Greg Lake

Known only by many for the bitter sweet1975 Christmas hit, I Believe In Father Christmas, Greg Lake had already long been recognised as one of rock music's greatest bass players, singers. producers and composers with several of progressive rock's biggest bands, including King Crimson, ELP and Asia. From Poole in Dorset in the south west of England, he first started collaborating in various experimental groups with his schoolfriend, guitarist Robert Fripp, subsequently joining his band King Crimson, for whom he played bass, sang lead vocals and wrote lyrics. His reputation swiftly grew with the success of the band's debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King, which he also produced, but within a year he'd left to form the progressive rock supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer with keyboardist Keith Emerson and drummer Carl Palmer. Their blend of classical influences with blues rhythms made them one of the biggest bands of the late 1960s/early 1970s via ambitious albums Pictures At An Exhibition, Tarkus, Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery. Referencing the music of the classical composer Sergei Prokoviev, Lake released I Believe In Father Christmas as a solo single in 1975 and it reached Number 2 in the UK's Christmas chart, although he later re-recorded it with ELP on the Works 2 album. A financially disastrous tour led to the break-up of the band, after which Lake joined another rock supergroup Asia, while releasing the solo albums Greg Lake (1981) and Manoeuvres (1983). In 1986 he reunited with Keith Emerson to form Emerson, Lake & Powell, with Cozy Powell on drums, although the original ELP re-formed for a period in the 1990s and again in 2010. Lake has also toured with Ringo Starr's All Starr Band and with his own band and - in an unusual concert in New York in 2006 - played with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

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