Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboardist and composer best known as a member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his prolific solo career. AllMusic describes Wakeman as a "classically trained keyboardist extraordinaire who plied his trade with Yes and developed his own brand of live spectacular in a solo act."
Born and raised in West London, Wakeman quit his studies at the Royal College of Music in 1969 to become a full-time session musician. His early sessions included "Space Oddity", among other tracks, for David Bowie, and songs by Elton John, Marc Bolan, Cat Stevens, and Lou Reed. In 1970, Wakeman joined the folk rock group the Strawbs, during which his virtuosity gained national press coverage. He left in 1971 to join Yes, with whom he played on some of their most influential albums across two stints until 1980. During this time Wakeman began a solo career in 1973 and became an iconic and prominent figure in progressive rock. His highest-selling and most acclaimed albums were The Six Wives of Henry VIII, the UK number-one Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, all concept albums. In 1974, he formed his band the English Rock Ensemble, with which he toured worldwide and continues to perform, and went on to score his first major film, Lisztomania.
Wakeman had uneven success in the next two decades following a change in musical fashion and financial issues from two divorces. His most popular album was the conceptual rocker 1984, which was followed by the minor pop hit single "Glory Boys" from Silent Nights. He expanded into other areas such as hosting the television show GasTank, composing for television and film, forming record labels, and producing his first new-age, ambient, and Christian music with Country Airs and The Gospels, respectively. In 1988, he reunited with former Yes bandmates for Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, which led to his third period in the group until 1992. Wakeman's most significant album of the 1990s was Return to the Centre of the Earth, his first UK top 40 album in 18 years, and his piano album Piano Portraits produced his first UK top 10 album since 1975. Starting in 2009, Wakeman revisited his three hit albums of the 1970s by performing them live with new and expanded arrangements. From 2016 to 2020, Wakeman was a member of Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman. He continues to record albums and perform concerts worldwide in various capacities. His most recent album was Melancholia, released in October 2025.
Wakeman's discography includes over 100 solo albums spanning a range of musical styles. He has also gained fame for his appearances on the television programs Live at Jongleurs, Countdown, Grumpy Old Men, and Watchdog, and for his radio show on Planet Rock that aired from 2005 to 2010. Wakeman has written an autobiography and two memoirs. In 2017, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Yes. He was awarded a CBE for his services to music and broadcasting in 2021.
Early life
Richard Christopher Wakeman was born on 18 May 1949 at Perivale Maternity Hospital in Perivale, Middlesex. He is the only child of Mildred Helen and Cyril Frank Wakeman. The family lived in Wood End Gardens in nearby Northolt. Cyril worked at a building suppliers, starting as an office boy at age 14 and worked up to became one of its directors, and was a pianist in Ted Heath's big band while he was in the British Army. Mildred worked at a removals firm. Wakeman attended Wood End Junior School until he was ten, followed by Drayton Manor Grammar in Hanwell. His summer holidays were spent with his parents in Exmouth. Although raised in a Christian family, Wakeman "never had anything forced on me" and attended South Harrow Baptist Church, which he enjoyed. He took up the church organ at twelve, joined the Boys' Brigade, and completed a two-year course to become a Sunday school teacher. At eighteen he decided to be baptised by immersion.Wakeman was inspired to take up the piano at the age of five. His parents, aunts and uncle performed as a concert party troupe called The Wakeans until the war caused them to disband. They occasionally revived the act in the front room on Sunday evenings, playing the piano and singing songs which he heard from his upstairs bedroom. "I used to climb out of bed and sit on the bottom of the stairs and listen." Eventually his parents allowed him to play a piece on the piano. "Everybody clapped, and I thought, I'll have some more of that, and refused to go back to bed." Sergei Prokofiev made a strong impression on Wakeman after his father took him to a concert performance of Peter and the Wolf when he was about eight, which inspired him to tell stories with his music. He has since named the Russian composer a musical hero. Other musical influences on Wakeman during this time were trad jazz musician Kenny Ball, skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan, and pianist Russ Conway; his first music purchases were records by all three. His first keyboard was a reed organ bought from Woolworths.
