ELEGY

Recently remastered minus the Emerliststavjack tracks. It sounds so much better than the Virgin cd. No it wasn't the flagship Hammond C3 that Emerson abused, it was the smaller L100 spinet. Also he used a microphone to tap the piano strings and rub along them. So the album? A sweep up of left over and rehearsal tracks that were released after the Nice had disbanded. Mixed by among others Lee Jackson, hence the loud bass. Hang on to a dream is a nice find and trots along nicely with some nice improv from Emo, including a snatch of Summertime. My back pages sounded awful on the Virgin cd, but is cleaned up a treat here, but still a minor track, strating with piano then moving to Hammond. Side 2 is a run through of the track for 5 bridges minus the orchestra, interesting but not very different. America is the diamond. Lots of organ trashing and a full speed run trough the main riff. The energy is similar to the version of Rondo 69 on the third lp. Lots of clangers effects achived by turning the organ on and off. The Hammond tone wheels were driven by a motor that slowed down when the organ was turned off and took a while to regain a constant sped, hence the wails and whoops. The whole thing ends with an almighty crash and Emo running his nails along the reverb springs. Patchy then, but worth it for America