the orchestra and choir to do and then it’s flat out to prepare for the O2.

Next month’s GORR will be very detailed and hopefully will be full of good news as this year has been seriously blighted with so many sad losses, none more so that losing my dear friend Keith Emerson in such tragic circumstances. It has made me realise that sometimes the pressure can truly get too much and often or not we as musicians have nowhere to turn. Having had both a mental and clinical breakdown, I do know where these dark places are, but I was lucky enough to be offered help. I wish this help had been available to Keith. It is an area that seriously needs addressing.

Please have a wonderful Easter.......with my restricted eating allowance I am allowed one miniature white chocolate egg...........and thanks for all who pledged for the album, we have reached our initial target but hope that the pledges continue to roll in to help produce this special dream of an 85 minute King Arthur!

Cheers,
Ric

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Points: 28059 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 17 2016 at 09:49

Emerson is my lifelong hero so it was a real blow to hear these news. Really not many like him and in my eyes on a par with the likes of Bowie , Hendrix, Moon etc .

RIP Keith
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Points: 18446 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 17 2016 at 06:50
Tuesday night's Stephen Colbert had the LA Philharmonic on and they played Fanfare for the Common man, although there was no mention of Emerson I also thought it was a quite salute to my hero.
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Points: 1420 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 17 2016 at 06:48
I tried suicide many times since 7 YEARS OLD! My brain do not produce seratonin. That's quite hard, I live my life on medicine. Two days without some pills and I can't get off the bed. But if you talk to me personally, watch my sarcastic posts or listen to my music you will think I'm just a super happy guy with a weird kind of humor. That's why depression can only be seen by closest friends mostly. And still today, people don't believe in depression. In my case, it's a permanent lack of a certain hormone, but anyone could develop a strong depression. When I was young my father thought it was just a child's dissimulation. If my mother didn't treat me I would never reach today. 

Edited by VOTOMS - March 17 2016 at 06:48
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Points: 356 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 23:30
I was listening to the classical radio station yesterday and they played Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. I took it as unintentional tribute to Keith Emerson.
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Points: 13634 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 16:12
Originally posted by JD JD wrote:

^You just about brought a tear to my eye. Well said. Clap


Yes, that was a nice post
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JD View Drop Down
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Points: 18446 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 15:39
^You just about brought a tear to my eye. Well said. Clap
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Points: 3664 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 15:37
It's (seemingly) easy to generalise about depression but ultimately its baffling even to one's closest friends and work colleagues as every sufferer's experience is deeply personal and different. It locks you into a world and a mindset that even your closest friends and family can find extremely exasperating and difficult in keeping patience with. I (i'm sure like many who use this site) have suffered from depression and it when outside of it, its baffling to me.. ive also counselled and supported friends and family who have experienced it. Seeing the gradual loss of a physical faculty or the sudden shock of an major illness can trigger a wider, more profound, sense of ones mortality.

Woolly Wolstenholme, battled for years in a strong, dignified way against his depression and i'm sure it was the same for Keith. But knowing how it is and can be makes me want to reiterate the word 'dignified'.. the everyday struggle to retain your pride, keep your head up and face the world, particularly as a performer.

RIP Keith and a glass raised in Woolly's memory.

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Points: 5482 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 15:04
From Rick Wakeman's web site:
 
"Keith and I always got on great and had tried on numerous occasions to produce an album together, but it never happened because of third parties interfering, which upset us both. We did jam together on a couple of occasions and knew we could have produced something quite special, but sadly that was never to be."
 
That was the concert I always dreamed of. 
Wakeman and Emerson together would create a lifetime's worth of eargasms.
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Points: 995 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 14:39
Other excerpts from the same interview might do for a reply :

 Lake did his best to help his friend – “when you’re close you always hope tomorrow will be better” – but eventually he became “impossible” to work with. 

"Also, Keith got into substance abuse, which made it worse and the whole thing just spiralled."

Of course the reading of the interview itself is recommended...
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Points: 4596 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 14:27
Originally posted by JD JD wrote:

God I don't want to turn this into a battle, but Greg's comments seem a little dismissive to me.

GL
"I saw someone who became increasingly confused, desperate and depressed."

And did what exactly? Did he reach out, did he work with Keith's family or management team to start a dialogue, get him the help and support he needed?

GL
"but a lot of people are given bad news like that, and you don't take your life because of it"

Again, misinformed or ignorant of the disease.
I just wish people would open there eyes and minds to what depression is really about.
 

Well said.  My 1st reaction to Greg's words was about the same as yours.  Truth be told, he says he was aware of Keith's decline beginning in 1977, but none of us know for sure if he ever tried to reach out and help Keith and how that might have played out, but his quotes do seem...well...cold.  I'm afraid Greg comes off like those who look down on people suffering with depression and are content to stand by and watch them drown rather than taking the initiative and offering a helping hand.  Another sad chapter to this story.
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Points: 441 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 14:02
Originally posted by kenethlevine kenethlevine wrote:

similar story with a very respected keyboard player Woolly Wolstenholme of Barclay James Harvest who took his life about 5 years ago after battling depression for decades.  It's a disease and sometimes the sufferer succumbs to it.  Very sad.

For me it came as a very big surprise as well. John Lees´ BJH Live Shepherds Bush, 2006 DVD shows a very happy, actually very funny even hilarious Woolly introducing the band and other funny comments during the show. His referring to The Who in a very positive sense was priceless. I madly laughed aloud !

