Rick Wakeman Learns A Lesson

Rick Wakeman has revealed the valuable lesson he learned from a young fan about the value of old music.

The keyboard icon recently released an all-new and extended recording of his 1974 work Journey To The Centre Of The Earth in a Classic Rock Fanpack, on sale now.

But ten years ago, he found a new way of thinking after meeting a fan who was carrying a copy of his 1973 album The Six Wives Of Henry VIII.

Wakeman tells Music Radar: “I came out of the hotel in Buenos Aires and this 16-year-old boy asked me to sign his copy. As I was signing it I asked him, ‘What does a 16-year-old like about this old music?’

“He looked at me, quite hurt, and said, ‘It might be old to you, Mr Wakeman, but I only heard it for the first time last week. When you hear something for the first time, it’s new.’ I’ve never forgotten that.”

As he lists his ten favourite prog rock albums for Music Radar, Wakemen reflects on the resurgence the genre is currently enjoying. “If you listen to music from the 60s that prog followed on from, the songs then were very formatted,” he says.

“To a large extent it was intro, verse, chorus, verse, solo, chorus, fade out. All prog did was say, ‘We’re not going to do that – we’re going to break the rules. If we feel like doing something then we’re going to do it.

“What’s happened over the years is that there’s now a little bit of prog in almost everything. So it’s had an influence.”