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His most bad ass vocal moment ...

Greg Lake turns 63 today. He's probably best known as the "L" from ELP (That's Emerson, Lake and Palmer, as every school boy knows).

I sometimes wonder what ELP songs they'd actually play on so-called classic rock stations if it were not for those Lake wrote ("Lucky Man," "Still... You Turn me On," "In the Beginning" and—as soon as it's five minutes past Halloween—"I Believe in Father Christmas"). I think of his vocals as deep, sonorous and unwavering. His Wikepedia entry calls his vocals "soulful." That's like saying a cup of coffee has a "rich" flavor. Sounds good, but what exactly does it mean? If it means "conveying strong emotion," which seems logical enough, I think Lake's voice, while entirely up to the task of (and fitting for) most of the songs I've heard him sing, is about as "soulful" as a piece of unpainted lumber.

But on one of the best songs from King Crimson's debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, Lake's voice, admittedly with the help of mucho distortion, takes on a surpisingly different shade becoming at once squelched yet powerfully angry. If  you're a progressive rock fan and find yourself in an argument with someone who thinks all prog rock sounds pussified, this would be the tune to whip out of your back pocket to end that debate.

In addition to singing and playing bass for King Crimson's first LP, Robert Fripp convinced Lake to sing on the second LP, In the Wake of Poseidon, even though he was well underway with forming ELP by then. Many happy returns to Mr. Lake. All is forgiven for that Asia crap.

Emerson (Keith, not Ralph Waldo) saw this as "the first ever instrumental protest song."

Happy Birthday to Keith Noel Emerson who today turns 65 and is best known for his keyboard and Moog pyrotechnics when he was the "E" in ELP. But before that he was backing the fantastic (and, here in States, underloved) vocalist P.P. Arnold along with three other gents who would eventually become The Nice, a band that belonged to the first wave of UK Prog Rockers. Their second single was a take on Leonard Bernstein's America, from Westside Story (with some uncredited Dvorak thrown in the mix). The hard to hear words that the little kid speaks at the end are this: "America is present with promises and anticipation, but is murdered by the hand of the inevitable." Unspecific but not inappropriate words that haven't exactly aged beyond application in 41 years time.