LINK: ‘Leave it to me’: Rick Wakeman’s genius first-take contribution to Bowie’s “Space Oddity”

Dan Wooding, author of 45 books, was the first journalist to ever write a story about the young Rick Wakeman. That gives him a unique perspective on the legendary keyboardist’s work with prog-rock pioneers Yes, but also his interesting solo work and sideman projects over the years.

Wooding’s new 2012 authorized biography on Wakeman, called Caped Crusader takes us inside the early Yes years, as Wakeman assumes the keyboard chair for founding member Tony Kaye. But there’s much more to Wooding’s tale.

Wakeman left Yes in the middle part of the decade, producing a trio intriguing individual albums called The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, all between 1973-75, before returning for what would be a series of reunions with Yes. (Wakeman was also a member of the band from 1976-80, part of the splinter group Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe beginning in 1989 and then in Yes again until 1992, followed by two more stops in 1995-97 and 2002-04.)

Read on...

RICK WAKEMAN vs DAVID BOWIE (the story continues)

As regular readers will know, Dan Woodings extraordinary look at the life of Rick Wakeman in the 1970s will be out within the next couple of weeks. However, the other day I posted a section about Rick Wakeman playing on the 1969 sessions for David Bowie's Space Oddity.

Here, in an extract from Wakeman's own autobiography, is the story of what happened a couple of years later...

I had already decided to quit Strawbs purely for financial reasons and to return to doing sessions full time where I knew I could make four times as much money on a regular basis. Then came the two telephone calls that were to shape the next stage of my musical career. The first came from David Bowie. He asked me to meet him that evening at a club in Hampstead to discuss a proposition he had for me. David was doing a surprise performance at the club with just himself and Mick Ronson on guitar. David was dressed in the most wild outfit I had ever seen, which included giant blue feathers protruding from a Tiller-girl style headdress.

After David’s performance, which completely freaked the audience out, he came and sat down with me at a private table near the bar.

"I’m forming a band which I’m going to call ‘Spiders from Mars’," he began, "and I’m going to become Ziggy Stardust. I want you to be part of the band and be responsible for the arrangements as well. You can have a lot of freedom and the money will be good as my management are in the middle of negotiating for an album and a world tour."

I was flattered beyond belief. Here was an opportunity to stay out on the road, which I really enjoyed, and earn enough to pay the mortgage at the same time! David told me to spend a couple of days thinking about it and then to call him. I told David there and then that it sounded great and I really fancied the whole idea, but David insisted I took my time over the decision.

The following night, or three o’clock in the morning to be precise, the telephone rang with the other call. This one was from Chris Squire of Yes. We had met once before when Strawbs had supported Yes at a gig in Hull. I remember staying to hear their set and being intrigued by their sound, which was totally different from anything else around at the time. They also looked different, almost wrong in fact.

Most bands at that time had lead singers who were tall and had deep throaty voices. Jon Anderson was diminutive and had a pure adult falsetto. Bass players, with the exception of John Entwhistle of The Who, were pretty much backroom boys. Not so Chris Squire, whose treble-sounding bass played as melodic bass lines as I had ever heard. Bill Bruford seemed very composed on the drums as against the usual drummer who normally sat in a pile of sweat, and Steve Howe was the First guitarist I had heard for a long time that didn’t sound like Eric Clapton. Perhaps the only area that came across as standard was that of Tony Kaye on the organ, who in fairness was not given a leading role within the music.

To this day I vividly remember the opening of the conversation with Chris. I had not got home from a late session until about two o’clock that morning and had to be up at seven to get into London. I was in a deep sleep when the ‘phone rang.

I picked up the phone and struggled to pull myself up into a sitting position.

"Hello," I ventured.

“Oh, hello, this is Chris Squire. We have met once before, up in Hull if you remember. Anyway, we’ve just returned today from our first American tour and we’ve come to the conclusion that we want to move more into orchestral keyboards and, having read some of your interviews and heard you play, feel that you are the perfect musician to help us both achieve our joint aims. What do you think‘?"

