“They said, ‘You mean we’ve paid $12,500 for a piano player?’ My publisher said, ‘Yes, but he’s a good piano player’”: The label called it “unsellable”, the critics hated it, but this prog icon’s solo album went on to sell nearly 15 million copies

Rick Wakeman posing for a photograph in 1972.

Rick Wakeman’s first proper solo album was an unlikely success. His record company A&M initially dismissed it as ‘unsellable’. The reviews, as the former Yes keyboard player recalled, were “stinking”. And yet The Six Wives Of Henry VIII – a grandiose instrumental concept album fusing progressive rock, classical and jazz, and based on English royal history – would become a multi-million selling hit. And over time, it has come to be regarded by fans, and by Wakeman himself, as one of his defining works.

Wakeman was barely a year into his tenure with Yes when A&M approached him with the suggestion of making a solo album. He’d bagged a solo deal by default when he previous band, the Strawbs signed to the label. “If a label signed a band, then you were signed as individuals as well, and they had an option if you left, of saying, we want an album.,” Wakeman told Classic Rock.