The BBC has confirmed that Greg Lake, founding member of iconic prog rock bands Emerson, Lake & Palmer and King Crimson, has died. According to his manager, he had been undergoing “a long and stubborn battle with cancer.” Lake was 69.
Lake was born in England in 1947, and he began learning how to play guitar when he was 12. After taking lessons for a while, though, he decided to quit when he realized his instructor wasn’t going to teach him any rock ’n’ roll songs. He started playing in small-time bands in the area and eventually met Robert Fripp, who was from the same town as him and asked Lake to be the singer and bassist for a new band he was putting together.
That band was King Crimson, and after losing the original producer for the group’s debut album, Lake stepped forward and produced it himself. The album—1969’s In The Court Of The Crimson King—received critical and commercial acclaim, prompting a pair of United Kingdom and United States tours.