"What time is it?"

"Er, ten past three."

"I’ve got to be up at seven."

"Shall I call you back tomorrow, then?"

“Please."

And that ended the conversation.

I got back home the following day about six o’clock in the evening. There were four messages from Chris Squire to call him and also a couple from the manager of Yes, Brian Lane. I spoke to Chris, who said that Brian wanted to arrange a meeting up at their offices, in South Street in the heart of Mayfair. I called Brian first thing the following morning and a meeting was set up at which I met up with both Jon and Chris. We arranged to have a rehearsal the next day to see if we fitted in together. I felt there was nothing to lose by this and arrived at the rehearsal room at the duly arranged time.

At that rehearsal we pretty much composed "Roundabout" and "Heart of the Sunrise". I was over the moon. The standard of musicianship was phenomenal and I knew this band wanted to go places, and I wanted to go with them. I arrived back home thinking about how I was going to tell Strawbs what I wanted to do, and found myself with another problem awaiting my return. It came in the form of a message from David Bowie’s office, asking for confirmation that I would be fronting Spiders from Mars.

I spent the evening in the Apollo public house at the end of the road trying to decide what to do about my dilemmas.

First I had to choose between Yes and Bowie. I chose Yes, simply because I would be an equal member of the band with equal opportunities, plus the fact that the music we had come up with at that day’s rehearsal was stupendous. With David, I would always be a member of his band and much as I loved working with him I realised that there was only so far I could go along that route. The next day I phoned David and told him personally of my decision. He wished me much success and we have remained friends ever since. There is no doubt that I learned much from working with him and thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing with him the last time we worked together, on Absolute Beginners.

RICK WAKEMAN VS DAVID BOWIE

Following on from Yesterday's Post about David Bowie and Rick Wakeman, here is an exclusive chunk from the reissued Rick Wakeman biography by Dan Wooding that comes out on Gonzo books, sometime in the next few weeks:

Gus Dudgeon, who has since produced Elton John’s big hits, (and who sadly died in 2002) recalls, ‘Tony Visconti and I were then working in the same suite of offices.

In those days, you couldn’t give Bowie away. The only record company that would take him was Mercury, in America. I knew Bowie from the days when I was an engineer at Decca and I did all the engineering on the two albums that he did for them.

One day Tony called me over the internal phone and said, “I know this sounds bizarre, Gus, but I’ve been working with David, and Mercury say he must record ‘Space Oddity’ as a single because the first American moon shot is coming up.

I want to do the album with him but I can’t stand this song. Would you be interested?”

‘I listened to the demo and thought it was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe Tony didn’t want to do it, and so I called him up and said I’d do it. This was in the early days of Mellotrons. I think The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ had come out by then and they had used it a lot on that album. So as Bowie and I were discussing it we came up with the idea of a Mellotron, not to be used as a string section, but as its typical sound - very doleful and mournful. We decided that was fine, but there weren’t many people who knew how to get a decent sound out of the instrument. So we got the whole thing planned down to the smallest detail, because I knew ‘Space Oddity’ had a chance of being a hit. We planned where the Mellotron would come in and out, but because we knew so little we couldn’t really write a part for it.

So then we went back to Tony’s office, told him what we were going to do, and asked him if he knew anybody who could play a Mellotron. He said, “I only know one bloke, called Wakeman, but he plays in a dance band.” I said sarcastically, “That sounds great.” And he said, “He’s all right. I’ve been using him on Juniors Eyes* sessions.” So I said, “Well, it’s a gamble but let’s give it a whirl. If it’s a disaster we’ll over-dub it again.”

‘So we went into Trident Studios, London, and started running it through. But there was no sign of our Mellotron player. I thought, “This is great!” We got to the point where we had the whole thing down to a fine art and it really was sounding good. I was feeling very pleased with myself because it was the first time that I had really worked on a record, and something that had sounded a certain way in my head was beginning to sound correct in the studio.

