Description
Label Review.
1969 debut album. Also available on CD.
Our Overview.
The first album in the long career of King Crimson: 'In The Court Of The Crimson King' was first released on Island Records on 10th October 1969. The story of the band began in 1967 when brothers Michael and Peter Giles advertised for a "singing organist". Instead, they picked a non-singing guitarist to join instead: Robert Fripp. Giles, Giles and Fripp was born. The band got a deal with Decca offshoot Deram Records and they issued two singles and an album in 1968. 'The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp' was precisely that, the mixture of pop, psych rock, folk, classical and even some spoken word pieces. Fripp reckoned that at the time the album sold only 500 copies.
After this, organist Ian McDonald joined the group and then when bass player / vocalist Peter Giles elected to leave at the end of the year, he was replaced by Greg Lake. Lyricst Pete Sinfield completed the new line-up and he christened the new band 'King Crimson'. They played their first show in front of 500,000 people at the Rolling Stones Hyde Park show in July 1969. This quickly led to a deal with Island Records.
The resulting album only contained five numbers but in the lengthy tracks was a cunning brew of jazz, classical, and folk styles with a bit of heaviness on the opening "21st Century Schizoid Man" which today is seen as a precursor to the grunge sound of the late 80s/early 90s. The whole thing was ultimately lumped in with the burgeoning progressive rock label and today is seen as one of the classics of the genre.
This line-up of the band didn't last long after the release of the album. Fripp had emerged as the de-facto leader of the group and the heavier sound led to Giles and McDonald leaving after their US tour in December 1969, the same tour which saw Lake bond with The Nice's Keith Emerson. Crimson would of course continue but that's another story.