Keith Emerson: Virtuoso musician whose work with ELP and the Nice gave him the epithet of 'the Hendrix of the keyboards'

With his stunning sense of theatrics and phenomenal musical skill he was one of the true originals of UK popular music

Emerson on stage with ELP – he was a mesmerising live performer (Rex Features)

Although later weighted down by the hubris of the tours of his supergroup Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Keith Emerson’s live performances in the late 1960s with his previous group The Nice earned him the accolade of “the Hendrix of the keyboards”. The Nice, who blended jazz and classical music into their blues roots were at the time utterly unique, Britain’s first progressive rock group.

Initially the Nice were a four-piece, with Emerson on Hammond organ, Davy O’List on guitar, Lee Jackson on bass and vocals, and Brian “Blinky” Davison on drums – O’List left after their second album. Emerson and Jackson had played together in Gary Farr and the T-Bones, and the keyboardsman had had a stint with the VIPs, soon to become the acclaimed Spooky Tooth.

At first the Nice were looked after by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham who sought a backing group for another of his acts, PP Arnold. Emerson insisted that the Nice be allowed to perform their own sets before playing behind Arnold. Oldham signed them to his Immediate label – to their financial disadvantage, as the label went into bankruptcy.

At the end of 1967 the Nice performed on one of the last and greatest package tours, which also featured Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Move and Amen Corner. Hendrix was sighted filming Emerson’s group with an 8mm camera from the side of the stage.

Due to the energetic ferocity of their bold stage shows and the keyboards-player’s sensational live performances, the group quickly became a staple of the college circuit that developed in the UK in the latter years of the 1960s. Pulling his Hammond organ down on top of himself, playing it from behind, leaping up on it like Jerry Lee Lewis, Emerson was a mesmerising performer. As the set progressed he would stab his Hammond with knives, a theatrical technique for wedging open assorted keys: two of the knives he used, Hitler Youth ceremonial daggers, had been donated by the Nice’s roadie, Lemmy Kilmister, later of Motörhead. “The Nice were in their destructive art period, a term used by Pete Townshend,” Emerson commented later.

A highlight was their version of a semi-psychedelic interpretation of Bernstein’s “America” from West Side Story, sprinkled with elements of Dvorak’s New World Symphony; it became a standard-bearer for the notion that rock and revolution were synonymous: a Stars and Stripes flag would occasionally be set on fire, a protest against the Vietnam war that further fanned an almost hysterical audience response.

Emerson’s choice of music was part of a cultural zeitgeist. Classical composers were popular among those who preferred their popular music in album doses. And JS Bach was especially favoured: accordingly, on Ars Longa Vita Brevis, the second Nice album, an arrangement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 3 was included, as well as a version of Sibelius’s Karelia Suite. But Emerson was still capable of funking up the mix, contributing in 1969 to the first Faces album.

When it was announced in 1970 that the Nice were to split, with Emerson joining King Crimson’s bass-player Greg Lake and Atomic Rooster drummer Carl Palmer, it was to the distress of the group’s sizable UK fanbase – in London they were capable of selling out the Royal Albert Hall. The prospect of the Emerson, Lake and Palmer supergroup – their name frequently trimmed to ELP – held much promise, however.

Almost their first appearance was at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival, which led to their being signed by Ahmet Ertegun to his Atlantic Records. But immediately there was a backlash from a significant quarter: John Peel, a great champion of the Nice, dismissed their performance at the festival as “a waste of talent and electricity”. Many critics soon fell in line, perhaps driven by that sense of hippie Puritanism that also saw much media suspicion about early Led Zeppelin, another act signed by Ertegun for big money.

With part of his sizable Atlantic advance Emerson bought his first Moog synthesiser, and was baffled when it arrived, not knowing how to put it together, bemused there was no instruction book. But he became the first rock artist to tour with such an instrument, although heat often affected the sound. Onstage he continued to also employ both a Hammond organ and conventional piano, unconventionally, however: by the time they were playing the California Jam in 1974 the piano had been lodged into something resembling a fairground ride that whirled about, with Emerson playing it upside down.

ELP’s material was not dissimilar to that of the Nice, although Lake’s vocals were superior to those of Lee Jackson. Pieces by Bach, Bartok and Janacek were all present on their eponymously titled first album, a No 4 hit in the UK and No 18 in the US. Tarkus, its successor, fared even better, and was followed by a budget-priced live interpretation of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, also including “Nutrocker”, a version of Tchaikovsky’s “March of the Toy Soldiers”, originally a hit for B Bumble and the Stingers. The album was Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic.

Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends... Ladies and Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, a triple live album, was released in August 1974, Top 5 in the UK and the US.

It was not until 1977 that ELP released more material, the pair of Works albums. The first record contained a version of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, which reached No 2 in Britain, their biggest ever single. From May 1977 until March 1978 the group embarked on a US tour which lost $3m, largely because of the costs of touring with a full orchestra. Lake and Palmer blamed this loss on Emerson, saying the orchestra had been his idea.

After 1978’s Love Beach album, Emerson, Lake and Palmer split. In 1985 Emerson got back together with Lake, enlisting former Rainbow drummer Cozy Powell to release an album and tour. And in 1991 the original entity of Emerson, Lake and Palmer settled their differences and released a pair of albums, Black Moon and In the Hot Seat. Although Lake departed, Emerson and Palmer played together until 1998; the original ensemble finally reunited in 2010 for a 40th anniversary show in London’s Victoria Park.

ELP were critically detested for much of their career: they were also seized on as one of the principal bêtes noires of punk rockers, seen as a symbol of gratuitous excess. But at their peak they were colossally popular with audiences, on a global scale.

With his stunning sense of theatrics, and phenomenal musical skill and ability, Keith Emerson was one of the true originals of UK popular music. Emerson and former Sex Pistols singer John Lydon both moved to Los Angeles; eventually they met and became friends. “He’s a great bloke,” the former Johnny Rotten said in 2007 of the always self-effacing keyboards-player.

Emerson was born in Todmorden in Yorkshire, to where his family had been evacuated from the south coast during the Second World War, and grew up in Worthing, West Sussex, He took classical piano lessons and joined the Worthing Youth Swing Orchestra then formed his own jazz trio. He took up the Hammond organ and bought his first on hire purchase in his teens. Leaving school he worked for Lloyds Bank, then, after playing in the T-Bones and the VIPs, in 1967, he formed the Nice.

Emerson died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head: he was said to have been suffering from depression over a degenerative nerve issue that hampered his musicianship.

Keith Emerson, musician: born Todmorden, Yorkshire 2 November 1944; married 1969 Elinor (divorced 1994; two sons); partner to Mari Kawaguchi; died Santa Monica, California March 10 2016.