‘At the last minute the door opened and this great long streak walked in and said, “I’m terribly sorry. My name’s Rick Wakeman - I’ve been booked to play Mellotron.” So I said, “Well, this is a bit of an inopportune time to arrive. We’re on the point of laying a track down.” He said, “Gosh, I’m terribly sorry.” I told him, “The only thing I can do is mark on this chart the points where I would like you to play, and maybe while we lay this one down you can sit and listen to the thing as a whole and see what is required. I must be honest with you, I know very little about Mellotrons - I don’t know how to get a sound out of them or anything.” Rick said, “Leave it to me.”

‘So I went over to the box and did a take and Rick sat there looking at his part without playing a note. Barry, the engineer, looked at me and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Who’s this freak?” And I said, “I don’t know. Just some mad bloke that Visconti sent me.”
Anyway, we got to the end of the first take and decided to have a playback, and Rick came in and listened to it. I reminded him again of the places and he said, “It’s all right, I’ve worked it out. Are you going to do another take?” I said we were. He asked, “Do you mind if I have a go on this one?” I thought this was pretty ambitious but said, “All right.”

‘Well, we did a run-through and got three-quarters of the way through and Rick came in the right place. And what he played was exactly what I wanted. It was incredible! We did one more take and it was a master. I thought, “This is weird.” This strange bloke was all covered in spots and had greasy hair, wearing the most dreadful clothes. And we were all wearing Carnaby Street stuff.

We sat down and listened to the playback and he said, “That’s all right, isn’t it?” I said. “It sounds pretty good to me. I think we have a hit there.” And Rick said. “Well, is that all you want?” I said, “Yes, thanks very much.” And off he went. Just like that, back to his ballroom job. I thought, “What a weird bloke!” I really liked him. I thought he was great. But he was so weird!”

Rick told me, ‘I thought ‘Space Oddity’ was a guaranteed monster record. It came out around July 1970, and I played it to lots of people. Everybody said, “No, it’s not very good.” I thought after a while they must have been right, because it did nothing at all. But around Christmas it suddenly came to life again, and did monstrously well.’

DAVID BOWIE, RICK WAKEMAN AND ME

It is always strange when one reads a book on a subject which one knows very well indeed, and discovers all sorts of major new facts. We are not talking minutiae here, but pivotal pieces of information which actually make sense of things that you haven’t really understood for several decades. This happened to me a couple of Christmases ago, when my lovely wife Corinna bought me a copy of Philip Norman’s biography of John Lennon. I have dozens of books on The Beatles, and Lennon in particular on my library shelves, and I was amazed to discover so much new material about him; material that in some cases was over 50 years old.

Now, the same thing has happened to me again, only – if it is possible – more so. I have just finished reading Paul Trynka’s biography of David Bowie. The cover is emblazoned with endorsements from major national newspapers saying things like ‘superb’, ‘fascinating’ and ‘essential’, and by golly they ain’t kidding. About 30 years ago I read Alias David Bowie by Peter and Leni Gillman. It revealed many things that Bowie had probably wanted to keep hidden, mostly about his brother Terry who spent most of his adult life in Cane Hill psychiatric hospital, eventually taking his own life by jumping in front of a train. It was a remarkable book, but told you very little about the music.

In the last few months I have been working on two biographies of Rick Wakeman, one written by the man himself, and the other by Dan Wooding (it will be out in a couple of weeks, guys, so keep your eyes peeled). Both books told me a lot that I didn’t know about Bowie’s late 60s and early 1970s recordings, including the fact that he had originally invited Wakeman to join the nascent Spiders from Mars. Rick decided to join Yes instead, and the sound of Bowie’s music – live at least - took off at an entirely new tangent. This wetted my appetite for more Bowie, and when the Trynka book bounced through my letter box courtesy of those jolly nice people at Sphere, I sat myself down and started to devour it.

