Carl Frederik Kendall Palmer was born on March 20,1950 in Birmingham, England. His upbringing was far from smooth, his real father passed away when Carl was only two years old. Raised by his step father in a very music minded family, Carl Palmer received his first drum on his 10th birthday and thus began a 60-year career that has seen Carl appear on a staggering 50 million selling albums.
Now, BMG are proud to bring together Carl’s impressive career across a 3CD and 1xBlu-Ray box set featuring music and visuals from the Carl Palmer Band, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Asia and various other Carl Palmer affiliated bands & artists among them - The Craig, Chris Farlowe, Atomic Rooster and Mike Oldfield. The Blu-Ray disc, The Rhythm of Life, is an audio-visual documentary, narrated by Carl Palmer with live & exclusive behind-the-scenes footage featuring: ELP, Asia, Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Carl Palmer Band & ELP Legacy. Also included is a 200-page autobiography which is wonderfully illustrated with photos from Carl’s personal archive.
Growing up in 1960s Birmingham to a soundtrack of Elvis, Gene Krupa, Dave Brubeck and Buddy Rich, it was a really innovative and exciting time for young Carl. He joined his first band The King Bees when he was just 15 and, after renaming themselves The Craig, Carl got his first taste of chart success with the explosive freakbeat single "I Must Be Mad" which thankfully appears in this collection. From that point on, Carl never looked back and after stints with Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Atomic Rooster which Carl founded with Vincent Crane, in 1970 he joined forces with the Nice’s Keith Emerson and King Crimson’s Greg Lake and ELP were born. ELP ruled the 1970s with classic albums such as Tarkus and Works, but the trio stopped working together in 1979. Carl then went on to form yet another supergroup, this time joining forces with Steve Howe and Geoff Downes of YES alongside King Crimson’s John Wetton to form Asia. Asia scored big with huge selling tunes such as "Heat of The Moment" the ruled the FM airwaves and the then newly launched MTV.
After his success with Asia, Carl reunited with Keith Emerson and with vocalist Robert Berry under the name ‘3’ and two of their songs, "Desda La Vida" and a prog-pop version of the Byrds’ psychedelic classic "Eight Miles High" also appear in this collection. In 1992, ELP reunited for three albums and several tours before making their final live appearance at the 2010 High Voltage Festival held in front of 30,000 adoring fans in London’s Victoria Park.
Between 2001 and 2021, Carl Palmer has played in his own trio with Paul Bielatowicz on guitar and Simon Fitzpatrick on bass/Chapman stick. Under the name ELP Legacy they have continued to reinvent the ground-breaking work of ELP which features throughout Disc 3.
Carl Palmer is currently on tour in the US, with the acclaimed "Return Of Emerson Lake & Palmer" show, which combines rare footage of Keith Emerson and Greg Lake from ELP’s 1992 Royal Albert Hall shows with Palmer and his Legacy band live on stage all playing together. Tickets available here, and hopes to bring it to the UK and other countries in the near future.
As Carl Palmer approaches his 74th birthday, he shows no sign of resting on his laurels. Aside from all his ELP related work, Carl continues to make innovative art through his Carl Palmer ‘Art Of Giving’ foundation, raising large sums of money for charity in the process. This fine collection is everything you need to know about the boy from Birmingham who rose to the very top through hard work and dedication to his craft. A true Fanfare For The Common Man.
To pre-order the Fanfare For The Common Man box set, and view the complete tracklisting, head here.
(Photo - Bruce Pilato)
