Popping the Classics

Rick Wakeman mastered classical music at the Royal College of Music and rock as a keyboard sideman for such pop luminaries as Cat Stevens, T. Rex and David Bowie. Currently a member of Yes, England's foremost progressive rock group, Wakeman, 24, has conceived, performed and produced what is so far the most provocative rock LP of the year. The Six Wives of Henry VIIKA&M).

The album does not contain literal portraits of Henry's women; rather it is a six-movement instrumental suite conveying Wakeman's musical impressions of the ladies. Devoid of lyrics, it is bursting with diverse sounds: Mellotrons.* Moog synthesizers, electric pianos, conventional concert grand, harpsichord, even the 240-year-old pipe organ at St. Giles Cripplegate church.

Six Wives is an astonishing classic-rock hybrid that is in the top 30 on U.S.

charts, having sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide.

Wakeman has liberally drawn on classical style and its techniques in much the same way the Rolling Stones do on blues or The Band on country.

For the "Jane Seymour" movement, Wakeman first recorded an original 4 3/4 minute toccata on the St. Giles organ; then, back in the studio, he dubbed it over with drums, bass and synthesizer.

The result is a bold piece of work--improvisatory, imaginative and thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of the toccatas of Bach that inspired it. In "Anne Boleyn," Wakeman starts out with the courtly use of an old English hymn, then progresses to a violently free-for-all jazz v. rock v. classics jamboree. In these and the other four movements, Wakeman writes in a manner that has the punch and power of rock combined with the taste and cohesion of traditional symphonic fare.

Both pop and the classics have been familiar to Wakeman since his childhood days in the London suburb of Perivale. His father Cyril was pianist in Ted Heath's big band, and little Richard at age 4 1/2 was already taking piano lessons. At eight he was good enough to master a Clementi sonatina in one day.

Mickey Mouse. Rick took his first permanent playing job early in 1970, when he joined an English folk-rock group called the Strawbs. He and his fellow berries did a lot of clowning around onstage, and he now wishes people would not remind him of that phase of his career. One of his antics used to be giving his small Hammond electric organ a push and then chasing it across the stage. One night he tripped over a wire and--lying helpless on the floor --watched the instrument plunge off the apron of the stage and go up in smoke.

The audience, thinking it was all part of the act, roared its approval. Soon afterward, he joined Yes, with the assurance that he would not have to take part in such buffoonery.

At 6 ft. 2 1/2 in. and 190 lbs., Wakeman has blond hair to his waist and broad hands that easily span an octave and a third. He likes to wear hip-hugging jeans, suede moccasins and pop jerseys adorned by Mickey Mouse or slogans like: "I'm only here for the beer."

He is married to an ex-barmaid named Rosaline ("I was pulling pints when we first met," says she), and they have a son Oliver, 16 months. The Wakemans live in a $125,000 white pebble house in Buckinghamshire, complete with electronic eye at the front door, loudspeakers in the bathroom, record shelves in the fireplace.

Too much of his time, says Wakeman, is spent on tour. "When you're on a plane," he says, "there are two things you can do: drink yourself silly or read books." While he admits to doing his share of the former, it was inflight reading that paid off for Wakeman. On a flight from Richmond to Chicago last year, he read N. Brysson Morrison's The Private Life of Henry VIII and got the idea for Six Wives.

At the album's present rate of sales, Wakeman should easily gross enough to keep at least his wife from ever having to pull pints again.

* Electronic keyboard instruments whose basic source of sound is cartridge tapes; Wakeman uses one for vocal sound effects, a second for brass, strings and flutes.

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