When the term creatively restless is thrown around, it’s an embarrassing understatement when it’s applied to Rick Wakeman. Best known for his work as a member of Yes playing on a number of seminal albums including Fragile, Close To the Edge and Going For the One, Wakeman had led a Zelig-like musical life. When he hasn’t been busy enjoying guest playing on a number of seminal songs ranging from “Space Oddity” and “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” to “Morning Has Broken” and “Sabbra Cadabra” he’s also enjoyed a solo career that’s found him releasing concept albums on topics as diverse as Henry VIII’s six wives, King Arthur and the Red Planet. As quite the rock and roll raconteur, the ever-gregarious Wakeman is just as known for an endless stream of anecdotes, which he’s been recounting on his current solo tour. Here are just a few of them.
(Photo courtesy of Chipster PR)
Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973); Ozzmosis (1995)
“That was fantastic. My son Adam has played with Ozzy for over 20 years. When he first joined him he called me up and said, ‘You’re great friends with Ozzy.’ I said I was. He told me there was a possibility that they’d be doing some stuff from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath that I played on. I told him I did. He asked if I could tell him a bit about the session and I said, ‘Sure, everybody was comatose. I can’t remember a thing.’ There’s that old saying about the ‘70s that if you remember it, you probably weren’t there. I vaguely remember going into the studio around midnight and a substantial amount of alcohol had been consumed. We were basically all incoherent. They asked me to do this mini-Moog bit and it went alright.
Everybody was basically out of it. Ozzy said it was great and I said thank you. I asked Adam if that helped him and he said it didn’t. He said he asked Ozzy and he pretty much said the same thing. I loved working with Ozzy. I did his Ozzmosis album and there’s a track on there called ‘Perry Mason’ that I think is a prog-metal track. It’s fantastic. He’s a great friend—I love him to bits. It was great fun. I know I did the sessions but I can’t remember much about them.
T. Rex – Electric Warrior (1971)
“Marc was just one of life’s lovely guys. He was true glam rock in a groovy space. In fact, I would go as far as to say that if you wanted to say Tony Iommi is the godfather of metal, I think it would be fair to say Marc was the godfather of glam, because he was really the first one there. He was such a nice guy. I watched him through when he was doing Tyrannosaurus Rex, his first group with Steve Peregin Took—just a little folk duo kind of thing.
Marc always had great ideas of what he wanted to do. That became possible when he linked up with Tony Visconti. Tony was a producer who just understood him completely, knew what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. That was a match made in heaven.”
David Bowie – Space Oddity (1969); Hunky Dory (1971); The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972); Absolute Beginners (1986)
“I met David in 1968 at Regal Zonophone Records in London, which was owned by Denny Cordell. He was there and being produced at that time by Gus Dudgeon. I knew Gus because I’d been doing other sessions for him. We met there and I was asked to do ‘Space Oddity’ at the beginning of 1969. I played mellotron on that. That’s when we had our first proper chat.
It was at that session afterwards that David said he’d heard some of my piano playing, he liked it and wanted mt to come in and play on some tracks. I came in and did ‘Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud’ and ‘Memory of a Free Festival’ and then I went on to do Hunky Dory. We became really good friends and we were in fact neighbors when we lived in Switzerland, so we used to see each other regularly over a four-year period, so he was great.”
Elton John – Madman Across the Water (1971)
“That was great. One of the things that’s a great shame is because Elton is such a great songwriter and singer it’s often forgotten what a great piano player he is. He is a really great piano player. But he hates playing the organ.
He called me up while he was doing Madman Across the Water and said he really didn’t want to play the organ parts. He asked if I fancied doing them and I said I’d love to. I went to the studio and did the organ parts for a couple of tracks on the album, which was great fun. He’s a lovely guy. I think he’s one of the great songwriters of our time.”
Cat Stevens – Teaser and the Firecat (1971)
“Interestingly enough, in 2019 there was a big concert in London to raise money for the Royal Marsden Hospital, which is a big cancer hospital. That was organized by the late Gary Brooker. He called me and said he knew I had associations with the Royal Marsden because my wife was there with cancer. He asked if I’d like to be part of the fundraiser and I told him absolutely. It was an amazing lineup of people and they raised one million pounds for the hospital, which was fantastic.
Cat Stevens or Yusuf called me up and said he was doing the show as well. He said it must be nearly 50 years since we played ‘Morning Has Broken’ and he wanted to know if I fancied doing it with him. I said I’d love to so we did it live there. The interesting thing was that he was singing it in a completely different key. And also because he was playing on the guitar, he didn’t do all the chords for the piano bit so I told him to play what he does now and I’d join in. It was great fun and lovely to see him. I really like the dude.”
Lou Reed – Lou Reed (1972)
“Lou was great. He was a one-off. You’ve heard the expression of someone being very left-field. He was from a totally different planet and I loved him for it. He was great. I did the session for him in complete darkness. He wanted me to play in pretty much complete darkness.
He said for me to play whatever I liked as fast as I could on one of the tracks. He was playing with headphones on and I played along. I told him I had some ideas afterwards and he told me that he had it and thanked me. It was about the first reaction to what I played, which was very interesting. It was great. I liked the guy a lot.”
Rick Wakeman will be appearing on April 5 at the Paramount, 370 New York Ave., Huntington. Visit www.theparamountny.com or call 631-673-7300 for more information. Wakeman will also be appearing on April 6 at City Winery, 25 Eleventh Ave. (at 15th St.), NYC. Visit www.citywinery.com or call 646-751-6033 for more information.