This is a much more balanced tome than the one written by the Gillmans all those years ago, and it tells you more about what really matters; the music. The descriptions of the sessions for ‘Young Americans’ and ‘Scary Monsters’ are particularly illuminating. Sadly, the vast majority is about Bowie’s career up until 1980. His life until then takes up 300 pages and the subsequent 32 years a mere 96. This is, fairly standard fare in rock biographies, but unlike many artists who do all their interesting stuff in their youth and twenties, and churn out a parade of dull, fan fodder until they are finally kicked off their record company roster in late-middle age, Bowie has continued to produce interesting, radical and often confrontational music throughout his career. Yes, the albums that came out in the second half of the 1980s are best forgotten, but in the past 20 years, he has produced some really stunning stuff.

Starman is actually one of the best rock biographies I have read in recent years, if not ever and it really was a treat for someone like me, who still suffers from the delusion that rock music has some cultural and even spiritual importance. All the young, and not so young, dudes should get their collective fingers out and get hold of a copy.

REVIEW: 'All the Madmen' by Clinton Heylin

As the more observant of you all will have noticed, whereas there are exceptions to the rule (the ever lovely Mimi Page being an obvious one) a lot of the music that Gonzo Multimedia puts out is from the sixties and seventies, which were somewhat of a golden age in British music.
So I felt justified in getting hold of a copy of Clinton Heylin's new book, because OK, Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, The Who and Nick Drake are not actually Gonzo recording artistes, but they are very much part of the artistic milieu that Gonzo covers. The book covers - broadly - the links between mental illness and creativity in a disparate bunch of classic British recording artistes. And that is where the problem with this book lies; the artistes in question are too blasted disparate.

Not that this is a bad book. It isn't. I am a great fan of Clinton's writing (Great White Wonders - his book about the history of bootlegs, is probably my favourite), and I don't actually think he is capable of writing a bad book. This book is excellently researched and very well written, and I enjoyed it immensely. Then why, I hear you all ask, am I complaining about it?

I'm not complaining exactly, but I do have a problem. I'm not sure what the purpose of this book is. It tells some fascinating stories, and furthermore it tells them in an engaging fashion; one that kept me happily entertained for a couple of days when - in between doing more onerous tasks - I curled up in my favourite chair with the cat on my knee, sipped tea, and read. At the end of it, I look back at what I have read and I realise that - for me at least - there was no real conclusion. I learned stuff I dodn't know before about some of my favourite artistes, but at the end of the day, there was no great a-ha moment to tie it all together. I wanted to put the book down with a big sigh, and the thought that I had finally got my head around one of life's great truisms. But I didn't.

I finished the book, finished my tea, scratched the cat behind his ears, thought "well, that's it I guess", and came in to write this review. Sadly, when it comes to an author of Heylin's calibre, that is no longer enough...

But then again, like so many of the artistes whose stories are recounted within, I am bi-polar, and perhaps, like Nick Drake, David Bowie, Ray Davies etc I am never satisfied...

Keith Christmas

Keith Christmas:
More Tales From The Human Zoo

Keith Christmas came through during the late sixties playing his own brand of folk and rock tinged pop. More famously Keith played on the David Bowie album that would eventually be titled Space Oddity. From there he formed a rock band briefly before signing a solo deal with Emerson Lake and Palmer's record label Manticore. While with Manticore Keith Christmas released two albums Tales From The Human Zoo and Brighter Day the first of which Brighter Day was produced by ELP and former King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield. After these two albums Keith became disenchanted with the music business and dropped out for many years before reappearing with a new blues influenced style. In late 2004 Keith spoke to Jon Kirkman about his diverse and interesting career

Jon Kirkman
Tell us about playing on David Bowie's Space Oddity and how did that come about

Keith Christmas
It came about because he was running a sort of folk club in the late sixties when folk was really popular but being the sixties David called it the Beckenham Arts Lab and it was at the Three Tuns a pub on Beckenham High Street and out the back was a very large garden where people would go and commune with nature and various substances. It was a very popular place and stars like Marc Bolan used to go there and I was one of his favourite guests and he used to play and have a bit of a strum and be the warm up. Anyway I played his club a load of times and he asked me to go and play on his record which had the big production number on it Space Oddity which was done elsewhere and he had an album to fill up sort of fairly ordinary tracks and I played on around five of them

JK
You had released a number of albums prior to the Manticore deal, which covers Brighter Day, and Stories From The Human Zoo but these albums weren't as rocky as the Manticore albums why was that?

