King Crimson is a rock band founded in 1969. Although typically categorised as a foundational progressive rock group,[1] the band has incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during its history (including jazz and folk music, classical and experimental music, psychedelic rock, hard rock and heavy metal, new wave, gamelan, electronica and drum and bass). The band has been influential on many contemporary musical artists and gained a large cult following despite garnering little radio or music video airplay.

The band's lineup (centred on guitarist Robert Fripp) has persistently altered throughout its existence, with eighteen musicians and two lyricists passing through the ranks. A greater degree of stability was achieved later on in its history (with current frontman Adrian Belew having been a consistent member since 1981). Though originating in England, the band has had a mixture of English and American personnel since 1981.

EThe first King Crimson album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was released in October 1969 on Island Records. Fripp would later describe it as "an instant smash" and "New York's acid album of 1970" (notwithstanding Fripp and Giles' claim that the band never used psychedelic drugs). The album received public compliments from Pete Townshend, The Who's guitarist, who called the album "an uncanny masterpiece."[14] The sound of In the Court of the Crimson King has also been described as setting the "aural antecedent" for alternative rock and grunge, whilst the softer tracks are described as having an "ethereal" and "almost sacred" feel..

Greg Lake was the next member to leave, departing in early 1970 after being approached by Keith Emerson to join what would become Emerson, Lake & Palmer. This left Fripp as the only remaining musician in the band, taking on part of the keyboard-playing role in addition to guitar. To compensate, Sinfield increased his own creative role and began developing his interest in synthesizers for use on subsequent records.

The band's second album, In the Wake of Poseidon was recorded by a mixture of present members (Fripp and Sinfield) and their former associates. Michael Giles returned to play drums on a session only basis, joined by Peter Giles on bass. At one point, the band considered hiring the then-unknown Elton John (on spec) to be the album's singer, but decided against it.[16] Instead (and in exchange for receiving King Crimson's PA equipment as payment[7]), Lake agreed to sing on the band's developing second album In the Wake of Poseidon, covering all of the album’s vocal tracks except "Cadence And Cascade" which was sung by Fripp's old schoolfriend and teenage bandmate Gordon Haskell. Mel Collins (formerly of the band Cirkus) contributed saxophones and flute. Another key performer was jazz pianist Keith Tippett, who became an integral part of King Crimson's sound for the next few records. Although Fripp offered him full band membership, Tippett preferred to remain as a studio collaborator and only performed live with the band once.[7] In the Wake of Poseidon was moderately well received on release, but was criticised as sounding very similar in both style and content to the band's debut album, to the point where it seemed like an imitation.

Later in the year King Crimson recorded and released a new album, Islands. The band's warmest-sounding record to date, it was strongly influenced by Miles Davis’ orchestral collaborations with Gil Evans and had a loose thematic connection with Homer’s Odyssey. It also showed signs of a stylistic divergence between Sinfield (who favoured the softer and more textural jazz-folk approach) and Fripp (who was becoming more drawn to the harsher instrumental style exemplified by the Mellotron-and-banjo-technique-guitar piece “Sailor’s Tale”). Islands also featured the band’s one-and-only experiment with a string ensemble (“Prelude: Song of the Gulls”) and the raunchy rhythm-and-blues-inspired “Ladies of the Road” - by far the closest representation of the band’s live style, and probably the only track which the whole band liked. A hint of trouble to come came when one unnamed member of the band allegedly described some of the more delicate and meditative parts of Islands as “airy-fairy shit”.

Following the next tour, Fripp ousted Sinfield (with whom his relationship had deteriorated) claiming musical differences and a loss of faith in his partner’s ideas. (Sinfield would go on to release a solo album, Still, featuring all of the current and previous members of King Crimson aside from Fripp, and then reunited with Greg Lake by becoming the principal lyricist for Emerson, Lake & Palmer: many years later, he would achieve great success writing pop songs for Bucks Fizz.) The remaining band broke up acrimoniously in rehearsals shortly afterwards, due to Fripp’s refusal to incorporate other members’ compositions into the band’s repertoire. (He later cited this as “quality control” and an attempt to ensure that King Crimson was performing the “right kind” of music.

