A Consummate Entertainer, Wakeman Wowed Crowd With Music, Stories

By John Voket

Like a rock era Victor Borge, Yes keyboardist and new age composer Rick Wakeman worked the sold out audience last Thursday at the Ridgefield Playhouse like he’s been on stage since he was five years old. Probably because the towering maestro has been performing on stage since he was that young.

In fact, he opened the June 15 show with a brief backstory on his music teacher, one Ms Dorothy Symes, who instructed him on piano from age 5 to 18. Wakeman said growing up performing music was not a chore to be avoided because he was taught music was a gift to be shared.

The artist then delivered a music lesson even many of the young children in the crowd will likely carry with them for some time, beginning the set with the first piano song he ever played live, the seven or eight note “Monkey on a Stick”… seriously!

After nearly a solid two hours transporting fans through his musical history, he even composed The Ridgefield Concerto using chords shouted out by fans throughout the house. In between, he traveled through time performing a sample of his days with the British Invasion group The Strawbs (“A Glimpse of Heaven”), the piano intro that has launched, perhaps, millions of marriages from Cat Stevens (“Morning Has Broken”), and a touching song he dedicated to his late mother, “Gone But Not Forgotten.”

Yes-era fans got a trifecta payoff of renditions including a wondrous tribute to Yes frontman Jon Anderson, “Wondrous Stories”; “The Meeting” from his Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe collaboration; and one of the outtakes from sessions compiling material for the Yes classic album, Close to the Edge.

Wakeman explained that his job during those recording sessions was to experiment with the key changes in passages he either came up with, to better suit Chris Squires bass playing, or to fit in with a guitar lick Steve Howe composed. He recalled coming across a raw taping of the session where he readapted several takes of the anthem, “And You And I.”

“I think this was actually a better version,” Wakeman told the audience before spinning around to face the keys. “And I’m only telling you about it because I don’t want any of you getting up and shouting out at the end that I got it wrong.”

The entertainer broke the house up on another occasion when he was talking about composing the mid-‘70s album , The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Before launching into flawless reproductions of “Catherine of Aragon” and “Katherine Howard,” Wakeman said he sometimes envied King Henry for his ability to navigate the challenges posed by six different wives, “…since I’m well on the way…

“You know I got divorced from one wife because I wouldn’t open the car door for her,” Wakeman said with complete innocence. “But what can I say? I panicked and swam for the surface!”

Wakeman later told the story about how at one point he was so busy between touring, writing for Yes and handling several other composing projects that he nearly had to turn down composing performance music for the XII Winter Olympics in 1976. But the producers worked out a way to send him movie clips of the Olympic routines so Wakeman could compose material while watching them during breaks backstage from his shows, in the studio or wherever he was at the moment.

When it came time to put all the songs down on record, he completed his project with 14 minutes left to spare in the session. It was then the producer approached him saying,  “…so, you’ve saved the figure skating for last have you?”

It was then that Wakeman remembered a video clip he had hastily “put aside for later,” a few weeks beforehand – apparently containing the pivotal figure skating routine. Panicking, he quickly demanded the skating video be set up for him, so he could coordinate his creation as it was written for the intricate skaters’ choreography.

While he waited for the screen to be quickly put up, Wakeman confided to the Ridgefield crowd that he was so upset, he didn’t think he would be able to play anything because his hands were shaking so hard over the tremendous gaffe. But as the tape rolled in the studio, he said the music seemed to magically roll from his fingertips.

Just as Wakeman exhausted his effort, he looked up to see the routine miraculously drawing to a close as the final few notes emitted from the piano. That and all his other Olympic works ended up on a solo album entitled White Rock.

The show concluded with two numbers that the artist put his unique and tongue-in-cheek spin on. The renditions of “Help” and “Eleanor Rigby” by Sir Paul McCarthy were performed in the individual styles of the French pianist Veronique Sanson and the Russian Prokofiev respectively.

Wakeman’s encore was a well-received “Merlin the Magician,” from his The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. But before he slipped into the night for a trip to the next show in Boston, Wakeman took the time to chat to a dozen or so fans who waited dutifully at the stage door of the Playhouse for nearly an hour after the show.

In terms of delivering one of the best and most well-rounded solo performances this reviewer has ever seen in more than 30 years, all that can be said in this postscript is: Bravo, Mr Wakeman… Bravo!