A big DGMLive Happy Birthday to Greg Lake today. Born in 1948 and brought up in Oakdale, a working class estate outside of the coastal town of Poole in Dorset.
Greg’s musical development began proper when his mother bought him his first guitar at the age of twelve and guitar lessons at Don Strike’s shop. Strike of course had coached Fripp two years earlier. "He was a good teacher but a bit of a disciplinarian. On my guitar, I had to do these violin exercises by Paganini, which was a weird concoction of music. You were required to read the music, but I always tended to play them by ear. Whenever my eyes would stray from the music score, he'd hit my fingers with a ruler."
Strike’s methods must have toughened Greg’s fingers as in
1965 he formed his own group, Unit Four in which he played guitar and sang, an
early fan of which was Robert.
Greg
remembered “"Fripp used to come along and check me out. He used to jump over the wall at clubs
because he couldn't afford to get in and he would come along and watch me, and
at the end of the gigs he would come up and talk and we'd start to chat about
guitar and play a bit and so on.
We discovered that we'd both had the same guitar teacher and we both had similar guitar techniques and we struck up a friendship. I used to go round to Robert's house and we used to play guitar duets in his bedroom and that kind of thing."
By 1967 Lake had developed something of a reputation as a local hotshot and following a brief stint in The Time Checks, Lake helped form The Shame, securing the interest of MGM with a cover of Janis Ian’s “To Old To Go 'Way Little Girl” as their first single.
Fripp roadied for The Shame for a week in Penzance
while waiting for his place in university recalling: “Greg and I spent many
late nights and early mornings with guitars, trying to make teenage sense of
our lives, discussing and planning the future of the world. At the time Greg was one of my closest
friends, and we enjoyed the kind and degree of intimacy which young men with
guitars will easily understand.
It was obvious to those in the playing pool that some of us would go to the professional route and leave Bournemouth, where semi-professional and professional life were virtually the same. It also seemed likely that some of our team would become successful, and some famous. In my circle, Greg Lake was considered one of the front-runners for fame."
It was while Lake was playing in The Gods (alongside future Uriah Heep members) in November 1968 that he received a telephone call offering him a job. The call was quickly followed up by a personal visit from Michael Giles, who drove down to Dorset to see if he liked the cut of Lake’s gib. "Robert stayed in London and I went down to have a talk to Greg. I was very impressed with his physical presence and the sound of his voice. I never saw him play or anything, we just had a meeting"
It was December 1968 and following the departure of
bassist Peter Giles, Lake moved to London
and took up the bass and vocal duties for the fledging, as yet unanamed band
that included Ian McDonald, Michael Giles and Robert Fripp. Initial rehearsals took place in Brondesbury
Road and the difference in the music was
immediate. "I couldn’t sing like
that, Robert couldn’t sing at all, Peter couldn’t sing like that” recalls
Michael Giles. “None of us had that sound or power."
It’s not easy assessing the contribution each member made to
the band that became King Crimson, but the acquisition of Greg
Lake was the last chance for a
group of musicians who at the time were going nowhere fast.
Possessed of an awe-inspiring, majestic voice more than equal to the instrumental blood and thunder around him, he capable of soaring over it with impressive ease.
A seasoned, confident front man he was blessed with a copper-bottomed playing style, albeit not always suited to the improvisatory side, he was essential in giving Crimson much of the onstage charisma which wowed the crowds and critics alike.
Though Lake would enjoy greater commercial success as one third of ELP he is in doubt about the importance of the group he helped to found. "King Crimson had this strange blend of personalities and the net result of it was music that was dangerous and passionate. These elements in combination I think are probably the most fascinating in music. Where there's a passion the music is always living on the edge, where there aren't any rules and certainly not rules which are obeyed. It was a very special band."
