Fingers Don't Fail Me Now!

[No Listomania -- Cinema or otherwise -- this week, due to a combination of scheduling problems and burnout. However, have no fear, the List WILL return next Friday, tanned rested and ready. -- S.S.]

So on Wednesday, over at a certain political blog at which I rant present eminently reasonable arguments from time to time, we were exulting (prematurely, it seems) over the results of the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin when somebody broke the news that Rupert Murdoch [R-Locus of Evil in the Modern World] had broken up with the astoundingly odious Glenn Beck.

At which point I observed that if liberal pressure groups had indeed forced the Beckster off the airwaves, than this was the most stunning political victory since rock critics caused Emerson Lake and Palmer to break up after Love Beach.

This wasn't as silly as it sounds; as I mentioned over there later, I once actually got an angry four page hand-written Letter to the Editor at Stereo Review in which a reader went on at some length about how rock critics -- presumably including me -- had conspired to drive ELP to dissolve their artistic partnership, (also) presumably at their artistic peak, and that this was a genuine tragedy or something. The guy wasn't kidding, either.

In any case, it occurred to me that there was in fact one artifact from the ELP axis that I genuinely liked and in fact had owned on vinyl.

And here it is -- from 1976, please enjoy Emerson's spirited remake of the wonderful "Honky Tonk Train Blues" by the incomparable Meade Lux Lewis.



Light years away from the usual ELP pomp and bombast, obviously, and I'm a sucker for both Lewis and honky-tonk piano in general. Say what you will about Emerson, though -- he certainly knows how to move those digits of his.