And then such a crazy funny guy took his life, maybe a few weeks later, I heard many years afterwards. Devastating news.
Stuart Wolstenholme is the Man of the Mighty Mellotron, because he never abandoned it with BJH. A pioneer second to none. RIP Woolly and thanks for your beautiful music, the very finest from BJH 
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Points: 17194 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 12:31
 
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Points: 17194 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 12:22
Originally posted by Big Kid Josie Big Kid Josie wrote:

Boy, this one hits hard...I feel about ELP like a lot of you guys do about Genesis, Porcupine Tree, Dream Theatre, Le Orme or whatever your favorite prog band is.  This news is just devastating.  It's sad that Keith felt driven to such a tragic end by the fact that he felt he could no longer play keyboards up to the standard that he and his fans expected, per his girlfriend.  In my opinion, ELP's first 6 albums (the debut, Pictures, Tarkus, Trilogy, Brain Salad, and Welcome Back) are freakin' landmarks of the prog genre.  They helped to define for people what prog was, uniting classical with rock, developing the Moog sound, and showing that prog could be as entertaining and popular as blues-based hard rock (at least in the 70's).  They constantly pushed the boundaries of what music could do.  Emerson was one of, if not the best (and Keyboard magazine polls would argue he was the best), keyboard players in all of rock.  Listen to Hoedown off of the Welcome Back live album and you'll be amazed at his speed and dexterity.  When I replay some of their greatest works---Take A Pebble, Knife Edge, Tarkus, Pictures, Endless Enigma, Trilogy, Karn Evil 9, and Toccata---I am struck anew by just how damn good  he was.  Not to mention how ahead of his time he was, with the Nice and Ars Longa Vita Breva and Five Bridges.  ELP caught a lot of crap from critics about being pretentious, etc...Man, we could use some pretentiousness like that on the music scene nowadays!
 
Love him or hate him, you cannot deny the man's talent as a composer, keyboardist and composer...RIP, Keith.  Grab that heavenly organ and rip off a few solos with Jimi, Chris, and the boys...
 
Same here. Keith was part of a band that successfully put keyboards at the forefront of an aggressive rock trio — no guitarist necessary. Organ, piano, clavinet, Moog. Keith, Carl, Greg. There you go. Nothing vanilla about ELP. They were three of the best players, and Keith was the #1 guy for a lot of people when it came to keyboardists.
 
This may shock a few of you (or not), but I like the Emerson, Lake & Powell album a lot, too. I always have. ELP, along with Tangerine Dream, convinced me early on that keyboards do work front-and-center in a rock context!
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JD View Drop Down
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Points: 18446 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 12:02
God I don't want to turn this into a battle, but Greg's comments seem a little dismissive to me.

GL
If Keith had taken that path, he might still be here today."

Like it was Keith responsibility to take action. WRONG.

GL
"
I saw someone who became increasingly confused, desperate and depressed."

And did what exactly? Did he reach out, did he work with Keith's family or management team to start a dialogue, get him the help and support he needed?

GL
"but a lot of people are given bad news like that, and you don't take your life because of it"

Again, misinformed or ignorant of the disease.
I just wish people would open there eyes and minds to what depression is really about.

'nough said.
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Points: 8952 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 11:37
similar story with a very respected keyboard player Woolly Wolstenholme of Barclay James Harvest who took his life about 5 years ago after battling depression for decades.  It's a disease and sometimes the sufferer succumbs to it.  Very sad.
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Points: 4596 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 11:11
Just saw Greg Lake quoted in an article on Ultimate Guitar.  I would add to Greg's plea for anyone having depression symptoms to get help, that if you know someone who's showing signs of depression, don't wait for them to crash and burn, offer them your hand first.  If someone around Keith would have been proactive, he could still be with us today.

Link here:

***************************************************************************************
Late Keith Emerson's ELP bandmate, Mr. Greg Lake, said the keyboardist's suicide didn't come as a major shock to him, explaining how the tragedy began brewing many years ago.

Lake tells Express: "I have to be honest and say his death didn't come as a shock to me.

"The situation with Keith didn't happen suddenly - it has been developed from as far back as[1977's] 'The Works Vol. 1' album. At that point I began to see things happening with Keith which didn't look or feel right."

He added: "It's very difficult to describe what depression is. We all know what it looks like. People's moods become very black. But it's more complicated. It changes someone's personality.

"He lived, in the end, this very lonely existence of someone who was deeply troubled. I saw someone who became increasingly confused, desperate and depressed."

Asked to comment on Emerson's girlfriend's statement about how the musician was "tormented with worry" as a degenerative disease affected his playing ability, Lake noted:

"I'm sure that was a component - but a lot of people are given bad news like that, and you don't take your life because of it. If anyone does have feelings of being so desperate that they think it's better off not to wake up tomorrow, please talk to somebody. The doctor, your friend, anybody.

"Talk to them and tell them what state you're in. If Keith had taken that path, he might still be here today."


Edited by The.Crimson.King - March 16 2016 at 11:16
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JD View Drop Down
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Points: 18446 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 10:37
Just saw this update.

A coroner's official says the death of keyboardist Keith Emerson, co-founder of the seminal progressive rock group Emerson, Lake and Palmer, has been ruled a suicide.

Los Angeles coroner's spokesman Ed Winter said Tuesday the determination was made after an autopsy showed Emerson shot himself in the head. He says there were also signs the 71-year-old man had a heart condition.

Emerson's body was found early Friday by his longtime partner.

Authorities suspected Emerson shot himself but the determination did not become official until after the autopsy.
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Points: 7951 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 09:51
Oh my gosh! Just seeing this. Been on the site, but I hadn't looked at the Prog Lounge for awhile. Devastating. We've lost a true virtuoso.
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Points: 1823 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 07:11
This is terrible.

It's so hard to believe that he didn't realise how much people loved his music.
It wouldn't matter if he'd never played another note, he'll always be a legend.

Very sad.


Edited by Bob Greece - March 16 2016 at 07:12


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