[2][3] The band consisted of Keith Emerson (keyboards) of The Nice, Greg Lake (vocals, bass, guitars, producer) of King Crimson, and Carl Palmer (drums, percussion) of Atomic Rooster.

With nine RIAA-certified gold record albums in the US,[4] and an estimated 48 million records sold worldwide,[5] they are one of the most popular and commercially successful progressive rock groups of the 1970s,[6][7] with a musical sound including adaptations of classical music with jazz and symphonic rock elements, dominated by Emerson's flamboyant use of the Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer, and piano (although Lake wrote several acoustic songs for the group).

The band's success continued with Pictures at an Exhibition (1971), Trilogy (1972), and Brain Salad Surgery (1973, released on ELP's own Manticore Records label).

By the end of 1969, the Nice keyboardist Keith Emerson and King Crimson bassist/vocalist Greg Lake were looking to leave their respective groups and form a new band.

"[12] When the Nice split in March 1970 and Lake left King Crimson a month later, the pair began the search for a drummer, which turned out to be a difficult process.

[14] As part of auditions for drummers at a studio by Soho Square,[15] Emerson's manager, Tony Stratton Smith, suggested Carl Palmer of Atomic Rooster and previously the Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

[18] Most of the numbers were rock adaptations and arrangements of classical pieces, including: Allegro barbaro by Béla Bartók entitled "The Barbarian", the jazz standard "Blue Rondo à la Turk" by Dave Brubeck entitled "Rondo" that Emerson had recorded with the Nice, "Nut Rocker" as an encore,[20] and Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky that Emerson wanted to do after seeing it performed by an orchestra.

The group wished to enhance their live act, and spent £9,000 on a sound mixer and £4,000 on a Moog modular synthesizer imported from America that was adapted for better performance on stage.

[27] Their second gig took place on 29 August with a set at the Isle of Wight Festival which was attended by an estimated 600,000 people and drew considerable attention from the public and music press.

The album included studio versions of "The Barbarian" and "Take a Pebble", "Knife-Edge", based on the first movement of Sinfonietta by Leoš Janáček and the Allemande of French Suite No.

1 in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, Palmer's drum solo "Tank", the three-part "The Three Fates", and "Lucky Man", an acoustic ballad that Lake wrote when he was twelve.

It features their version of the Mussorgsky suite performed live at Newcastle City Hall on 26 March 1971 plus the concert's encore, "Nut Rocker".

[16] The band refused until Island imported 250,000 copies into the US which quickly sold, helped by radio DJ Scott Muni playing the entire album on WNEW-FM in New York City.

[41] Following dates across Europe, including their first in Italy, the band performed at the Concert 10 Festival at Pocono International Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, on 9 July 1972.

In June 1973, Emerson, Lake & Palmer began recording Brain Salad Surgery in London at Advision and Olympic Studios which lasted until September that year.

1 by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera and contains synthesised percussion in the form of an acoustic drum kit fitted with pick-ups that triggered electronic sounds.

[46] Performances from Anaheim, California, were documented in the live album, Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends ~ Ladies and Gentlemen, released in August 1974 as a triple LP.

One of the two group tracks, "Fanfare for the Common Man", is a cover of the same-titled orchestral piece by Aaron Copland, who gave permission to have the band release it.

Emerson recalled that in order for the group to continue, "we would have to do a lot of cutting down" and considered the possibility of producing music with just a piano, bass guitar, and drums.

[55] Sinfield is credited on the majority of the tracks as a lyricist except "Canario", an instrumental based on Fantasía para un gentilhombre by Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo.

In 1990, former Atlantic Records executive Phil Carson approached Emerson, Lake & Palmer to reunite and produce music for a proposed film.

[62] In the summer of 1994, the band cancelled an upcoming North American and Japanese tour, and the group split for a short period to pursue solo projects.

This was followed by a North American tour in August as openers for Deep Purple and Dream Theater, which included the "Tarkus" suite performed in its entirety for the first time since 1974.

[68] After the tour, friction arose within the group as Lake wanted to relinquish his role as producer on the new album, and blamed the band's recent creative lull on this fact.

[70] In September 2009, Palmer announced that the band had planned to reform earlier in the year, but it had to be pushed back for Emerson to receive medical attention on one of his hands.

"[74] In 2011, Lake said that Emerson and he were open to the idea of more group activity, but acknowledged Palmer's more negative comments to the press shortly before the 40th anniversary concert.

[81] A 2016 retrospective review in Rolling Stone listed "10 Essential Songs by EL&P" and noted, "ELP became one of rock's first supergroups upon forming in 1970…The result was a stretch of albums…that turned prog from a black-light-in-the-basement listening experience into a stadium-filling phenomenon.

At their heart was Emerson, whose eternal quest for a bigger, grander sound (thanks to a bank of organs and synthesizers that grew to resemble a fortress onstage) helped make ELP one of the most accomplished and absorbing bands rock ever birthed.

[87] John Kelman of All About Jazz noted that an "overbearing sense of self-importance turned ELP from one of the 1970s' most exciting new groups into the definition of masturbatory excess and self-aggrandizement in only a few short years.

[91] In an appraisal of the band's legacy, PopMatters journalist Sean Murphy said ELP "wore immoderation like a badge of courage",[92] regardless of whether they were loved or loathed: Here are three words that strike fear in the hearts of all those allergic to prog rock: Emerson.