The third major lineup of King Crimson was radically different from the previous two and the interregnum work, being both the first without saxophone or woodwind and the first to embrace active improvisation as a major musical element. Fripp’s first new recruit was the free-improvising percussionist Jamie Muir, who had previously worked with Sunship and Derek Bailey. In the first of King Crimson’s “double drummer” lineups, he was paired with former Yes drummer Bill Bruford, who had chosen to leave the commercially successful Yes at the peak of their early career in favour of the comparatively unstable and unpredictable King Crimson. Fripp also finally secured John Wetton as King Crimson’s singer and bass player, recruiting him directly from Family. The lineup was completed by David Cross, a relatively unknown violinist (doubling on keyboards) whom Fripp had encountered through work with music colleges..

Rehearsals and touring began in late 1972, with the new band’s penchant for improvisation (and Jamie Muir’s startling wild-man stage presence) immediately gaining King Crimson some excited press attention. A new album - Larks' Tongues in Aspic - was released early the next year. This was the first King Crimson record to demonstrate Fripp’s dominant compositional vision (without either the template of Ian McDonald's songwriting and arrangements or the influence of Sinfield’s elaborate conceptual lyrics and references) and as such was also the first King Crimson record to escape from the shadow of the debut album..

The band's new sound was exemplified by the album's two-part title track - a significant change from what King Crimson had done before, drawing from influences as diverse as Bartók, the free music scene, Vaughan Williams and the embryonic heavy metal sound, and featuring a whisper-to-scream dynamic that was extreme even by the band's previous standards. There were some nods to the past in the continued use of Mellotron (and in the inclusion of a couple of stately ballads), but the band now featured a small ensemble sound (partly due to Cross’ solo violin) with an emphasis on instrumental music. In particular, the record was permeated by Muir’s freewheeling approach to percussion and “found” instrumentation (utilising everything from a prepared drumkit to bicycle-horn bulbs, toys, bullroarers, gongs hit with chains, foley-style sound effects and a joke laughing-bag), which also revolutionised Bruford’s future approach to percussion. Wetton’s loud, crisp and overdriven playing style provided King Crimson’s most distinctive bass playing to date, while Fripp’s guitar playing had taken on a wiry and aggressive character previously seldom heard in the band’s studio recordings.

During the lengthy tour that followed, the remaining members assembled material for their next album, Starless and Bible Black. This was released in January 1974, earning them a positive Rolling Stone review.[27] The album built on the achievements of its predecessor, precariously balancing improvised material with careening heavy-metal riffs and songs that recalled both the Beatles’ White Album experiments and aspects of electric jazz fusion as performed by the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Miles Davis.

Two-thirds of the album was instrumental, including Fripp’s climactic moto perpetuo composition "Fracture" and the atonal sound painting of the title track. (For the recording of "Trio" - a hushed and wistful improvised melody featuring Wetton on bass, Cross on violin and Fripp on flute-Mellotron - Bruford notoriously contributed “admirable restraint” by sitting with his drumsticks crossed over his chest throughout the piece, understanding that the music did not require him to add anything.) Although most of Starless and Bible Black had been recorded at live performances,[24] it was painstakingly edited to sound like another studio album[5] (careful listening reveals live acoustic dimensions and faded-out applause). Fuller documentation of the quartet’s live work was revealed eighteen years later on 1992’s four-disc live recording The Great Deceiver, and again on 1997’s double live album The Night Watch, which used the original source tapes for much of the material on Starless And Bible Black.

