An Evening with Rick Wakeman – His Music and Stories

As a much sought after session musician in the late sixties and early seventies, Wakeman played on more than 2,000 records, including such hits as Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken and David Bowie’s Space Oddity and Life on Mars, and worked with a real eclectic mixture of other notable artistes, such as Donovan, Cilla Black, Marc Bolan, Black Sabbath, Lou Reed, Mary Hopkin, Dana, Al Stewart, Elton John and John Williams. In March 1970, he joined Strawbs. His first album with them, Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios, paved the way for ‘folk-rock’ and reviews from their concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on July 11th of that year did much to take Rick’s career to a new level. He joined YES in August of 1971 and has been in and out of that band on quite a few occasions!