“King Crimson in 1969 had the right music, musicians, music industry and audience in attendance, to make it work.” – Robert Fripp (album liner notes)
A mixture of chronological distance from the original events and the status of the band’s debut album “In the Court of the Crimson King” as an iconic/classic studio recording, has helped to obscure the fact that the original King Crimson line-up – although it lasted slightly less than a year – earned the bulk of its contemporary standing as Britain’s ‘best new band’ on the strength of its incendiary live performances. Epitaph (Volumes I & II) presents recordings of BBC sessions from the period immediately preceding the launch of the album and US live performances from November and December 1969. Included is a complete performance from the final run of gigs at the legendary Fillmore West in San Francisco.
Pending the invention of a time machine, this album represents the next best thing – the original line-up of one of rock music’s most enduring groups in session and live performance.
Originally issued in 1996, Epitaph was one of the first archive live recordings issued by DGM. The album has been unavailable for the past couple of years and we are pleased to reintroduce this title to the DGM/Panegyric catalogue
(Epitaph Volumes III & IV consist of restored bootleg recordings of the band from Plumpton Festival & Chesterfield Jazz Club in August/September 1969.
Tracks
CD1:
BBC Radio Sessions, May, July 1969:
21st Century Schizoid Man, In the Court of the Crimson King
Get Thy Bearings
Epitaph
Fillmore East, New York, 21 Nov. 1969:
A Man a City
Epitaph
21st Century Schizoid Man
Fillmore West, San Francisco 14 Dec. 1969:
Mantra
Travel Weary Capricorn
Improv – Travel Bleary Capricorn
Mars
CD2:
Fillmore West, San Francisco 15 Dec. 1969:
In the Court of the Crimson King
Drop in
A Man a City
Epitaph
21st Century Schizoid Man
Mars
