Songs with Earlier Histories Than the Hit Version

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Tagged: Emerson Lake & Palmer

Fanfare for the Common Man

First performed by Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Aaron Copland (1943).
Hit version by Emerson, Lake & Palmer (UK #2 1970).

(Above: Aaron Copland conducting the London Symphony Orchestra)

From the wiki: “‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ was written on request from Eugene Goossens, music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, in response to the US entry into the Second World War. During the First World War, the Cincinnati orchestra had asked British composers for a fanfare to begin each orchestral concert. It had been so successful that Goossens thought to repeat the procedure in World War II but with American composers.

“In 1942, Copland was commissioned by Goossens to write the fanfare. Copland recalled he was inspired by a speech US Vice President Henry A. Wallace had given that spring at the Free World Association in New York City:

“‘Some have spoken of the American Century,’ Wallace proclaimed. ‘I say that the century on which we are entering, the century which will come out of this war, can be and must be the century of the common man.’

Nut Rocker

First recorded by Jack B. Nimble & The Quicks (1961).
Hit versions by B. Bumble & the Stingers (US #23/UK #1 1962| UK #20 1972); Emerson, Lake & Palmer (as “Nutrocker” US #70 1972).
Also recorded by Trans-Siberian Orchestra (2009).

From the wiki: “In late 1961, producer Kim Fowley secured the copyright to an arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s ‘March of the Wooden Soldiers’ from the ballet The Nutcracker, and took this to local entrepreneur and pianist H. B. Barnum. Barnum recorded it as by ‘Jack B. Nimble & The Quicks’ for the small Del Rio label. However, when Rod Pierce of Rendezvous Records heard it, he convinced Fowley that his label could do a better version with their own band, B. Bumble & the Stingers.

“A new recording was arranged, but on the day, Ernie Freeman, who had played piano on ‘Bumble Boogie’, failed to appear, apparently due to heavy partying the night before. In his place, guitarist and arranger RenĂ© Hall rushed pianist Al Hazan into the Rendezvous office, which was rigged up as an improvised studio.