Rick Wakeman on Space Oddity

[dsetto]

just learned that.

[16251]

[Marzzz]

And Cat Stevens' "Morning Has Broken." You do know that one?

 

He has played on a lot of famous tracks.

 

My favorite is David Bowie's Life On Mars?

[Ulf]

[Mark Schmieder]

He also played on Elton John's "Madman Across the Water", but I forget which tune(s) off-hand. I see that the link above captures that contribution as well, but only at the album-level. That was actually my first introduction to him, then Yes, followed by discovering Bowie a few years late. :-)

[VanDerGraaf]

Don't forget "Hunky Dory"! What an album to have been a part of.

[Bill H.]

According to Wikipedia, Wakeman was paid nine pounds for the session. There appears to be no particular reason he got the gig, other than he was the in-house keyboard guy at Trident Studios.

 

This was 1969 - a couple of years before the start of his tour in Yes, and three years before Rocket Man covered a lot of the same thematic and melodic material contained in Space Oddity. Ever notice how the first eight notes of both songs' choruses are the same?

[Mark Schmieder]

Hmm, I'd never given that any thought before. Elton John and David Bowie were on good terms, and I doubt either took offense at any borrowing as they both come more from a tradition where that's the order of the day.

 

But even so, it hadn't occurred to me to listen for common threads between two very strong artists based on what a sideman contributed. I actually find that very satisfactory, that even artists of that caliber can be influenced by someone from the outside if they have sufficient talent and inspiration.

[Ed A.]

He also played piano and synth on Black Sabbath's "Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath".

[zxcvbnm098]

The BEST Sabbath song ever recorded!! LOVE his contributions on that album..

[Ed A.]

He's all over this:

 

[video:youtube]

[synthizen2]

In a prog-rock documentary, Wakeman says that in 1971, just a few months after the recording of Hunky Dory, he was asked to be in Bowie's new band - based on this "Spiders From Mars" theme. Wakeman declined as he was being asked to join Yes at the same time. One of those "I wonder where I'd be today, if...." moments.

[Synthoid]

I think he made the right decision.

[ahutnick]

While I would agree that he made the right move joining Yes he did say that he enjoyed playing on the Hunky Dory album and IMHO some of the songs on that album such as Changes,Life On Mars are excellent. There is a recent Wakeman interview in which he discusses choosing between joining Yes or David Bowie but I don't know where to find it.

[Shamanczarek]

I think Wakeman was a member of The Strawbs when he left to join Yes. He had played on three Strawbs albums and appeared with the band in concerts and on TV. Tony Visconti produced Bowie and The Strawbs at the time and probably brought Rick in for Bowie's sessions. David Cousins, leader of The Strawbs, was bitter about Rick leaving the band and later admitted his song "Tomorrow" was written about Wakeman.

[Mark Schmieder]

I had forgotten about The Strawbs, whose albums I couldn't locate at the time, though I heard them played on semi-underground radio stations and loved them (yet not knowing their group membership).

 

Not sure if I discovered them before or after, but likely after, as I wasn't allowed to listen to pop/rock growing up ("the devil's music"), and had to listen with the radio turned as low as it would go before silence, to get away with stealth listening of Boston's WBCN FM. :-) -- and that wasn't until high school years ('72-'76).