FIRST TIME HEARING Emerson, Lake & Palmer- "Toccata" & "Still...You Turn Me On" (Reaction) 

Wow, these 2 songs couldn't be much more different from each other...yet both showcase the top tier artistic and musical brilliance of this legendary trio... Thanks for watching! 👽

Oh and for a teen girl to give you a fact as I stood right in front of Greg Lake when he was wearing that hippy Indian ses thro shirt I did not miss the fact that that guy had the most incredible voice. Strong when required but honey silk with incredible tone. Just beautiful. I’m so honoured to be among the few still alive who experienced ELP in all their initial glory. My generation lived a blessed musical existence. Unique in its time.

Dos piezas diferentes, misma superbanda. ELP

Carl Palmer one of the greatest drummers of all time he was 23 years old at the time this was done😊

Great comments, thanks Brandon. I'm late in commenting, so I have had the opportunity to read dozens of the comments that accompany this video, and I can only highlight the quality and knowledge in practically all of them. Finally, I will only add that one of the factors that makes this band extraordinary is that in addition to the musical mastery of each of them, they were able to get along (not always without problems), their very different musical ideas to create a work exceptional, varied and unique.

Lake's "Still You Turn Me On" is one of my favorite acoustic songs of the Golden 70's.

Brain Salad Surgery, Obra maestra.

ELP on "Toccata": Keith on composer Alberto Ginastera's reaction: I discussed with him what I'd done, then held my breath and let him listen to it. He played it on a tape recorder, and after the first five or six bars, he switched the tape recorder off and looked across at his wife in sort of disbelief and said, 'Diabolic!' I thought he meant it was diabolical - that it was bad! ... He wound it back to the beginning and played it again. At the end, he said, "That's incredible! You've captured the essence of my music, and nobody's ever done that before.' I didn't know what to say; I could've fallen through the floor. Greg: It was a piece of music conceived to be performed by an orchestra. When you reduce it down to three people, you've got a problem. You can imagine: you've got a percussive element, a melodic element, and a harmonic element. Who carries what to the best advantage? That's the real issue ... Then comes the question of overdubs: you can track and track until you've got a hundred-piece orchestra, but then you come to the question: 'How do we do it live?' So you think, if we're going to make this record, maybe we'd better make it so that we can record it live. You come down to trying to work out an arrangement in which three people can perform a symphony, or a classical piece of music, live. That's the arrangement you end up with. Rock technology is just not yet advanced enough. Maybe some day, but in the meantime I have my 13 keyboards and Carl is working on a set of synthesized drums. - Keith in 1973 Carl: I wanted a whole electronic drum set, which I managed to achieve ... Drum synthesizers didn't exist then, so we hired a guy named Nick Rose from the University of Electronics in London. There were eight little 'cigar box' synthesizers which were preprogrammed ... In the middle of 'Toccata' there's a section with all these 'atmospheric' sounds ... they're actually all being triggered by the drums with a mitigator on the floor where I could have an octave divided, change the sound up or down to each individual sound. Everybody would automatically think it was the keyboard ... so we didn't bother in explaining that, No, they're not. We just let it go, because we were just after creating new sounds and things.

A fantastic drum solo by Carl Palmer in "Toccata".

Nice stuff there Brandon. The studio albums are great but, imo, the live versions blow it away. E.g welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. Acoustic versions of Lucky man, Take a pebble (studio version is great too) & Still you turn me on. Also, The Sage live version on you tube. Don’t forget that Greg was in King Crimson too. His singing was great! Check it out!!

Everyuthing that ELP did is absolutely amazing :) MAster of the MOOG! :)

Nice to get back to ELP! So diverse, you wouldn’t know it was the same band. Tocatta is so complex, what a workout for Keith, and Carl with those many time changes! “Still…” is one I remember hearing a lot back in the day. I didn’t hear either song when I saw ELP back in 1998. You’ll need to add “Fanfare For The Common Man” to your growing list, another epic Keith Emerson workout! A great start to the week 😊

Saw them do these twice in '74. Awesome. Great story behind the Toccata.

ELP... always so great! 🌹🌹♥️

Still...You Turn Me On is a love song to the audience.

I thought I had heard Toccata before but no, not at all what I expected. Love the second one, I think it’s my favorite ELP.

Fantastic job of recreating Toccata. Ginastera endorsed it on the album.

Good choices.

Karn Evil 9. Say no more.

I can see how "Toccata" could not be for some people. Or just prog in general. It is my JAM!! I love the controlled chaos. I love the different sounds and the experimental aspect. ELP are legendary. 💙🎵🎶🎶🎶🎶

Tocatta. Alberto Ginastera's original composition. Gran musico argentino !!!! Gracias Brandon.

So cool that you did these two songs together! They display ELP's greatest strength: masters of contrast! Ginastera is pronounced "Hee-nuh-stare-uh," although Emerson always called him "Jin-us-stare-uh." (The English do that.)

