Longtime singer and bass player Greg Lake died Wednesday at age 69 after "a long and stubborn battle with cancer," his manager said.
"Yesterday, December 7th, I lost my best friend," Lake's manager Stewart Young wrote on Facebook. "Greg Lake will stay in my heart forever, as he has always been."
Lake is best known for playing music for British progressive rock groups back in the 1970s.
He was the co-founder of the rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and he also co-founded King Crimson in the late 1960s.
Drummer Carl Palmer paid his respects to Lake in a post on Facebook, saying he had fond memories of “those great years we had in the 1970s and many memorable shows we performed together.”
“Greg’s soaring voice and skill as a musician will be remembered by all who knew his music and recordings he made with ELP and King Crimson,” Palmer said.
King Crimson became a pioneer in presenting a progressive-style rock music.
ELP released six platinum-selling albums, with one of those albums featuring "a live interpretation of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s 'Pictures at an Exhibition,'" CBS News noted. That performance would help Lake and the rest of the band reach the Top 10 in both Britain and the United States.
Lake’s death comes just months after his bandmate Keith Emerson committed suicide at his Santa Monica, California, home in March. He was 71.
"Having lost Keith this year as well has made this particularly hard for all of us," Palmer wrote on Facebook. "As Greg sang at the end of 'Pictures at an Exhibition,' 'death is life.' His music can now live forever in the hearts of all who loved him."
Lake’s biggest success was his 1975 Christmas single "I Believe in Father Christmas," which was released as a solo piece and is still often played during the holiday season.
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