KC
The first three were done in 69-70 and 71. They were done while I was still at university and were more folk jazz oriented. The third one particularly had a band side with some really good musicians who played with Stephen Stills. We had Fuzzy Samuels on bass and on the other side was acoustic with strings arranged by Robert Kirby who did one of the Nick Drake albums and it was my sort of artistic experiment to show two sides of me. I was a folkie but I desperately wanted to be a rocker. I think if I'd had a bit more wit and common sense I would have realised that I haven't got the voice to be a rocker and I probably haven't got the temperament to be a rocker either and if I'd have stuck with the acoustic I'd have probably been alright.
Then there was a gap or hiatus when my management of the time dumped me down the toilet along with all the other artists and I found myself languishing in the country for a couple of years having finished university and I was doing alright gig wise but I didn't really know how to hustle but luckily I managed to get a deal with Manticore via Greg Lake with Pete Sinfield producing. To say those albums were more rocky wouldn't be totally correct, as in places it's quite folky. Its a bit of a mix though as some of those tracks are quite ethereal and some are very heavy. So that was Brighter Day. Human Zoo was recorded in Los Angeles with a bunch of session musicians.


JK
Tell us how the deal with Manticore came about and what it was like recording with Greg Lake and Pete Sinfield.

KC
Well Greg was weird (Laughs) No Greg was a mega star he was a member of one of the biggest bands in the world. Greg and the boys always thought big talked big, spent big and of course earned big. That was what they were used to and the way it was for them. I mean we booked Command studios went in there and Greg snapped his fingers and curries arrived and snapped his fingers again and musicians arrived. We banged these four tracks down together and then he disappeared to go off and do other ELP type things and handed the production over to Pete Sinfield. So initially some of it was done by Greg and then he swanned off to be a star and Pete did the rest. He did make me laugh though when we came to the financial reckoning at the end he had charged me for the curries (Laughs) Actually in fact he charged me half for the curries (Laughs) I thought that was funny.

JK
Were there any compromises made for the album or was it a joint effort between the three of you (Yourself/Greg Lake/ Pete Sinfield)

KC
Compromises? Well in a way I was very innocent and as a person I'm quite compliant so if someone comes along and says this person has got a great deal for you and this person is famous. I'll admit I was probably a bit of a groupie probably still am really certainly I was then. So these people would come along and I'd say everything was fantastic I'd turn around and say yeah that's good or whatever. I don't think I've ever turned round to anyone and said well I don't know if I want six-part sax on that on that or whether that is the right instrument for that track. I suppose if I'd had a bit more wit and wisdom I might have been a little more aggressive about my opinions but I'm of the opinion of get on with it and get on with something else. I don't suppose it's very professional really is it? So yes in a way I suppose it was one big compromise really. They would tell me what to do and then I did what I wanted (Laughs).


JK
Following the release of Brighter Day how much live work did you undertake and whom did you tour with. Was it just you as a solo act or did you form a band to tour the album. Did you play any festivals aside from the Glastonbury Festival, which was prior to Brighter Day?

KC
I'm not sure really I don't remember. Well I remember before Brighter Day I was doing solo gigs but they were beginning to dry up a little bit. I was doing all right solo wise and I'd done a few tours after I left university. At the time 71-72 73 ish I toured quite heavily and then I had a bit of a quiet period. In 74 I did Brighter Day and after that I put a band together and I remember we did two gigs. One was at the Marquee, which got great reviews.

JK
Why did you decide to record Stories From The Human Zoo in Los Angeles?