You will see a variation of this comment about 40 times, but Lake singing this at California Jam in '74 is iconic. Chewing gum, performing effortlessly perfect 12-string and vocals for a crowd of hundreds of thousands. This is the stunning, mesmerizing essence of Greg's appeal. I like this analysis of the live footage: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0uOUGVEbdCc.html

What a descriptive and colorful reaction! Thanks for bringing ELP to the public! I got to see them in a double bill with Jethro Tull the headliners. Amazing concert! In an amphitheater overlooking a canyon. A magical place in Eastern Washington. The Gorge at George.

"Still...." Got a lot of FM rock radio air time. Very popular. I don't think I ever heard "Toccata" played on the radio except maybe when the whole album was broadcasted.

Still You Turn Me On sounds fantastic after all these years. Ohhhh what memories.....

"Toccata" always conjures up in my mind images of a mad scientist's castle.

Thanks Brandon for your excellent videos. ELP is one of my favs. A mini orchestra ELP capable of playing literally any type of music. I was lucky enough to see them live. It would be beneficial to play something from Ladies and Gentlemen. An amazing live album .

Loving your channel. All my favourite 70s bands🙂🙂

ELP was my first introduction to Prog (when I was 11 years old), and I'd say they were my first "favorite" group. They were later superseded by Jethro Tull but that doesn't mean I don't still think their music is amazing. Its hard to go wrong with any Prog from the late 60's to the mid 70's. My favs are ELP, Tull, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, and Supertramp, but then there's Mike Oldfield, Gentle Giant, Steve Hackett's solo stuff, Renaissance, Rush and more. I enjoy a lot of different styles of music but Prog has remained my favorite genre for over 50 years! Thanks for the listen and the commentary.

Aye Brandon, another excellent choice of tracks, and another brilliant and entertaining interpretation and evaluation - top-notch in my books! 😎 I know both songs ever since they got published in 1973... I am an absolute sucker for ELPs 'Welcome back'-live triple album, on which quite some songs are even better than the studio versions (they really put work into it before going on tour!). While 'Toccata' is very similar, and either studio or live works well, I do prefer the 'lives' of Greg's ballads 'Still... you turn me on' and 'Lucky Man' - they stripped off them the more sterile sounding technical production, and let voice and guitar fully take over, which makes them more warm and intimate, which fits their essence better - clear winners for me. 💖

From about 6:00 through 7:19 is all Carl, no assistance from Keith or Greg. Probably the first synthesizer percussion. Carl and one of ELP's techs put it together using 8 small synthesizer units triggered by mics placed in various drums. Carl explains it here: ru-vid.comx1ZeOw-kfjA?si=H3tYUuoI_BuN6UNf

When you get to... Karn Evil 9 1st Impression part 2 ...Get it from the Calif. Jam. People think it is overdubbed but it isn't. AND there is a Great intense high speed 5 minute drum solo that will leave you wondering how Carl could go on or even not collapse. but he does with the same intensity. (he is into martial arts ) Studio versions for the rest of the album. I 1st heard ELP when my cousin brought over the Brain Salad Surgery album after attending the CA Jam. We listened to it from start to finish. I was totally amazed as it started out great and just got better and better and better as if that was possible . I am a piano player. (Not that good) and i figure it would take me a year of practice 8 hours a day just to learn part of one of those Great keyboard songs

This album was owned by the big brother of my first girlfriend (I was 16 she was 14) and he let us listen to it. So it has definite sentimental value.

I bought this album a lifetime ago, just for the sleeve work, I played it once...it's not for me, second song was nice though. still got the album sitting in the cabinet..

since my teenage I always had an alien attack interpretation for that song -- I am glad to hear your reaction.

ELP had an inestimable influence on an entire generation of people, bringing them to a love and appreciation of classical and jazz. This was no small feat for the post-Beatles era.

Congratulations you have just heard the 1st ever recorded electric drum solo in ELP's... Toccata ... You can google Carl Palmer's 2 and a half ton steel drum kit that was way too heavy. I call the studio version of Still.. You Turn me On... The WOW WOW song. La Grange is the How How song and Walk of Life Is the whoo hoo song. My brother used to do categories on the jukebox. When he played SRV Voodoo Child i asked him what the category was. Answer..."Dead guitar greats covering dead guitar greats songs."

classical music lives on in prog rock. poetry lives on in grunge.

Toccata is a very special song that I certainly don't want to miss out on; but was it correctly placed on the highly praised album BSS? Still ... You Turn Me On would actually be the right musical change (women's hearts melt, me too), but somehow it's not finished with 3'; I'm missing a musical middle section; that's why I prefer From The Begining. Jerusalem is a cheap intro song and Benny The Bouncer is the standard rag-time from Keith (similar as on Trilogy). For me Karn Evil 9 can't save the whole album. I prefer the Debut and Trilogy; if I'm receptive and need good sound, I'll go on a music tour with Picture At The Exhibition, my 3 ELP highlights.

I tried... Best I say nothing! As one who doesn't rate ELP or Yes, seems I plough a lonely furrow?

The original movement ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ODdh9LyCanY.html

Nope. Sorry Brandon.