Between the ages of seven and eighteen, Wakeman had classically trained piano and theory lessons with Dorothy Symes in Harrow, paid for by his father, who spent almost half of his income on tuition. Wakeman passed each grade with a distinction, and Symes recalled him to be an "enjoyable pupil to teach, full of fun and with a good sense of humour", but lacked discipline to practice scales. She noted his fondness to adapt arrangements and play a piece in his own style, revealing his natural gift at composition. His first performances to an audience were recitals that Symes put on for the parents of all her current pupils. He performed his first two recitals, "Buy a Broom" and "See a Monkey on a Stick", on stage in later life. His showmanship also developed early, when at age ten, he played Conway's honky-tonk piano hit "Side Saddle" instead of his intended rehearsed piece, a Clementi piano sonatina, at his annual school talent show. In the same year Symes entered Wakeman in the Southall Music Festival, which he won for his category. He went on to win many others on the competition circuit in the south and west London area over the next several years; biographer Dan Wooding reported over 100 certificates and 20 medals and cups.
Wakeman described himself as "a horror" at Drayton Manor school, "I worked hard in the first year then eased up." He passed music, art, maths and English at O Level, and chose to study music, art, and British constitution at A-level. He failed the latter. He played in the school football team.
Career
1962–1969: Early career and Royal College of Music
Wakeman played in his first band, the trad jazz outfit Brother Wakeman and the Clergymen, at age 12. Their name derived from wearing the uniform of the school shirt put on the wrong way round, to which a friend said they looked like vicars. In the same year Wakeman started playing the clarinet, and was second clarinettist in the school orchestra. In 1963 he joined the Atlantic Blues, a local five-piece group that secured a year's residency at a club for the mentally disabled in Neasden, which taught him the discipline of working within a band. He formed Curdled Milk, a joke on "Strange Brew" by Cream, to perform at the annual school dance. The band were unpaid after Wakeman lost control of his car and drove across the headmaster's rose garden at the front of the school, thereby forfeiting their performance fee to pay for the damage. Shortly after Wakeman, already a member of the Atlantic Blues, joined the Concordes, playing dance and pop songs at local events with his cousin Alan Wakeman on saxophone and clarinet. Money earned from these gigs was used to buy his first electronic keyboard, a Hohner Pianet.In 1966 he formed his own dance band, the Green Dolphin Trio, who had a residency at the Brent council social club in Alperton. He left in the following year to join the Ronnie Smith Band at the Top Rank ballroom in Watford. Here he met singer Ashley Holt, who appeared on many of Wakeman's future albums and tours. Smith fired Wakeman for not taking the dance music seriously enough, but was soon reinstated at the Top Rank in Reading. Around this time, Wakeman frequented the Red Lion pub in Brentford where he took part in jam sessions with several established musicians, including John Entwistle, James Royal, Nick Simper, and Mitch Mitchell. His first radio appearance followed soon after, when Royal invited him to take part in a live BBC session with himself, Entwistle, and guitarist Mick King.
In 1968, with support from his school, Wakeman acquired a scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London with the intention of becoming a concert pianist. He had to pass eight exam grades to earn his A-level music degree, but he eased up and had passed only six, which required him to do two years' work in ten months. With additional tuition from Symes, he put in the effort following a ten-shilling bet with his music teacher who believed he would not succeed, and refusing an offer to work with his father at the building suppliers. Wakeman entered the college on a performer's course with the piano as his first study, clarinet his second, and orchestration and modern music his third, but quickly found out that "everyone else there was at least as good as me; and a lot of them much better", and switched to a teacher's course. His orchestration professor, Philip Cannon, had a long-lasting influence on his own compositions.
Wakeman was enthusiastic to start, but this was followed with periods of disillusionment and frustration. His requests to start a rock and jazz club were denied, and one professor urged him to cut his hair short; Wakeman refused and let it grow even longer. His desire to study lessened, and spent more time drinking and hanging out with the staff at the Musical Bargain Centre, a music shop in Ealing. The owner, Dave Simms, gave Wakeman an evening job as pianist in his dance band and noticed his natural talent. One day guitarist Chas Cronk entered the shop in need of an organist and brass arranger for an upcoming recording session with Ike & Tina Turner Revue vocalist Jimmy Thomas. Simms suggested Wakeman, who attended the session with Cronk at Olympic Studios where he met producers Denny Cordell, Gus Dudgeon, and Tony Visconti, and engineer Keith Grant. It was his first time in a recording studio and scoring for brass; he incorrectly copied them in concert pitch, which the band corrected. Cordell was nonetheless impressed with his style of playing, and Wakeman accepted his offer to more session work for Regal Zonophone Records, which he used to compensate the small grant he had received to study, which was frowned upon by the college. Following encouragement from his clarinet professor, Basil Tschaikov, who had noted his growing preference for the more lucrative sessions and contemporary music, Wakeman dropped out from the college one year into his course.