King Crimson were an English progressive rock band formed in London in 1968 by Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald and Peter Sinfield. Guitarist and leader Fripp remained the only constant member throughout the band's history. The band drew inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, blues, industrial, electronic, and experimental music. They also exerted a strong influence on the early 1970s progressive rock movement, including on contemporaries such as Yes and Genesis, and continue to inspire subsequent generations of artists across multiple genres. The band has earned a large cult following, especially in the 21st century.
The band's debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King (1969), remains their most commercially successful and influential release, and is frequently cited as one of the most significant albums of the progressive rock genre. Following the breakdown of the original line-up, the next two albums, In the Wake of Poseidon and Lizard (both 1970), were recorded during a period of instability in the band's personnel, before a settled line-up of Fripp, Sinfield, Mel Collins, Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace recorded Islands in 1971. In mid-1972, Fripp disbanded this line-up, recruited new members Bill Bruford (formerly of Yes), John Wetton (formerly of Family), David Cross and Jamie Muir, and changed the group's musical approach, drawing from European free improvisation and modernist classical music and developing ever more complex compositions. The band released three more albums, Larks' Tongues in Aspic (1973), Starless and Bible Black and Red (both 1974), before Fripp disbanded King Crimson at the end of 1974.
After seven years of inactivity, King Crimson was recreated in 1981 with Fripp, Bruford and new American members Adrian Belew and Tony Levin. Drawing influence from African music, gamelan, post-punk and New York minimalism, this band lasted three years, recording the albums Discipline (1981), Beat (1982) and Three of a Perfect Pair (1984). Following a decade-long hiatus, they reformed in 1994, adding Pat Mastelotto (formerly of Mr. Mister) and Trey Gunn for a sextet line-up Fripp called "The Double Trio". The double trio undertook another three-year cycle of activity that included the EP Vrooom (1994) and the album Thrak (1995). Fripp, Belew, Mastelotto and Gunn reunited in 1999 as a quartet, called "The Double Duo", releasing The ConstruKction of Light (2000) and The Power to Believe (2003). After another hiatus, the band reformed for a 2008 tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of their 1968 formation, with Levin returning in place of Gunn and Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree being added.
Following another hiatus (2009–2012), during which Fripp was thought to be retired, King Crimson came together again in 2013, this time as a septet with an unusual three-drummer frontline, and new singer and secondary guitarist Jakko Jakszyk. This version of King Crimson, which expanded to an octet in 2017, toured from 2014 to 2021. After the band's final show in 2021, Fripp commented that King Crimson had "moved from sound to silence".
1967–1968: Giles, Giles and Fripp
In August 1967, brothers Michael and Peter Giles, drummer and singer/bassist respectively, and professional musicians in working bands since their mid-teens in Dorset, England, advertised for a "singing organist" to join a new group they were forming. Fellow Dorset musician Robert Fripp – a guitarist who neither sang or played organ – responded, and Giles, Giles and Fripp was born. The trio signed to Deram Records and recorded one album, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp, released in 1968. They hovered on the edge of success, but were never able to make a commercial breakthrough.
Attempting to expand their sound, the three recruited Ian McDonald on keyboards and woodwinds. McDonald brought along two other participants: his then-girlfriend, former Fairport Convention singer Judy Dyble, whose brief tenure with the group ended when the two split, and lyricist, roadie, and art strategist Peter Sinfield, with whom he had been writing songs – a partnership initiated when McDonald had said to Sinfield (regarding his band Creation), "Peter, I have to tell you that your band is hopeless, but you write some great words. Would you like to get together on a couple of songs?" Fripp, meanwhile, saw Clouds at the Marquee Club in London, which spurred him to incorporate classical-inspired melodies into his writing and utilise improvisation to find new ideas.
No longer interested in Peter Giles's more whimsical pop songs, Fripp recommended that his old friend, fellow guitarist and singer Greg Lake, could join to replace either Peter or Fripp himself. Peter Giles later called it one of Fripp's "cute political moves". According to Michael Giles, his brother had become disillusioned with the band's lack of success and departed before Fripp ever made this suggestion.
