Face to Face with Rick Wakeman

I like short songs.
 
 
 
Edit: Sorry... I just can't hear that name without thinking of the DK's tune. I have no problem with "long" songs or RW.

Thanks for this!  I wouldn't have stumbled across it in a million years.
 
Wakeman used to be a god to me.  Then he started doing the lamest new-age dreck imaginable, so I totally lost interest (but I still put on Six Wives every now and then for old times sake).

I want to think he interviewed Chris Squire too.  I also think these interviews ended a couple years back as well.

Some of Wakeman's finest work was as a session player; 'Life on Mars' and Cat Stevens' 'Morning Has Broken' have outstanding piano playing.

And now I am listening to Jon Lords Concerto for Group and orchestra. The 2012 remake with Joe Bonamassa, Bruce Dickenson, Guy Pratt and others.

Here are links to the ones I've found and watched so far. Not all of them are the full interviews, and the link to the originals is broken. Fortunately, the ones that are complete (Ian Anderson, Tony Iommi and Jon Lord in particular) are very good.
 
Ian Anderson
Tony Iommi
Brian May
Jon Lord
Andy Fairweather-Low
Brian Bennet
Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone
Roger Chapman
Neil Innes
 
 
 
 
 
 

bitflipper
Tangent: while searching for someplace that might have archived these interviews (they were apparently offered for sale at one time), I ran across this quote from Wakeman:
 

I learned an invaluable lesson from a kid in Argentina when we were playing Buenos Aires in 2002. I came out of the hotel and this 16-year-old-boy asked me to sign his copy of my Six Wives of Henry VIII album. As I was signing it I asked him ‘what does a 16 year-old like about this old music?’ and he looked at me, quite hurt, and said, ‘it might be old to you, Mr Wakeman, but I only heard it for the first time last week. When you hear something for the first time, it’s new.’ I’ve never forgotten that.

 
This was in the context of an article about Rick's top 10 prog albums of all time. In the Court of the Crimson King tops his list, as it would my own. I would have included Six Wives.
 
In the Court of the Crimson King
Vanilla Fudge
The Wall
The Origin of Symmetry (Muse)
Shades of Deep Purple
Nursery Crime - Genesis
Battersea Power Station  (Junior's Eyes, their only album)
Ozzmosis (Ozzy Osbourne) (Wakeman played on this album)
Yes (the first album, also one my faves)
Tarkus (oh, yeh!)

 
Hmm... An interesting top 10 list considering who its coming from!  I'm not even sure if I could come up with a top 10, but I'm betting it would be a bit more obscure (i.e., less mainstream, like Djam Karet, etc., etc.).  There's just so much really good prog out there!  Heck, there are even other albums from the bands listed that I might put higher, like Red over In the Court of the Crimson King, or a Lamb Lies Down On Broadway over Nursery Crimes...  The Wall isn't a big favorite of mine either.  I can think of several other PF albums I prefer far more.  Now that Junior's Eyes album, I'll have to listen to again maybe later today - it's been a long time for that one (weren't they Bowie's backing band?).
 
Heh, if "I" think this list is too mainstream, I can only imagine what Pedro's going to say!  TL;DR??? 

jamesg1213
Some of Wakeman's finest work was as a session player; 'Life on Mars' and Cat Stevens' 'Morning Has Broken' have outstanding piano playing.

He also playedon Black Sabbath's Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath album.

Rbh
Bit - If you haven't heard an older band called " Happy the Man" . I think they might intrigue you.

I've got a few albums from them.  Just one of MANY semi-obscure bands worth checking out (I can't wait to get my media player fully loaded so I can do a proper listing!).

bitflipper
 
This was in the context of an article about Rick's top 10 prog albums of all time. In the Court of the Crimson King tops his list, as it would my own. I would have included Six Wives.
 
In the Court of the Crimson King Vanilla Fudge The Wall The Origin of Symmetry (Muse) Shades of Deep Purple Nursery Crime - Genesis Battersea Power Station  (Junior's Eyes, their only album) Ozzmosis (Ozzy Osbourne) (Wakeman played on this album) Yes (the first album, also one my faves) Tarkus (oh, yeh!)

 
The only album my list would have, would be ITOCK
 
The others:
Ange -- Au Dela du Delire
Egberto Gismonti -- No Caipira
Amon Duul 2 -- Wolf City
Can -- Future Days
Hawkwind -- Space Ritual (original double album)
YES -- Tales of Topographic Oceans
Genesis -- The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Banco -- First album (Italian -- not the American compilation)
Frank Zappa -- Hot Rats
 
The list Rick has is nice, but way too English centered, as if they were the only musicians in the world that did anything, and that is really sad. The internet has helped show many of us ... that there were other people also doing far out things ... but we still do not "like them" because of the language or skin difference.
 
Still could not fit the Incredible String Band and Guru Guru ... both who deserve to be on this list ... maybe a Baker's Dozen!
 
Kinda sad!
 
Music is music, regardless!

Rbh
Bit - If you haven't heard an older band called " Happy the Man" . I think they might intrigue you.

Thanks for the reminder, Rbh. Although somewhat familiar with the band, I hadn't listened to them in a long while. Found 'em on YouTube and made it my morning soundtrack. Inspiring stuff. Reminds me of another of my faves of the era, Renaissance.
 
