I always said I’d retire when I got to 50,” chuckles Rick Wakeman, who didn’t do any such thing. Instead – after realising that far from being left adrift by pop’s ever-changing styles, people were still interested in what he had to offer – he recorded another 37 albums (taking his total to more than 100), penned two bestselling autobiographies and a film score and carried on performing shows. Then last year he announced that he’d stop touring when he reaches 77, but he’ll be 76 this May and his packed live schedule doesn’t suggest a performer saying his last goodbyes.
“There was a time when I thought, maybe it’s time to gracefully bow out,” the prog keyboard caped crusader explains, before his latest gig in Bradford. “But unfortunately I can’t. Music is the world to me. It’s just become blatantly obvious that I’m going to keep doing it until they put an epitaph on my gravestone reading: ‘It’s not fair. I’m not finished yet.’”
