Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Musician and composer best known as a member of the prog rock band Yes, and for session work on David Bowie's Hunky Dory, Cat Stevens' Morning Has Broken, and T
On the island
Eight records
An extract from Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, and the narrator there, Rick Wakeman, was your friend and one time collaborator, David Bowie, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormondy.
Symphony No. 8 in B minor "Unfinished"
Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, I love Schubert... That was part of the first movement from Schubert's Unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, performed there by the Vienna Philharmonic and conducted by Sir George Schulte.
Woodman, Woodman, Spare That Tree
Woodman, Woodman, Spare That Tree by Phil Harris.
Anvil Chorus (from Il Trovatore)Favourite
That was the Anvil Chorus from Verdi's Il Travatore, with the Metropolitan Opera and Chorus conducted there by James Levine.
In conversation
Presenter asks
18:08How do you look back on the choice [between joining David Bowie's Spiders from Mars and joining Yes] now?
What had happened was I'd got a call from John Anderson and Chris Squire from Yes, look, we want to change a lot of things, want to go more orchestral. How does that sound to you? And I said, Well, yeah. … And they said, look, do you want to join? And I said, yeah, look, I think this could be really good. … I love David Bowie. He's the most influential person I've ever worked with. But musically, I've got to be relatively selfish. Go, how far can I go? And the answer is, I can only go as far as what David's music will allow me to go. … So I phoned up David and told him, and his actual words to me was, it's absolutely the right decision.
Presenter asks
23:38How did you manage to kick the booze then?
It did finally catch up with me, and I had alcoholic hepatitis. And I had a very good doctor friend who said, That's it, your drinking days are over, and said, Do you want any help? Because you've been a heavy drinker to stop. And I went, Nope. I walked out of his surgery and went to the old Straws pub … and he said, Pind a better and a large scotch, Rick? I said, No, I've a tomato, I don't drink anymore. … And what it was was when the doctor actually said to me, and he was a good friend, he said, Rick, if we don't do something really quick, he said, I don't give you six months. And I think it was total fear.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Presenter asks
What is your relationship with money, how you spend it, when you spend it, why you spend it?
I've been a a self-investor, which sometimes is a wise move and sometimes not a wise move. … [Funding] the big shows, which I've done, and sometimes it pays off, and sometimes it doesn't pay off. I used to play what we call double-up blackjack with music, which will always end in disaster because you make an album, the record company gives you X amount, but you add to it the money you made from the previous album to make an even bigger album and the concert. … Sooner or later, you're going to make one that doesn't do that, that doesn't have that success. So suddenly you're back to zero again. And that's the way that I worked. … But I I've never let things things get me down.
Presenter asks
27:43Would you say you're a workaholic? What effect do you think that's had on your life?
Yeah. … I find it hard to say. You become quite selfish. I mean, I'm incredibly happily married. I've got a wonderful wife and wonderful kids and grandchildren and things. But music tends to rule my life. … In spite of the fact of marriage breakups and divorces, I think they would say that I did the best under all the circumstances. But for me, there are areas of parenting where I think I was disappointing, which it does affect me a bit. … But we speak all the time, all of them, and I'm there for them all. And I like to think that parenting carries on for all of their lives.
Presenter asks
31:08Where is your faith now? Is it a weekly and important, a daily part of your life?
No, it's the daily part. I have a very strong faith. Like a lot of people, I have question marks over the word religion. I sometimes wonder if religion's got anything to do with faith whatsoever. But yeah, no, I have a strong faith.
“Everything in my life has been excess.”
“I'm extraordinarily fortunate to be doing a call it a job, if you like, of what I love, which is music and entertainment. And I think that if you really love what you do, it does help to keep you young.”
“My father … was an amazing influence on me, my father.”
“I have an excessive extreme personality, which is if I do something I have to go the whole hog with it.”
“It just so happens it took me four times to find my soulmate who I love love dearly. So optimist, I think it's belief.”