Showing posts with label Rick Wakeman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rick Wakeman. Show all posts

Friday, April 22, 2022

Rick Wakeman - The Complete Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table (2016)

For tonight's post Mike Solof has overhauled a classic album from the 70's and made it even better, by adding more songs, and remixing then to sound the best they can, so that they slot into the original album seamlessly. Over to Mike for some background.....

Today I thought Iʼd take a stab at melding one of my favorite classic albums from 1975, 'The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table' by Rick Wakeman, with the totally rerecorded and greatly expanded version he released 41 years later, in 2016.
In July 1974, the 25-year-old Wakeman headlined the Crystal Palace Garden Party VII concert held at Crystal Palace Park in London, with his rock band, a symphony orchestra, and choir. He'd left Yes two months prior over differences surrounding their creative direction, and continued with his solo career, which had reached newfound success after his second album 'Journey To The Centre Of The Earth' had become the first from A&M Records to chart at
number one in 1974. Despite the success, Wakeman's health deteriorated during the
preparations for the Crystal Palace show, with the stress of putting it together resulting in him  going without sleep in the five days prior to the event, as well as cracking some bones in his wrist after he fell over in a pub. He got through the gig after receiving three injections, one of morphine, before going on stage, but coupled with his frequent smoking and heavy drinking, the situation culminated in him having three minor heart attacks several days afterwards. During his recovery at Wexham Park Hospital in Berkshire, his management paid a visit, where a specialist advised them that Wakeman should cease all performing and retire, but he ignored the order and later that evening he began to write material for his next studio album, based on the legend of King Arthur, and the people and stories involved. 
During his youth Wakeman had stayed for five months on a farm in Trevalga, Cornwall, and this was near Tintagel, which is the legendary site of Arthur's castle, and it had stuck with him since then. He encountered some difficulty with the songwriting as many of the stories described in the books gave different accounts, but after reading eight books himself, he picked the details he found the most colourful, which included taking a passage from a children's book on the subject. He settled on four widely known stories, and also two lesser known, and proceeded to adapt them to music and lyrics. Much of the album was based around the three swords of the legend: the sword Arthur pulled out from the stone and anvil, the Excalibur, which some believe was instead handed to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake, and the one associated with Galahad. He incorporated ideas from his personal life into the music, saying "It's as much about me as Arthur." 'Guinevere' was a song that Wakeman had arranged six years prior to recording the album, and he wrote violin arrangements for 'Sir Lancelot And The Black Knight' that were so fast for the players, biographer Dan Wooding wrote they "collapsed with laughter" upon viewing the score. After some false starts, they played the music correctly after Wakeman instructed them they play twice as fast as he originally wanted, as he "thought I'd teach the ones who were cocky a lesson". 
'Merlin The Magician' is in three parts, as Wakeman had read several descriptions of the character, and conjured the image of "a little old man preparing his potions", so he therefore introduces the song with a quiet theme, and because one book depicted Merlin working in the basement of a castle, "surrounded by bottles and liquids like a mad professor", that inspired the heavier second theme. The piano and banjo section arose from a story that involved Merlin falling in love and chasing after a young girl, who eventually shuts him in a cave where he dies. The first piece Wakeman worked on was 'The Last Battle', which is the finale to the album, and as he composed it while still in hospital, he organised for someone to sneak a cassette recorder into his hospital room, recording his arrangements by humming them into the microphone. Before the album was recorded, he undertook a tour of North America in September and October of 1974, being his first full-scale tour as a solo artist. It featured his band, an orchestra and choir; and the production ultimately cost him around £125,000. On its release in April 1975 the album peaked at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart and number 21 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, becoming Wakeman's third consecutive record to be certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, repeating this in Brazil, Japan and Australia, and selling 12 million copies in total. 
'King Arthur...' was performed for three sell out nights from 30–31 May and 1 June 1975, and they were attended by 27,000 people in total. Wakeman funded the production with his own money which included his band the English Rock Ensemble, an orchestra and choir playing in the round, a narrator, and 19 international ice skaters who re-enacted the scenes in costume. The first performance had some imperfections, as when the actor playing the young Arthur pulled the sword from the stone, the anvil used to anchor the sword came out as well, since it had not itself been anchored. The actress playing Guinevere inadvertently skated over her veil, tearing her headgear out, and the chainmail under Wakeman's cape accidentally caught on something as he was descending from his seat at one point, leaving him dangling over the ice. The dry ice fog, when used over real ice, created a mist that rose ever higher and thicker, to the point that the musicians not only could not see each other but had difficulty seeing their own instruments, and at the end, during 'The Last Battle', plans called for six skaters dressed as knights to take to the ice and fight to their mutual "deaths". Well before the song was over, one knight appeared to have survived, skating aimlessly around the ice, eventually solving the  problem by pretending to throw himself on his sword and disappearing under the fog. This notorious production has gone down in history as one of the most embarrassing concerts ever, and it was ranked No. 79 on the list of 100 Greatest Shocking Moments in Rock and Roll compiled by VH1. 
In 2012, Wakeman released a rerecorded version of 'Journey To The Centre Of The Earth', with additional pieces that were originally removed from the arrangement due to the limited time available on a vinyl record. He was booked to perform the extended album in Argentina that year, but the promoter also wished for a show with an extended version of 'King Arthur...', an idea that had first resurfaced in 2015 when Stuart Galbraith, promoter of Wakeman's 2014 'Journey...' tour, suggested a similar rerecording for 'King Arthur...', and to have it performed at The O2 Arena as part of the 2016 Stone Free Festival. It would be the first performance of the album in its entirety since 1975, and so Wakeman accepted, and the concert became a catalyst for a new, 88-minute version, to be arranged and recorded in time for it. When Wakeman first approached his record label, he told them he wanted to put out the original album, but with new songs added in. The label had different ideas though, and decided that they wanted everything to be entirely re-recorded from scratch. I was super excited when he revisited the album but definitely not thrilled with the newest versionʼs mix, as the vocals seemed weak and buried deep in the music. Thankfully, modern technology has allowed me to separate out those vocals and bump them up for my own new personal remix. The 2016 re-release (weirdly) repeated entire songs numerous times using different instruments, so Iʼve taken the liberty of picking the best version of each and skipped all the repetitive stuff. Iʼve decided to honour Wakemanʼs original vision of the 2016 release, and create a wonderful mix of his classic 1975 album, but with new songs added in from the 2016 re-recordings.



