Works Volume I
| Works Volume 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer | ||||
| Released | 17 March 1977 | |||
| Recorded | 1976 | |||
| Studio |
Mountain Studios (Montreux, Switzerland) EMI Studios Paris, France |
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| Genre | Rock, progressive rock, classical, symphonic rock | |||
| Length | 87:23 | |||
| Label | Atlantic | |||
| Producer | Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Carl Palmer, Peter Sinfield | |||
| Emerson, Lake & Palmer chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| Classic Rock | |
| Rolling Stone | (favorable) |
Works Volume 1, is the fifth studio album by the English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released as a double album in March 1977 on Atlantic Records. Following their successful 1974 world tour, the group took a break from recording and touring. They relocated to Montreux, Switzerland and Paris, France to record a new album. Each member was allocated one side of a record to write and arrange their own tracks which were performed by the group. The fourth side features songs written by the entire group. Emerson wrote his Piano Concerto No. 1, Lake wrote several songs with Peter Sinfield, and Palmer picked tracks of varied styles.
The album was the band's first in three-and-a-half years, following the release of Brain Salad Surgery in 1973. However, it was far different from the synthesiser-driven music that most fans had expected and received a mixed reaction from fans and press.
Side 1 is the Keith Emerson side, a concerto for piano and orchestra. Emerson was accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by John Mayer. On the documentary DVD Beyond the Beginning, Greg Lake says that Leonard Bernstein walked into the studio in Paris where this piece was being mixed because Keith wanted Bernstein to listen to it. Bernstein's reaction was: "It reminds me of Grandma Moses".
Side 2 is the Greg Lake side, and consists of acoustic ballads, all of which were written by Lake and Peter Sinfield.
Side 3, the Carl Palmer side, includes a remake of "Tank" (from ELP's eponymous first album), with orchestral accompaniment and without the drum solo. Another track on Palmer's side is the rocker "L.A. Nights", featuring Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh on lead and slide guitar and scat vocal. Also, two arrangements of outside composers' pieces figure on the Palmer side: one of Johann Sebastian Bach's baroque D Minor Invention No. 4, BWV 775, and a piece titled 'The Enemy God Dances With the Black Spirits', an excerpt of the 2nd movement of the "Scythian Suite" by Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953), written in 1915.
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