Rick Wakeman – Summertime (instr.)  [Music: George Gershwin; lyrics: DuBose Heyward]

Rick Wakeman (born 1949) is an extraordinary keyboard and piano player, both as a session musician in the 1960′s (his is the hand the plays the mellotron on David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’) to his work with progressive rock giants Yes over five decades and his own career in parallel with his work with Yes, he has kept the common touch and been continually creative. I do wish he’d let the beard grow out more though.  

Rick Wakeman as Thor, 1975

May 18th, 1949

Keyboard player Rick Wakeman is born in London. After making his name as a session musician, he joins Yes in 1971.

Rick Wakeman- Rhapsody in Blue

I need you all to listen to this so I’m not alone in my suffering

Brian Eno and Rick Wakeman

Absolute Beginners by David Bowie - Director: Julien Temple

Rick Wakeman on piano  -  1986

Rick Wakeman… in Lisztomania………..

“I’m glad to introduce you the king of all the keyboardist, playing the BEST PIANO SOLO EVER!! …   Ladies and gentlemen… Rick Wakeman!“ From Youtube channel Mitzrael7: Rick Wakeman’s awesome piano solo Fantastic \m/…

Happy 70th Birthday Rick Wakeman

Rick Wakeman  ( Yes )  -  born  May 18, 1949

David Bowie - Changes

Talk about summing up a career in one word! Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, blue-eyed soulster,  The Thin White Duke, the Berliner minimalist, dance-pop master, The Man Who Fell To Earth, self-securitizer… By 1971 Bowie had already tried multiple approaches to record-making, most successfully with “Space Oddity”. This time, Hunky Dory’s kaleidoscopic array of pop styles backed away from hard rock, instead featuring Rick Wakeman’s piano. “Changes” led off, a little serious, a lot of fun, anchored by one of Bowie’s great choruses, “Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (turn and face the strange)”. Bowie also played the sweet sax coda.

The following year his career reached full orbit with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, followed by a few more ch-ch-ch-changes. We caught him in dance mode on the Serious Moonlight tour in August, 1983.

Rick Wakeman featured on the August 21st, 1971 issue of Melody Maker magazine discussing his joining Yes; Photographer unspecified

Rick Wakeman  ( Yes )  -  born  May 18, 1949

Happy Birthday Rick Wakeman, the original wizard of the keyboards

As you can see by the cover of this record it’s one of those disco abominations that smacks of bandwaggoneering. You may know Rick Wakeman from his tenure as a key board player in prog rock band Yes and folk rock band The Strawbs but he also had a few solo albums including the one “Rhapsody in Blue” appears on: Rhapsodies. It’s synthesized madness with some hilarious synth patches to boot. A&M 1979.

The World's Rarest Instrument: The Birotron

Yes, we’ve all heard of the Mellotron–it makes those distinctive notes that introduce “Strawberry Fields Forever”–but up until a few weeks ago, I didn’t know what a Birotron was. Pronounced “Byro-tron”, the instrument was invented by Dave Biro, with financial assistance from keyboardist Rick Wakeman of Yes and Campbell Soup/Pepperidge Farms.

That unlikely pairing was due to the keyboard’s perceived potential value. The Mellotron used a static bank of 8-second tape loops to create orchestral sounds when a key was pressed, but the Birotron looked to increase the music-making capacity. Its loops were housed in replaceable 8-track cartridges, meaning different sounds could be switched out depending on the need.

Furthermore, a note on the Mellotron could only be played for 8 seconds before the tape ran out; the Birotron promised to work more like a standard synthesizer where a note could be played indefinitely. Control of pitch and decay meant a Birotron chord could change over time, thus a violin could gradually turn into a cello before morphing into a bass. The use of 8-track cartridges also meant the musician could record his or her own sounds and plug them into the Birotron. For a musical world that was just coming out of the psychedelic stew of the ‘60s, the experimental possibilities of the instrument were endless and tantalizing.

Keep reading

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG0-kPILdyw)                                              Rick Wakeman Remembers David Bowie