Even in a year outrageously overloaded with some of the most celebrated albums in rock history – the Who’s Tommy, Blind Faith, the Stones’ Let It Bleed, the Beatles’ Abbey Road, Led Zeppelin II and many more – In the Court of the Crimson King was hailed as a phenomenon. Released on Island Records in October 1969, King Crimson’s debut album was a boldly panoramic mix of hard rock, epic balladry, mystical acoustic atmospherics and squealing free jazz. As the prog-rock historian Paul Stump postulated: “If progressive rock as a discrete genre can be said to have had a starting point, In the Court of the Crimson King is probably it.”
The guitarist Robert Fripp became the band’s best-known member, but the multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald, who has died from cancer aged 75, was a galvanising force in the group’s potent mix. He was co-writer on all the album’s tracks, and his fiery saxophone soloing was a highlight of the album’s opening track, 21st Century Schizoid Man. The song’s rampaging middle section was essentially a piece called Three Score and Four, which he had composed for the army band he had played with during his military service. “That whole section is mine that I lifted from that score that I had written,” he said.