Track listing

01 Arthur
02 Morgan Le Fey*
03 Lady Of The Lake - Arthur's Queen*
04 Guinevere
05 Sir Lancelot And The Black Knight
06 Princess Elaine*
07 Camelot*
08 Merlin The Magician
09 The Holy Grail*
10 Sir Galahad
11 Percival The Knight*
12 Excalibur*
13 The Last Battle

* denotes 2016 recordings
Mike's pdf, which is included in the folder, also contains scans of the booklet which came with the CD re-issue of the 1975 album, including lyrics to the original six songs.

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Steve Howe - ...and on guitar (1991)

In April 1970, Steve Howe replaced Peter Banks in Yes, and his career really started to take off. His playing style soon became instantly recognisable, and he has since become an integral part of the band, playing on every album from 1971's 'The Yes Album' until the band split up in 1981. While he was still finding his feet in Yes, Howe and Rick Wakeman contributed to the recording of Lou Reed's self-titled debut album as session musicians, working together for the first time, and the same year he had played lead guitar on folk duo Curtiss Maldoon's first eponymous album. A couple of years later he played on two instrumental albums, one by his band-mate Rick Wakeman on his first solo records, and also on an album by Johnny Harris, who recorded easy listening versions of popular hits of the the 60's and 70's. It was rather an odd gig, but his contribution to Jethro Tull's 'Love Song' was professional if nothing else. In 1975 the members of Yes took a break to record solo albums, and as well as releasing his own superb 'Beginnings', Howe also found time to help out Yes drummer Alan White with his own solo album, playing on a song to which Jon Anderson also contributed vocals. After that there was a busy seven year period with Yes which meant that he couldn't moonlight on other artist's records, but in 1982 he was asked to play on a song from the The Dregs 'Industry Standard' album, after which guest appearances tended to be spaced out at one every few years, appearing on albums by Propaganda, Billie Currie, Andy Leek and Animal Magic in the mid to late 80's. One particularly fine effort is to be found on the first 'Guitar Speak' compilation album from 1988, where guitarists were invited to contribute one piece of music each, and his 'Sharp On Attack' is one of the best pieces on there. In 1991 Queen invited Howe to listen to rough mixes of their new album, and asked if he'd like to add something to the title track 'Innuendo', to which he readily agreed. He has since said that he was proud to have played his classical guitar solo on the song, and as it was his last guest appearance for seven years, it's the perfect conclusion to the album. One appearance that I've had to omit was his acoustic guitar solo on Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Welcome To The Pleasuredome' album, as it was unfortunately just too long to fit on here, but it's another example of the fact that unlike a lot of guitarists in this series who tended to stick to the genre that they were most know for, Howe seemed to have no qualms about playing on records by folk, pop, easy listening, rock, or 80's indie artists, adding something special to each record that he played on.   