Another of my favorites of that period was a band out of Toronto called Klaatu. Here's a tune later covered by the Carpenters:

But their best effort was a Beatle-esque concept album named Hope. 

 
 
 
 
 

craigb

bitflipper
Tangent: while searching for someplace that might have archived these interviews (they were apparently offered for sale at one time), I ran across this quote from Wakeman:
 

I learned an invaluable lesson from a kid in Argentina when we were playing Buenos Aires in 2002. I came out of the hotel and this 16-year-old-boy asked me to sign his copy of my Six Wives of Henry VIII album. As I was signing it I asked him ‘what does a 16 year-old like about this old music?’ and he looked at me, quite hurt, and said, ‘it might be old to you, Mr Wakeman, but I only heard it for the first time last week. When you hear something for the first time, it’s new.’ I’ve never forgotten that.

 
This was in the context of an article about Rick's top 10 prog albums of all time. In the Court of the Crimson King tops his list, as it would my own. I would have included Six Wives.
 
In the Court of the Crimson King
Vanilla Fudge
The Wall
The Origin of Symmetry (Muse)
Shades of Deep Purple
Nursery Crime - Genesis
Battersea Power Station  (Junior's Eyes, their only album)
Ozzmosis (Ozzy Osbourne) (Wakeman played on this album)
Yes (the first album, also one my faves)
Tarkus (oh, yeh!)

 
Hmm... An interesting top 10 list considering who its coming from!  I'm not even sure if I could come up with a top 10, but I'm betting it would be a bit more obscure (i.e., less mainstream, like Djam Karet, etc., etc.).  There's just so much really good prog out there!  Heck, there are even other albums from the bands listed that I might put higher, like Red over In the Court of the Crimson King, or a Lamb Lies Down On Broadway over Nursery Crimes...  The Wall isn't a big favorite of mine either.  I can think of several other PF albums I prefer far more.  Now that Junior's Eyes album, I'll have to listen to again maybe later today - it's been a long time for that one (weren't they Bowie's backing band?).
 
Heh, if "I" think this list is too mainstream, I can only imagine what Pedro's going to say!  TL;DR??? 

I'd have to say;
 
Van Der Graf Generator - Still Life
Gentle Giant - Freehand
Big Big Train - The Underfall Yard
Genesis - Selling England by The Pound
Marillion - Brave
King Crimson - Discipline
Peter Gabriel - 4
PFM - Chocolate Kings
Wishbone Ash - Argus
 
Oh..and...
 
Headscape - Weirdstone

Hawkwind prog? I wouldn't have said so myself. Psychedelia yes, space-rock definitely, but "prog" no. Nor Peter Gabriel's post-Genesis work.

But if Hawkwind and Peter Gabriel count as "prog" then from the 70s Neu! and Can deserve to be somewhere up there with the currently UK/US centred suggested lists. As perhaps do Kraftwerk. And there's more than a few more recent bands that never had a big label's push behind them once taste and the record market began to diversify in the 1980s. Now there seem to be as many genres as there are bands, with a new genre being created every time a band splits.

But what do I know? I was in my late teens in the late 1970s and wearing gold capes with 8" platforms was getting a little dated by then.:-)

Hawkwind and Gabriel though, no problem. Though thinking back, most of the people of my age I know who were into the earlier 70s technoflash big-budget Spinal Tap prog stuff usually disliked both of them.

Edit-

In the spirit of things....
Not a "best of all time" list, that would go on for ever, but well worth a listen -
Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Hawkwind - The Business Trip Live and Quark Strangeness and Charm.
System 7/ Mirror System - Seventh Wave and N+X
For Neu! and Can there are several good anthologies about.

craigb
I'm liking all of the above lists. 
 
Plus I believe I have every album mentioned with the possible exception of System 7/ Mirror System - Seventh Wave and N+X, though I'm not sure (and the hard drive it's on isn't accessible until I work on my PC and reboot).

Seventh Wave's both albums are fabulous ... totally great!

I try to both categorize all of the songs I have, but not get caught up in the whole naming game.  My goal is to simply group music by songs that sound good together.  Then, if I really wanted to completely mix styles, it would be my choice not the default.  I tend to listen to styles/genres/subgenres/etc. based on whatever mood I happen to be in and I have a LOT of different things to choose from!  In many cases, without shuffle-playing a subsection of my music, I have found that I would have completely missed out on stuff that's really good but obscure.  Quite often I'll have to look to see what's playing when I hear something I'm not familiar with that sounds good.
 
So, when I refer to something as "Prog," it typically means music that is labelled as such in general by most people. I don't get into the debates and arguments about whether a certain artist is "Progressive" or not (heck, Beethoven could be argued to have been progressive at his time!).
 
Most people with smaller song collections also tend to stick with a relatively small area of music that they prefer.  I have at least 250,000 songs that are all over the place: Classical, New Wave, New Age, Progressive, Rock (in many, many forms), Metal (also in many forms), Electonic (Trance, Techno, Ambient, House, etc., etc., etc.), Psychedelic, Punk, Ska, Reggae, Latin, Celtic, Dance, Pop, Soul, Funk, Folk, World, R&B, Industrial and lots of kinds of Jazz.  Heck, I even have too much inherited music like Easy Listening and Big Band.  My hard drive with the media player is currently down so I can't check these, but I'm sure I've even missed one or two.
 
Some of those subgenres I'm rarely in the mood for, others I can listen to every day.  I really don't want them all mixed together!