The Emersons: A family in Music

forever-elp:

If a family were to produce a single talented musician, that is already something worth noting. Sometimes, however, music runs in the blood. The Emersons are one such family, producing four consecutive generations of pianists. 

This is by no means a complete study, but hopefully it will give a little insight into a very remarkable quartet of musicians: Noel Emerson, Keith Emerson, Aaron Emerson, and Ethan Emerson. 

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Noel Emerson

Picture from Keith Emerson’s Pictures of an Exhibitionist.

“My father played piano by ear, and he also played piano accordion,
and his mother was a piano teacher. My father’s side is the most
musical”–Keith Emerson, from 1972-3 BBC radio broadcast, interviewed by Brian Matthew and transcribed by this person.

Keith Emerson’s autobiography features a few references to his father’s musical tendencies. In fact, he even suggests that if not for them, his parents would never have met; her brother introduced the two after working with him in a ballroom dancing group. Meanwhile, his childhood recollections were filled of his father at the accordion or piano, doubtlessly creating no significant inspiration to him. 

Keith Noel Emerson

Keith (supposedly at age 15) playing piano in front of his parents from Pictures of an Exhibitionist.

There has already been so much ink spilled about Keith Emerson. Anything I could say here about his technical skill, creativity, or masterful work at improvisation as he straddled musical genres has already been said far better than I could, but I’ll try my best.

As a player, he mastered jazz, classical, and rock ‘n roll alike, switching between covering such piano standards as Pictures at an Exhibition or Blue Rondo a la Turk, each with a special Emerson flare. His improvisations drew on everything from Bach piano pieces to American folk standards, from national anthems to songs by the Beatles. 

I’m no critic nor professional musician, but I myself know that his work can make my heart soar, and has from the first moment I heard the main theme from Godzilla: Final Wars. In many ways, this piece is emblematic of his body of work, originally the backbone of the unfinished Crossing the Rubicon, based on a theme by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Who but Keith Emerson could create a meeting point between Roman history [1], a Japanese kaiju, a Russian composer, and a synthesizer? Better yet, who could make it work?

Since I’m no pro, I have brought in the words of other professionals. Don Airey of Colosseum II, Deep Purple, Rainbow and many others said that “I´ve always been a great admirer of Keith Emerson,” “Rock players like Keith Emerson when he was with the Nice pretty much said it all” and “I think the heaviest keyboard player is Keith Emerson, his music is standout.” Jon Lord, also formerly of Deep Purple, for his part claimed to have seen Keith throwing his Hammond at a Nice Performance and adapted it for himself. Rick Wakeman’s friendship and admiration has been amply demonstrated in such actions such as his performance at the recent tribute concert. 

And as for inspiration, Keith created that too. Claudio Simonetti remembers him as a hero of his. Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater also cites him as “my number one musical hero who changed the course of my life.” Steve Porcaro similarly credits him as an inspiration for taking up the keyboards. Like a pebble cast into a pond, the ripples Keith’s presence had in this world will continue on. Everyone who has taken him as inspiration, or even turned to one of his successors throughout the musical word, owes him their thanks. 

Oh, and there was another who probably learned a thing or two.

Aaron Emerson

Keith and Aaron Emerson. Photographer unknown

The Emersons are living proof that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! Like his father before him, Aaron Emerson made his way into the music business. 

Aaron himself recalls that “I was introduced to music at a very young age by my father who knew a thing or two about piano playing and was encouraged to learn a progressive rock version of'Chopsticks’ in 7..8 from the age of 5 or 6″ on his Facebook page’s biography. While he began on guitar, it was as if fate had it out for the Emersons: “[his] mates at school said they needed a keyboard player for their band, so [he] switched back and we formed our first band, Curfew.”

(from Keith Emerson: Musical Celebration of his Life Tribute concert)

The rest as they say, was history, and Aaron Emerson is a keyboard-player to this day. He has since played in Buzztonic, with The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (bringing in an unlikely connection to fellow Arthur Brown alum Carl Palmer), Eclectic, and a band called DON, among others. 

His father reportedly even served periodically as a roadie. Both of them performed together at the Concert for Sophia in 2010. It’s impossible to tell where one’s music begins and the other ends. 

(data from his Facebook page)

The fact that one Emerson would continue in his father’s footsteps and inherit some of his talent is remarkable in itself. However, he is not the only one who has continued the family legacy…

Ethan Emerson

Like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him, Ethan Emerson plays piano with passion and power. He has recently begun his own musical career, performing The Dreamer for Keith Emerson: A Musical Celebration of his Life on the 28th of July.

Picture from Ethan Emerson’s Facebook page

Today is Ethan’s twelfth birthday, and we here at Forever-ELP want to offer him many happy returns! Already, he’s made the world a little brighter with his music, and we can’t wait to see where he will go from here. 

(Photo from Tom Szakaly. History repeats itself indeed). 

A special thank you to Aaron Emerson for his permission for this post. 

[1]: Reportedly, the title was Greg Lake’s idea, so credit must be given to him too, but it was Keith who wrote the music.