“Here’s a diary entry from July 24, 1974: ‘Argument with Bill Bruford. Bill says, ‘They might as well get a session guitarist’”: The making of Red, the album that pushed King Crimson to the brink

Robert Fripp on stage in New York City with his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Custom.

By the summer of 1974, King Crimson had reached critical mass. Albums like In the Court of the Crimson King (1969), Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (1973), and Starless and Bible Black (early 1974) had seen the venerable British band reach the apex of proto-metal-meets-fusion-meets-prog.

But tensions within Crimson’s ranks were escalating, leading to drummer Bill Bruford, vocalist and bassist John Wetton, and guitarist and mastermind Robert Fripp entering the sessions for the heavier-than-heavy album, late 1974’s Red, on the precipice of spontaneous combustion.