Track listing

01 Long Long Time (from 'Curtiss Maldoon' by Curtiss Maldoon 1971)  
02 Berlin (from 'Lou Reed' by Lou Reed 1972)
03 Love Song (from 'All To Bring You Morning' by Johnny Harris 1973) 
04 Catherine Of Aragon (from 'The Six Wives Of Henry VIII' by Rick Wakeman 1973)
05 Song Of Innocence (from 'Ramshackled' by Alan White 1975)
06 Up In The Air (from 'Industry Standard' by The Dregs 1982)
07 The Murder Of Love (from 'A Secret Wish' by Propaganda 1985)
08 Airlift (from 'Transportation' by Billie Currie 1988)
09 Sharp On Attack (from the compilation album 'Guitar Speak' 1988) 
10 Say Something (from 'Say Something' by Andy Leek 1988)
11 There's A Spy (In The House Of Love) (from 'Animal Logic' by Animal Logic 1989)  
12 Innuendo (from 'Innuendo' by Queen 1991)


Various Artists - The Planets (2015)

I was answering a comment the other week on one of my Manfred Mann posts and it reminded me that the 1973 hit single 'Joybringer' was based on the melody from 'Saturn:The Bringer Of Joy' from Gustav Holst's 'The Planets Suite'. It's always been my favourite piece of classical music - one of the few pieces that I can listen to regularly - and I wondered if any other rock songs were based on sections of it. I know that when Gustav Holst died his daughter Imogen took over looking after the copyright of his music, and one thing she was very insistent on was that no other form of music other than orchestral was to be used while it was in copyright, so I've often wondered how King Crimson got away with using 'Mars:The Bringer Of War' as the basis or their 'The Devil's Triangle' from their 'In The Wake Of Poseidon' album in 1970, but somehow they did, and so I now had two pieces. The rest of the album took some research, as those did seem to be the two most popular pieces, but once I found Cailyn Lloyd's 'Voyager' album from 2015 I had the choice of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, all of which he'd covered in a progressive rock style, with organ and guitar well to the fore. Jeff Wayne and Rick Wakeman had also decided to record an album based on 'The Planets', but they covered the whole suite, using keyboards and orchestra, and so I chose what was generally considered to be the best track from that recording, 'Venus:Bringer of Peace'. 
When Holst wrote the suite, he originally intended the whole thing to be played on two pianos, and it was later scored for orchestra to become the classical piece that we know today, but I thought it would be interesting to hear at least one piece in its original form, so 'Mercury:The Winged Messenger' is played on two pianos by Richard Markham and David Nettle. On my trawl of the net in search of new interpretations, one of the most unusual that I found was a Youtube video of a concert by a jazz trio, led by pianist Ryan Skiles. He's scored the whole thing for a jazz trio, and it was something of a triumph, with many complementary comments, so I decided to use 'Saturn:The Bringer Of Old Age' from the concert for this album. To round it all off we have Neptune:The Mystic' from probably the most famous modern interpretation, by Isao Tomita, who recorded the whole suite on keyboards and synthesizers in 1976. This was the first time that Imogen Holst became infamous in the rock world when she forced the withdrawal of all UK copies of the album, although I managed to get my hands on one just before they were recalled, as did a number of other fans of the Japanese synth wizard, and the album is more freely available now since the copyright expired. If you haven't heard 'The Planets' played by an orchestra then I do recommend it, and you'll recognise at least a couple of the pieces even if you aren't into classical music. If you are already a fan then I hope that this rock version shows it in a new light.    



Track listing

01 Mars:The Bringer Of War (King Crimson)
02 Venus:The Bringer Of Peace (Rick Wakeman & Jeff Wayne)
03 Mercury:The Winger Messenger (Richard Markham & David Nettle)
04 Joybringer (Manfred Mann's Earth Band)
05 Saturn:The Bringer Of Old Age (Ryan Skiles Trio)
06 Uranus:The Magician (Cailyn Lloyd)
07 Neptune:The Mystic (Isao Tomita)