KC
Well after the two gigs with the band I signed for management with Jack Cross and he said I should go to America and I said ok that sounds like a good idea. So I said to the band after these two gigs. "Sorry lads that's the only two gigs we're going to do" and that was that. At the time Jack said let's go and live in America I'd always wanted to live in America anyway and also I'd had some pretty hard years. I’d done a lot of sleeping on people's sofas. I remember when I was recording Brighter Day I was sleeping on someone's sofa so you can see that I was two stages removed from what people thought a successful musicians life was about. So I'd been pretty poor and we were doing a lot of drugs I'll admit that and so America gave me the chance to get away from all that, which is of course what I did. I think it was a very good idea to get away from London So why Stories From The Human Zoo was done in LA was because that was where I had gone with Jack. They actually gave me the chance to go and do it with Creedence Clearwater up in San Francisco. Thinking back that might have been a better idea but I didn't want to do another album with a band I'd done that in the past with Mighty Baby and they were a great bunch of guys but the recording was done very hastily and the quality of the stuff that came out I didn't like. I'd been writing stuff that was across such a wide range of styles that I didn't want to get tied into one thing so I thought that was better.


JK
The album has a very American feel to it was this the plan at the time and in hindsight are you happy with the direction the album took

KC
It was interesting because some of the musicians like Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn were wonderful and legends and other great musicians playing on it. It was done at Mike Pinder's (ex Moody Blues) studio in the canyons north of LA and it was really cut off from everything and we'd been up there a week or so and this strange character comes up and says Hi I'm Mike Pinder! Anyway In terms of style when I first met the girl who is now my wife one of the things she asked me about was my albums so we sat down one night and got an old tape deck out and played them all and something struck me very strongly that the first three had a very rough and ready feel to them in places, mistakes, naive writing very naive playing but they did improve. The production went from awful to pretty good. So with these later albums you can hear I am almost learning my craft sort of having to grow up. There was more money spent on them of course. They are slightly darker albums but they are better produced




JK
Following Stories From The Human Zoo you took a rather low profile and in 1981 withdrew from the music business why was this.

KC
(Laughs) Well I came back to England in 1976 there was no market for artists like me. It was black cold wet and miserable with strikes going on and everything and I struggled on. I wound up in a little bedsit and then wound up on the dole because I couldn't get anything. I was watching everything coming apart. Believe me there's nothing great about being poor and I just got fed up and I realised I wasn't going to be anymore than I was at that moment so I started digging holes in the ground for a living. That was the only work I could get. After twelve years of being a musician I was unemployable I had no real life skills at all and I remember quite clearly I was thirty-five years of age. I'd got a degree and I'd recorded five albums and I'm digging holes in the ground!
I went round my mind like a rat in a cage looking for one door out and there was only one door and I realised that I had to dig better and deeper and longer holes and be the best digger of holes I could then I realised from that moment on that a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
I did that for a while a few years actually and then left that to train as a teacher.


JK
What made you want to move back into the music business in the late eighties? Was the musical climate more to your liking?

KC
I never moved back. I have never become a musician again. I'm not a musician. I'm a teacher now. Inside in my soul I will be a musician until I die. It's never left me so I don't have to go back to it. I just don't do it as a job.
I have dabbled with a few things like a working band for a few years and made albums like Weatherman. Then I did a solo album in my front room, which I'm very proud of. So I've never really gone back to it but every now and then a bit of product comes out.



JK
Weatherman in 1991 was a return but with a blues format to it is this where you would like to be musically

KC
It goes back to what I said earlier about having the mind of a rocker and the voice of a folky.

JK
In closing then. What does the future hold for Keith Christmas?

KC
I don't know. The way I used to live my life I used to make things happen and forced them into the mould as I thought they should be. Unfortunately that wasn't the best way for me as a person, it doesn't suit me. I'm much better making things happen organically rather than forcing them. So what I have is a very nice life. I've got beautiful wife great kids and a nice house and some time in the next two years I'm going to be able to take a pension from my job and that's the time to look at some of the plans I have in my mind.
© Jon Kirkman 2004 and 2011

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