1968–1969: Original line-up and In the Court of the Crimson King
The first incarnation of King Crimson—Fripp, Michael Giles, Lake, McDonald, and Sinfield—was formed on 30 November 1968 with rehearsals beginning on 13 January 1969. Sinfield coined the band's name in "a moment of pressured panic". Sinfield had already used the term "crimson king" in a set of lyrics before his involvement with Giles, Giles and Fripp. Sinfield insisted that the name did not refer to Beelzebub, prince of demons, and that a "crimson king" was any ruler during whose reign there were "societal rumblings" and "sort of the dark forces of the world". According to Fripp, King Crimson is a synonym for Beelzebub, which is an anglicised form of the Arabic phrase "B'il Sabab", meaning "the man with an aim", to which he related.
At this early point, McDonald was the primary composer, with vital contributions from Fripp and Lake, while Sinfield wrote all the lyrics on his own, and also designed and operated the band's unique stage lighting, being credited with "words and illumination" on the album sleeve. Inspired by the Moody Blues, McDonald suggested the group purchase a Mellotron keyboard, and this became a key component of the early Crimson sound. Sinfield described the original Crimson thus: "If it sounded at all popular, it was out. So it had to be complicated, it had to be more expansive chords, it had to have strange influences. If it sounded, like, too simple, we'd make it more complicated, we'd play it in 7/8 or 5/8, just to show off".
King Crimson's first live performance was at the Speakeasy Club in London on 9 April 1969 (with Yes guitarist Peter Banks and David Bowie among the audience). Their big breakthrough came on 5 July 1969 by playing as a support act at the Rolling Stones' free concert in Hyde Park, London, before an estimated 500,000 people.
The debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was released in October 1969 on Island Records. Fripp would later describe it as having been "an instant smash" and "New York's acid album of 1970" (notwithstanding Fripp and Giles's assertion that the band never used psychedelic drugs). The Who guitarist and composer Pete Townshend called the album "an uncanny masterpiece". The album contains Sinfield's gothic lyrics, and its sound was described as having "dark and doom-laden visions". Its opening track "21st Century Schizoid Man" has been described as "proto-metal" and the song's lyrics criticise the Vietnam War. In contrast to the blues-based hard rock of the contemporary British and American scenes, King Crimson presented a more Europeanised approach that blended antiquity and modernity. The band's music drew on a wide range of influences provided by all five group members. These elements included classical music, the psychedelic rock spearheaded by Jimi Hendrix, folk, jazz, military music (partially inspired by McDonald's stint as an army musician) and free improvisation.
After playing gigs across England, the band toured the United States with various pop and rock acts, their first show being at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. While the band found success and critical acclaim, creative tensions were already developing. Giles and McDonald, still striving to cope with King Crimson's rapid success and the realities of touring life, became uneasy with their musical direction. Although he was neither the dominant composer nor the frontman, Fripp was very much the group's driving force and spokesman, leading them into progressively darker and more intense musical areas. McDonald and Giles, now favouring a lighter and more nuanced romantic style, became increasingly uncomfortable, and told Fripp they would be leaving the band upon the conclusion of the US tour. To keep the band together, Fripp offered to resign himself, but McDonald declared that King Crimson was "more (him) than them" and that he and Giles should therefore be the ones to leave. McDonald later said he "was probably not emotionally mature enough to handle it" and made a "rash decision to leave without consulting anyone". The original line-up played their last show at the Fillmore West in San Francisco on 14 December 1969, a little over one year after forming, with McDonald's and Giles's departures made official in January 1970. Live recordings of the band from 1969 were released in 1997 on Epitaph and in 2010 on the In the Court of the Crimson King (1969) box set. McDonald and Giles, as a spin-off duo from King Crimson, released a self-tiled album in 1971. Giles would go on to work as a session drummer, while McDonald would co-form Foreigner in 1976.