Rock star and member of Emerson, Lake and Palmer

Born: November 10, 1947;

Died: December 7, 2016

GREG Lake, who has died of cancer aged 69, was a singer, guitarist and composer who, as the frontman of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, became one of the founding fathers of progressive rock. To non-prog rock fans, he was also widely known for his hit I Believe in Father Christmas, which reached number two in the charts in 1975.

Formed in 1967, King Crimson were seminal in the genre of progressive rock, with 1969's In The Court Of The Crimson King deemed their most successful and influential album.

Lake later struck up a friendship with Keith Emerson - at the time a keyboardist for The Nice – and the pair teamed up and recruited Carl Palmer to form the prog supergroup in 1970. The trio went on to sell over 48 million records and paved the way for famous bands that followed, including Yes and Genesis.

Lake was born in Poole, Dorset, in November 1947, and was given his first guitar at the age of 12, taking lessons from a local tutor called Don Strike. Strike was also a teacher to Robert Fripp and Fripp and Lake struck up a friendship that eventually led to the formation of King Crimson in 1969.

The band was immediately successful and set the standard for the progressive rock artists that followed, although King Crimson was shortlived. Founding member Mike Giles quit and they produced only two albums.

Lake and Emerson, who had supported King Crimson on an American tour, then decided to work together and were joined by drummer Carl Palmer to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Their 1971 debut album, Emerson Lake and Palmer, which was produced by Lake, went platinum and featured a song Lake had written while still in school: Lucky Man. It became his anthem and an iconic song for the band.

The band’s sound, combining rock with classical influences, was unique at the time, with a concert at the Isle of Wight festival putting them on the path to becoming one of the world’s first super groups. The albums that followed included Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy, and Brain Salad Surgery and pushed the limits of rock –their 1971 album Tarkus for instance featured an opening track lasting more than 20 minutes. They also gained a reputation for their spectacular live performances – at the height of their success, they had more than 100 road managers.

As a guitarist, Lake believed that he had pioneered a new way of playing it. "I derived a great deal of enjoyment playing bass partly - I think - because I played it in a different way from most people at the time,” he said.

“The style I developed was a more percussive and more sustained approach, which almost certainly came from all my years on guitar. I was frustrated by the normal dull sound of bass guitars at the time and was searching for a more expressive sound.

“I discovered the key was to use the wire wound bass strings, which have far more sustain, rather like the low end of a Steinway Grand Piano. I think I was the first bass player to really use them in this way."

However, it was Lake’s acoustic guitar playing that made ELP famous. He wrote and sang C'est La Vie, From the Beginning, Stil l...You Turn Me On, Watching Over You, and Lucky Man. He also wrote one of the most famous Christmas songs I Believe in Father Christmas, which has been covered many times by artists including U2.

In an interview last month, Lake said the track was about Christmas becoming commercialised. He said: "When Pete Sinfield and I wrote I Believe in Father Christmas, it was about how Christmas had deteriorated and was in danger of becoming yet another victim of crass corporate financial exploitation.

"As much as I love everyone having a good time, it's about more than 12 pints of lager and a crate of Baileys. It's more important to make some spiritual human contact, or visit someone lonely."

ELP broke up in 1979, reuniting in 1991. In recent years, Lake had still been performing with his own band and occasionally appeared with Emerson and Palmer – their last concert together was in 2010.

Lake’s death from cancer comes nine months after that of former bandmate Keith Emerson, who died of a self-inflicted shot gun wound.