VOYAGE: THE VERY BEST OF RICK WAKEMAN

Essential

A superb collection of Wakeman's early solo output on the A&M label. Four of the six tracks on his first album (Six Wives) are included, along with the entire "Journey to the centre of the Earth" album. "King Arthur" also features heavily, while only one or two shorter tracks appear from each of the subsequent albums.

This CD collection is gathered on two well filled discs, offering well over two hours of top quality music in all. There are also lengthy informative sleeve notes in the accompanying booklet. Unlike some other Wakeman "best of" collections, the tracks which appear here are all the originals, re-mastered for CD output.

Given that some of the early A&M albums have never made it to CD outwith Japan anyway (such as "No earthly connection"), "Voyage" is well worth acquiring for old and new fans alike.

To host all the albums that Rick Wakeman has relased you almost need a separate wall! This 2-CD set is a splendid compilation with an excellent sound quality and a a very comprehensive track list featuring our keyboard virtuoso in all its splendor: sparkling classical piano runs in "Catherine of Aragon" and Catherine Howard, impressive church organ in "Jane Seymour" and "Judas Iscariot", spectacular Moog synthesizer flights in "White rock" and "March of the Gladiators" and all those exciting vintage keyboards together in Rick Wakeman's magnum opus "Journey to the centre of the earth" including the swinging clavinet, the powerful Hammond organ and the majestic Mellotron. This is an ESSENTIAL compilation!

THIS REVIEW IS DEDICATED TO ROBERT MOOG WHO CONTRIBUTED SO MUCH TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROGRESSIVE ROCK MOVEMENT BY INVENTING THE MOOG SYNTHESIZERS, FROM THE MODULAR SYSTEM AND THE MINIMOOG TO THE MEMORYMOOG AND THE POLYMOOG!

The biggest problem I have with this compilation is that it excludes Catherine Parr and Ann Of Cleves from Rick's fantastic debut album Six Wives Of Henry VIII.That pretty much renders the idea of this being a 'very best of' as sheer nonsense.It does include all the other tracks though as well as the whole of the boring Journey To The Centre of The Earth. On top of that considering there are about 100 or so official Wakeman albums that have been released then the title has to be misleading.