Talk:Keith Emerson/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ritchie333 (talk · contribs) 09:51, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Having got The Nice to GA status myself, and being more than familiar with some of the Hammond antics (including spring reverb crashing, hitting reverb springs with a stick, and turning the motor on and off), I'm happy to review this.

Lead

• The lead is too long and lop sided. I would put an opening paragraph giving his name, dates of birth and death, and a brief overview of key notability (Nice, ELP, 60s - 70s prog). The second paragraph could describe his career, while the third can describe critical / commercial success.
• There is too much information about his death in the lead. I would leave it as "died 11 March, Santa Monica, CA". Any controversy over the date should be relegated to a footnote in the body.
• Emerson is widely regarded as one of the top keyboard players of the progressive rock era is too POV. John Peel said ELP were a waste of talent and electricity, and he has a point. Some criticism in the lead, particularly about how he was seen as bloated and out of touch by punk, would be justified.

Did the way that punk viewed Emerson affect his status as a progressive rock musician? It surely should not; otherwise we might reasonably state that Bach was seen as out of touch and antiquated by acid jazz, etc. etc.

Early life

• The reference to Martyn Hanson's book needs a page number
• However, he never received any formal musical training, and described his piano teachers as being "local little old ladies" - is this talking about Emerson or his father?
• He learned western classical music - do we have any examples? Bach must surely be one.
• He used jazz sheet music from Dave Brubeck - this implies Emerson borrowed Brubeck's personal copy of the score, which can't be the case
• The quotation at the end of the second paragraph is a little over-long and could be trimmed down, or paraphrased
• and the Hammond became his instrument of choice in the late 1960s. Emerson acquired his first Hammond organ, an L-100 model, at the age of 15 or 16 - why does the prose jump to the late 1960s, then back to c. 1960?
• The flamboyance for which he would later be noted began - "would later be noted" is part of the words to watch, could this be reworded?
• he produced some explosion and machine gun sounds with the Hammond organ - does the source say how he did that?
• Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco's book needs a page number.
• Gary Farr and the T-Bones should be mentioned in this section, not least its where Emerson and Lee Jackson first played together

The Nice

• I think there needs to be a little more about how the Nice were formed. It's not like Emerson suddenly woke up one day and said "let's form a prog rock group that combines theatrics with classical pieces played really fast" (although some might claim that's exactly what he did for ELP....)
• To increase the visual interest of his show.... I thought it was specifically because Emerson wanted to compete instrumentally and theatrically with Jimi Hendrix, could this be sourced and worked into the article?
• turning it over made it feed back - while that's what it looks like when watching video footage, what's really happening is that pushing the Hammond's magnetic pickups towards an amplifier causes audio feedback; can this be clarified?
• Worth mentioning that Emerson got his knives from Lemmy?
• Emerson's show with the Nice has been cited as having a strong influence on heavy metal musicians. - cited by whom?
• Emerson became well known for his work with the Nice - "well known" is a phrase to watch, it would be better to state specific chart positions, sales figures, or critical praise from prominent journals (such as Melody Maker)
• What makes progarchives.com a reliable source?
• ...an upcoming Nice concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Vickers helped patch the Moog, and the concert was a success - a success according to whom?
• Emerson's performance of "Also sprach Zarathustra" from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey was acclaimed - this is confusing, I guess you mean Emerson's performance of the theme at the 1969 RFH concert, but it's not specifically clear from the prose this is what you mean? (Also, acclaimed by whom?) Is there any link to Deep Purple's The Book of Taliesyn, which also has a cover of the piece and was released shortly before this concert?

Emerson, Lake and Palmer

• I think there needs to be more information about how ELP was formed ie: The Nice and King Crimson sharing a US tour late '69, and also why Palmer was chosen instead of, say, Mitch Mitchell
• There seem to be too many sub-sections here, and the main one stops just after formation. John Peel's "waste of talent and electricity" quotation looks to be in the wrong place.
• Worth mentioning that the Isle Of Wight Festival was the band's second gig?

Use of synthesizers in ELP

• The Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco source needs a page number.
• Is there a link for the "Monster Moog" NYT source?
• The last paragraph in this sub-section is unsourced
• Is there information about the whereabouts of Keith's original iconic Moog? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meterstab (talk • contribs) 09:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

As composer and arranger

• The piece [Rondo] is introduced by an extensive excerpt from the 3rd movement of Bach's Italian Concerto - only on ELP live performances and only as a throwaway introduction before switching the Hammond on and off again to go into the main theme.

