Fifty years young today, In the Court of the Crimson King still sounds fresh and powerful. The lenghty article in Rolling Stone goes on about how KC inspred everybody from Yes to Kanye West — strangely, failing to mention Deep Purple’s Into the Fire.
I first heard and saw ITCOTKC in mid-1980s. In my humble opinion, it is one of the handful of rock albums worth having on vinyl for their cover art alone. Sadly, its creator, Barry Godber, died in 1970 at the age of 24, leaving after himself no other album cover. The cover art alone, I said, but isn’t it nice to have inside the first ever prog-rock record as well? Both the vinyl I heard back then and the CD I acquired in Italy in 1994 (one of the very first CDs I ever bought) predated the 1993 “rediscovery” of the original master tapes. I have to say that I didn’t hear any of the “newer” version of the album. I suppose they are all very decent, and the 50th anniversary edition is coming out soon. Undoubtedly it will be branded “definitive” for the next 10 years or so. However, for me and for everyone who grew on their music in 1970s and 1980s, the ’69 version is the definitive.
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