Beneath the rock-star locks and the cape of prog rock, keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman has a heart beating for R&B and blues. Growing up in northwest London as trad jazz, skiffle and blues were setting minds on fire, young Rick found himself in a number of aspirational bands. He’s known best for his time in The Strawbs and Yes, but it was R&B that got him a foot on the music industry ladder.
“When I was a teenager, everyone was in an R&B band," says Wakeman. "Twelve-bar blues was the easiest thing to learn, and once you had three chords you had a band. Moving on a couple of years, I was skiving off school to work in a music shop in South Ealing. One day Chas Cronk [future Strawb] came in and was talking to the owner, Dave Simms, saying he was in a spot, trying to find players for a session with Ike Turner’s singer Jimmy Thomas. His own band had been ‘detained’ at Customs. Dave looked at me and said: ‘Rick will sort that for you.’ Chas went: ‘Brilliant. I’ve got a demo on quarter-inch. I’ll bring it in. If I find and score the brass section, you do the organ bit, my problems will be solved.’
