‘Na into the
GRUMPY old rock star Rick Wakeman is not in the best of moods. “I’m in the process of moving,” he grumbles down the phone from Norfolk. “I’ve spent the last 12 weeks surrounded by boxes and packing cases. We have to move. My kids and grandkids are embarrassed by my technological failures. I haven’t got Zoom or Skype. It’s mortifying, they say.”
Less mortifying for fans is former Yes star Rick’s return to progressive rock with his new album The Red Planet, inspired by Mars space missions.
“I’ve been heavily involved with Nasa over the years,” he says. “They sent some of my music into space... which is why the aliens went away.”
It never takes long for keyboard wizard Rick to get a laugh – as he proved in spectacularly irreverent style when Yes were (finally) inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 2017.
“It wasn’t planned,” he says. “The speeches at awards ceremonies are a nightmare. ‘I’d like to thank my Auntie Ethel...’ who gives a monkey’s? Joan Baez went off on one but the rest were dull.
“There was a loud hum around the room because everyone was talking and not listening to boring speeches. Trevor Horn looked at me and said ‘Go for it!’ I thought I’d do one line and see if it got a reaction...”
Rick started by trying to adjust the microphone, saying “Does this thing go up?... Story of my life”, before launching into moderately filthy gags. The New York audience erupted.
“So I carried on, with chunks of my prostate routine,” he chuckles. “The next day my agent said, ‘Do you want to do Saturday Night Live?’”
Wakeman, 71, could fill this entire paper with anecdotes many times over. He has worked with Bowie, Bolan, and Elton John, joined the Strawbs, and was invited to become one of Bowie’s Spiders From Mars on the very same day he joined Yes, whom he’s actually joined five times – “I’ve been in and out more times than Barbara Cartland put pen to paper,” Rick laughs.
HIS GRUMPY Old Rock Star books are packed with riotous stories about everyone from Keith Moon to Tommy Cooper. Born and raised in Perivale, West London, Wakeman is managed by ventriloquist Roger de Courcey and was King Rat of the Grand Order of Water Rats.
“I’ve loved comedy all my life,” says Rick, who started being funny on stage when he joined the Strawbs. “They had weird ways of tuning their guitars; they’d retune between songs so they’d tell stories in between. It was how Jasper Carrott started.”
His baptism of fire came later when his own post-yes band played Hammersmith Apollo. “The power failed, only the mic worked. I started telling jokes and they went down well. I did 20 minutes before the lights came back on. We finished the show but because of the power cut we overran by 15 minutes and were fined £1,000 a minute!
“Then they told me, ‘The power came back on after 30 seconds but we didn’t want to get you off...’ It was the most expensive stand-up rehearsal ever.”
His TV comedy breakthrough, on
Danny Baker’s 1993 ITV show After All, nearly didn’t happen. The producer told Rick his spot had been cut to one measly minute. Unperturbed, he put on a KGB uniform he’d smuggled out of Moscow – another great anecdote – and walked on set.
“Danny wasn’t expecting it, he sat up, eyes on full sparkle. He loved it. I talked about the uniform and about the time I was breathalysed after a dodgy curry. I did 20 minutes. Afterwards the producer cut three other guests...
“My agent immediately started getting calls for other shows. ‘Do you want to do Call My Bluff? Do you want to do XYZ...’ I owe my TV career to Danny, a good friend and such a clever guy.”
Regular shows – Grumpy Old Men, Countdown and hosting Live At Jongleurs – followed. Yet Rick never neglected music. In the 70s he topped the charts with albums such as Journey To The Centre Of The Earth and The Six Wives Of Henry VIII.
He’s written film scores, and in 2017 his Piano Portraits was the first solo piano album to enter the UK Top 10 on release (a feat he repeated with 2019’s Piano Odyssey). “I enjoyed them but I’ve exhausted the creative possibilities of piano albums for now. Maybe when I’m 80...”
Hence the return to prog rock with The Red Planet, recorded with his band, The English Rock Ensemble.
“On tour the thing I was asked most was when would I do another prog rock album. It happened so often I thought it might be good to do. I got inspired by a book I was reading about the Mars missions. The Russians were the first to orbit – it’s the 50th anniversary next May.”
In another curious twist, Rick was the first Western rock star to be invited to play Cuba by the late Fidel Castro.
“I got a letter from Castro inviting me to play, because I support a children’s cancer hospice in Havana,” he recalls. “There was no money involved, so I did a show in Mexico and Costa Rica to fund it.
“My wife Rachel, a journalist, came and two people from the government followed us everywhere. We visited the hospice and they were so far advanced with cancer treatment, it was amazing. On the other hand, toilet rolls were like gold dust.”
Rick and his band played three