"David Bowie said, I hear you play a mean piano": Rick Wakeman on playing on Space Oddity and Hunky Dory, then turning down David Bowie's invitation to join The Spiders From Mars on the same day he joined Yes

Rick Wakeman and David Bowie.

One afternoon in the summer of 1969, 20-year-old Rick Wakeman was rehearsing with a 17-piece soul band at the Top Rank ballroom in Reading when he received an agitated phone call from producer Tony Visconti. 

"I'm in the studio with David Bowie," Visconti told Wakeman. "We're recording a piece, we've got a Mellotron, no-one can keep it in tune, can you get up here quick?"