One of the tasks that I have most enjoyed since I started doing stuff for Gonzo, has been working on the updated version of Dan Wooding's 1978 biography of Rick Wakeman. We liaised quite closely on the project via e-mail, but it wasn't until a couple of days ago that we actually spoke..
Jon: How did you come about writing the book in the first place?
Dan: How I came to write the book actually happened about 40 years ago when I was working for a newspaper in Ealing in West London.
It was called the Middlesex County Times and it was a weekly paper and I’d been given the region area of that rather boring part of London, South Ealing to go out and try to get some stories. And one day I was going down the South Ealing Road, which is actually the same road where the famous Ealing Studios were, but right at the far end was a rather dusty little store called the Musical Bargain Centre. It sold second-hand guitars, and things like that, and so I went inside and said I was from the local paper and the gentleman called Uncle Ernie, as he introduced himself was telling me a little bit about the store and everything. Then I suddenly heard someone playing keyboards in the back there, and I had never heard anything like it in all my life.
I said to Uncle Ernie, “Who on earth is that?” And he said “Oh it’s a young kid called Rickie Wakeman – (that was his name in those days) – and he comes in here and rehearses ‘cos he doesn’t have the keyboards that he needs. I said “Does he live locally?” And he said, “Yes, he lives in a place called Northolt.” So I said, “Could you bring him out?” So he came out and he was very friendly.
He was extremely tall, and I said, “Rick, I am from the local rag and can I interview you?” And he said, “Oh, I’ve never been interviewed before.” And the next thing we know is he’s telling me that he is a student at the Royal College of Music, he was doing sessions at the same time and he told me he had done Morning has Broken with Cat Stevens, he said he arranged that and did the piano on it. And that he did Mellotron on Space Oddity and so I did a nice little story. 'Rickie Wakeman is watching the charts'. It was really corny little story.
And he was so thrilled with being in the paper that he invited me round to his home in Northolt, and we sat in his front room and he played for me on his upright piano there, and honestly I’ve never in my life heard anyone play keyboards like that, and we became very close friends.
We both have another affiliation, because both of us are Christians and I was born in Nigeria of missionary parents, and I shared with him about that, and he told me that he’d been baptised and was a Sunday School teacher at the South Harrow Baptist Church. And so quite regularly Rick would invite me round,, and then he suddenly joined the Strawbs and he would invite me to all the different concerts and I went with my wife to the Queen Elizabeth Hall where that was really when he was launched into the big time and I believe the Melody Maker did a big story called 'Tomorrow’s Superstar', and I would regularly go to all these different concerts, and then he joined Yes, and that was when he moved into a whole different stratosphere.
And so we were constantly getting free tickets from Uncle Rick and we would spend time together, and after a while I was just watching him go from this little kid – well he wasn’t really little – this unknown kid to having 20 cars, 8 Rolls Royces was really incredibly talented, and so I said – because I write books - “Rick, can I write your life story?” And he sort of reluctantly said I could.
It took me five whole long years to do it ‘cos part of the problem was actually trying to get him to sit down and then tell me things because he was travelling so much and so eventually after five years of hard work, we got the book finished and when we had the situation, what about a foreword? And Rick had mentioned Elton John.
I contacted Elton John’s PR lady and she said to me after a little while “Well, I don’t think Elton wants to do this, so I was a little taken aback and so we were going to approach David Bowie, and she called back, and she said, “Oh, he’s changed his mind,” meaning, I think, “I never told him”, (we both laughed, and having been a PR person myself, I think that it is highly likely that Dan's assessment of the situation is correct). so then she hand delivered his foreword for us and the book came out, and it was rather an amazing work for me. It was just out of respect for Rick that I did this book.
I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that it is coming out again, because many people who know Rick just as a fun guy on the different shows where he sort of just plays the fool, many of them don’t realise what an amazing talent he is. And so I am hoping that a whole new generation of younger fans will rediscover Rick Wakeman and actually be encouraged and challenged to become the best at what they do, because in my opinion Rick is the best. He’s the greatest keyboard guy I’ve ever seen.
Jon: He’s a fantastic musician. I’ve just got a copy of a new live album he’s done for Rob’s company and it’s fantastic. Just listening to it the other night I was thinking how one earth does that man manage to move his fingers so fast.
Dan: That’s true
I particularly enjoyed talking to Dan, and we chatted for much longer than I had intended. The second part of this interview will be posted tomorrow. The book is, by the way, available on amazon..
No comments:
Post a Comment