Rick Wakeman - Solo Career Appreciation

he is a one off great musician I`ve gotten a fair few solo albums by RW...

I love Rick Wakeman (Infact I even own a red cape), the great thing about him unlike others is that he did whatever he wanted or felt like. i.e. Leave YES and return when he felt like doing that also being welcomed upon his return to YES always  He is brilliant and spunky too.

Green Shield Stamp wrote: ^ several on the list here that I don't have. I see that you have included G'ole! How does this compare to White Rock? I don't have Zodiaque or Themes either yet but I think an Amazon order is on the cards

Rick Wakeman is one of my favorite musicians ever, in and outside of prog.

Indeed, Criminal Record would be the next one for you to get after Arthur. And then, Out There.

For UK readers, I took advantage of a £3 compilation in Sainsbury's and was very pleasantly surprised.  I liked Wakeman with Yes but never explored his solo albums but the ones represented here are good (especially 'Criminal Record').

He's made a lot of albums and some of them are duffers (although in a strange way I quite like "Ice"). As you say, he is a good bloke (the documentary on Vivaldi that Richard mentioned was interesting) but he lacks the melodic invention of most of his Yes colleagues.

Edited by chopper - May 06 2015 at 03:07

I don't have so many live albums from him, nor have I been looking out for whatever new he is releasing, so I might have missed a few things. I might want to check that one out, I usually love live albums. I have some album that includes a bonus CD... some "official bootleg" with horrible sound quality, but which includes a version of "Eleanor Rigby" with vocals, which is just great... but once again I can't get myself to listen to it because of it's horrible sound. There was some other song I really liked there that I haven't got on any other album... but don't quiet remember which one it is at the moment. Also, what I would love to get is the DVD from the Arthur on Ice concerts... but that one was only released as part of a boxset which was a bit expensive... and even more, I think not so easy to get.

Oh, I really love his music too. He was one of the first prog artists I knew, before I even knew the genre existed (a friend of mine lent me a tape with Myths and Legends recorded on it... didn't really know what to make of it, and though Rick was the singer or something, but I warmed up to it and it is perhaps my favourite from him, along with 6 wives). Actually, I knew Wakeman's music before Yes, and it was this connection that led me to know Yes too, and it was about then that I became aware of prog. I don't think I have as much as 40 albums from him, but I do have quiet a few, and indeed all of them have something to enjoy. I would say he is among my favourite 5 artists, along with Pink Floyd, Yes themselves, Dream Theater, and Mike Oldfield.

About his judgements towards his own albums (well, I think it was under little known trivia and not in the veredicts) I remember one album (not which one, though) in which he said "To be brutally honest, I don't even remember recording this one"... that's how many albums he got.

About the song Ice, I actually enjoy that one very much (indeed not his very best song, but I still like it). Actually, I do remember reading him saying that thing of his best song. I also remember him saying something very similar about the Arthur song (though on that one I think he said "composition" instead of "song")... and on that one I certainly could agree.

So, about my favourite Wakeman albums (and actually, there are more albums from him in which I like most or all of the songs than with Yes albums), it would be something like this:

- Myths and Legends.
- 6 Wives (I guess I like slightly better the original one, though sometimes I might prefer to hear the live symphonic version... which I might add I attended and have a recording done at the very moment and which was ready 20 min after the concert... perfect sound quality).
- Out There.
- Criminal Record.
- Journey to the Center of the Earth (though I'm afraid I still don't know the new studio version... but it might arrive in a few weeks).

This last three ones I'm not sure in which order, but something like this. About the other ones you mention, "No Earthly Connection" didn't really work so well with me... it was kind of patchy, and the better melodies don't stay long enough and then come up again after too much time and so on... though the prisoner is indeed a wonderful song... and there is the live version from "Out of the Blue" which is really just about perfect in it's shortened form, and more cohesive... usually I don't like medleys, but this one is the exception (and this concert was played by the same line-up that did Out There, and since the concepts are suposed to be connected, it is nice to play this version of the song before puting that album). The Retro albums are both very nice too, and I do enjoy them a lot, though not all of the songs... I guess I could make a wonderful album out of the two. The same thing could be said about "Can you Hear me"... some really beautiful songs there. 1984 has a few good moments, but it's far from my favourite album by him. And I'm afraid I don't yet know "White Rock", "Fields of Green" and "Softsword"... I guess I should get them at some point.

Another few albums that I do enjoy from him, though not so proggy nor so utterly brilliant are Stella Bianca and The Lord of the Rings album (which I understand is just about the same as the originally 7 Wonders of the World... but the one I got is the LotR version)... on both of which I enjoy all of the songs... though they don't reach the same highs his really prog albums reach. There's also a special mention for albums like Phantom Power and Return to the Center of the Earth, which even though they have many songs that don't do much, they also have some really brilliant songs included (I really love Ramon Remedio's singing, and I wish Rick had done some really full blown prog rock album with him).

Edited by Dellinger - May 04 2015 at 22:54