By this time, the band was once again beginning to divide into performance factions. Musically, Fripp found himself positioned between Bruford and Wetton (who played with such force and increasing volume that Fripp once compared them to “a flying brick wall”) and Cross (whose amplified acoustic violin was increasingly being drowned out by the rhythm section, forcing him to concentrate more on keyboards). An increasingly frustrated Cross began to withdraw musically and personally, with the result that he was voted out of the group following the band's 1974 tour of Europe and America, playing his final performance in Central Park in New York.

The remaining trio reconvened to record a new album, which would be called Red. Unknown to the other two, Fripp, increasingly disillusioned with the music business, had been turning his attention to the writings of the mystic George Gurdjieff, and experienced a spiritual crisis-cum-awakening immediately before the band entered the studio. He would later describe his experience as having seemed as if “the top of my head blew off.” Although most of the album material had been written, the transformed Fripp retreated into himself in the studio and “withdrew his opinion”, leaving Bruford and Wetton to direct most of the sessions.

In spite of this, Red proved to be one of the strongest and most consistent King Crimson albums to date. It has been described as "an impressive achievement" for a group about to disband,[28] with "intensely dynamic" musical chemistry between the band members. Opening with the harsh, tritone-based instrumental which gave the album its name (and which has remained in the band’s live set ever since), the album also featured two relatively short and punchy Wetton-led songs, and a last look back at the period with David Cross via the live improvisation “Providence” (recorded on the preceding tour). The album finale was the majestic twelve-minute “Starless”, which acted, in effect, as a potted musical history of the band (travelling from Mellotron-driven ballad grandeur via intense improvisation to savagely structured metallic attack and back again). Red also included guest appearances by former members and collaborators. In addition to Cross’s appearance on “Providence”, Robin Miller and Marc Charig returned on oboe and cornet for the first time since Islands, and both Mel Collins and Ian McDonald played saxophones on “Starless” (at one point, duetting with each other via overdubs).

A posthumous live album, USA, documenting this version of King Crimson's final tour of the United States, was released in 1975 to critical acclaim, reviewers calling it "a must" for fans of the band and "insanity you're better off having". Technical issues with some of the original tapes rendered some of David Cross' violin parts inaudible when mixed in 1974, so Roxy Music’s Eddie Jobson was brought in to provide studio overdubs of violin and keyboards. Further edits were also necessary to allow for the time limitations of a single vinyl album. The album was reissued with two extra tracks, “Fracture” and “Starless”, in 2005.

Following the assembly of USA, the band went their separate ways. While McDonald joined Foreigner, Wetton would have stints in Roxy Music and Uriah Heep before reuniting with Bruford in UK and eventually becoming frontman for Asia. Before and after his UK stint, Bruford would play with his own jazz-fusion band, also called Bruford, and drummed for Genesis on their first post-Peter Gabriel tour. Fripp, meanwhile, would toy with the idea of going into the priesthood but would ultimately opt to become a “small, mobile intelligent unit” and embrace a solo career which saw him move to New York City, where he would collaborate with Brian Eno, Blondie, Talking Heads, The Roches and Daryl Hall among others, as well as further developing his Eno-inspired tape loop system of Frippertronics. He would also make striking guitar contributions to the albums of David Bowie and Peter Gabriel, even joining the latter on tour, and hone his abilities as a producer.

In 1979, Fripp released his first solo album Exposure, sometimes described as "an art-rock Sergeant Pepper". Mixing songs with Frippertronics, and spiky instrumentals with tape cut-ups, the album featured guest performances by assorted Fripp collaborators and contemporaries including Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Darryl Hall, Peter Hammill, Terre Roche and Barry Andrews. Significantly (with regard to the future), several of the bass parts on Exposure were played by Tony Levin, who was considered to be among New York City's most sought-after studio musicians. Levin had previously played bass for Paul Simon, John Lennon/Yoko Ono and many others. Most pertinently, he was Peter Gabriel's bass player of choice and had previously worked with Fripp on Gabriel’s first two solo albums (and on tour with Gabriel in 1977). Fripp considered the American bassist to be a “master” player and kept note of his abilities for future reference.

·Años 80's

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