Theatrics

• The first paragraph somewhat duplicates things mentioned earlier
• The block quotation is too long and should be considered a copyright violation
• I think this section is in the wrong place. It covers an overall element of playing style, rather than a specific event like the rest of the "history" section. It also duplicates the "playing style" section further down.

1980s - 1990s career

• What makes classicbands.com a reliable source?
• What makes vintagerock.com a reliable source?
• (1984 film) Best Revenge, notable because he worked collaborated with Brad Delp from the band Boston on this soundtrack - this sentence doesn't seem to be make sense, again there are words to watch : "notable because". Also this claim is not in the source given.
• Emerson, Lake & Powell had some success, and their sole album is considered one of the best of both Emerson's and Lake's careers - considered by whom. Also this claim needs a better source than classicbands.com
• and drew comparisons to "the worst moments of Love Beach - the source verifying this doesn't appear to be formatted correctly
• There is mention here of Emerson moving to Los Angeles; but the rest of the article says Santa Monica. What's the difference?

2000 – 2016 career

• This entire opening section is unsourced
• What makes moogsoundlab.uk a reliable source?
• according to the webpage of an artists' management company representing Emerson - I don't think this is necessary; the reader can infer it from the source

Personal life

• The source "Macan, Endless Enigma, p. 42" needs more context
• The Guardian source says Emerson was divorced in 1994 - I don't think it violates WP:BLP to add that.
• In 1993, Emerson was forced to take a year off - the source says it was 1994
• The September 2010 announcement is too long; can it be trimmed?
• As said above, the discrepancy over date of death is best relegated to a footnote

Pieces based on other works

• Emerson would occasionally cover or sample other musical works in his compositions - I can't recall any actual sampling in the Nice or ELP's output; was this a later activity?
• This section contains too many lists. Per the GA criteria for list incorporation, these should be converted as prose, or moved to a separate list article.

Playing style

• In addition to such experimentation, Emerson also incorporated unique musical stylization into his work.

Discography

• http://www.saskatoontalenteducation.com/great-music-the-nice-elegy.html is a dead link
• http://www.grappa.no/en/simax-classics/cd-dvd-three-fates-project-keith-emerson-band-in-symphony/ is a dead link

Sources

• In my view, to meet the "broad in coverage" part of the GA criteria, I would expect to see more citations to Pictures of an Exhibitionist, which is likely to contain information other sources gloss over. There are a number of problems with some sources at a first glance; all book sources must contain a page number, and all CD / DVD sources must contain a time, so other people can verify what is written.

"See (section)"

• A number of places in the article have reading directions (eg: "see equipment", "see health issues"). These should not be in the article (I'm sure there's a part of the MOS that covers this that's relevant for GA but I can't find it).

Summary

• At first glance, there seems to be a lot of work needed to improve this to meet the GA criteria. I'll go through the article in-depth now, and make further comments. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:51, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

I think I'm going to have to close the review as "not listed" at this point - there is just too much work required to improve the article to GA status within the 7-day window. I would recommend looking through all the improvements I have mentioned so far, give the article a thorough copyedit and make sure all prose is neutral. I am also still suspicious that all of the claims in the article are actually verifiable, as I believe a lot of sources were retro-fitted onto existing text. That leads to problems further down the line. I'd recommend getting hold of just a handful of really good sources, such as Emerson's autobiography, and use it to fact-check everything in the article, before bringing back up to GA. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:57, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi Ritchie333, many thanks for your detailed review. I had about given up on anyone ever looking at it, at this point. I agree with your decision to fail it for now as you're right that this is not all going to get fixed within 7 days, especially due to my schedule at this time (I've had to reduce my Wiki time quite a bit due to my work becoming more busy than it was earlier in the year, as well as some other issues), and the need to lay hands on more sources which would likely take a few days in itself as I don't have good library access and would probably need to order them. The detailed list of things to fix is helpful as I can address each in turn and note "done" as a way of keeping track. Can I just ask if you listed all of your initial concerns? If not, I'd appreciate your adding anything else to the list when you have time, so I or other people can be sure to address those areas before re-nominating the article down the line. Thanks again for your help. TheBlinkster (talk) 14:35, 10 August 2016 (UTC)