The Nice

THE NICE. English progressive rock band active in the late 1960s. They blended rock, jazz and classical music becoming keyboardist Keith Emerson's first commercially successful band. The group was formed in 1967 by Keith Emerson / Lee Jackson / David O'List and Ian Hague in order to back soul singer PP Arnold. After replacing Hague with Brian Davison, they branched out on their own, quickly developing a strong live following. The group's sound was centred around Emerson's Hammond organ showmanship and their radical rearrangements of classical music themes and Bob Dylan songs. They achieved some commercial success with an instrumental rearrangement of Leonard Bernstein's "America" following which O'List left the group. The remaining members carried on as a trio, releasing several albums, before Emerson decided to split the band in early 1970 in order to form Emerson Lake & Palmer. Keith Emerson died aged 71 on 11th March 2016 in Santa Monica California of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Following an autopsy, the medical examiner ruled his death a suicide and concluded that he had also suffered from heart disease and depression associated with alcohol. According to his  girlfriend Mari Kawaguchi, he had sadly become "depressed, nervous and anxious" because nerve damage had hampered his playing and he was worried that he would perform poorly at upcoming concerts and thereby disappoint his fans ...........