An Evening with Rick Wakeman: His Music and Stories

Rick Wakeman, CBE, FRCM, may be best known as a former member of the progressive rock band Yes, but the classically trained keyboardist developed his own massive body of work that includes over 90 solo albums and session work on many era-defining songs – totalling some 50,000,000 albums sold as a solo artist and with Yes – !

His performance at the Colonial Theatre is part of his first solo tour of the United States in over 13 years, hot on the heels of Queen Elizabeth II’s honor as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to music. In February 2023, his new album, Gallery of the Imagination, drops.

As a much sought-after session musician in the late sixties and early seventies, Wakeman played on more than 2,000 individual records, contributing to such hits as Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken” and David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Life on Mars”. He worked with a truly eclectic mix of other notables included Donovan, Cilla Black, Marc Bolan, Black Sabbath, Lou Reed, Mary Hopkin, Dana, Al Stewart, Elton John, and John Williams.  In 1970, he joined Strawbs, whose first album, Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios, paved the way for “folk-rock” – and took his career to the next level. In 1971, Wakeman joined Yes. During his varied career as a musician, Wakeman also scored a number of films including Ken Russell’s Lisztomania and Crimes of Passion – and horror films Creepshow 2 and The Burning. He has appeared on the British tv series Grumpy Old Men, Countdown, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and Watchdog. Wakeman is also author of Grumpy Old Rockstar and Further Adventures of Grumpy Old Rockstar.

Rick Wakeman still finds time to perform one-man shows to extravaganzas with symphony orchestras and choirs. In 2013, he became the Edinburgh Festival’s “Must See Show”. In 2014, he won the “Live Event of the Year Award” at the Prog Rock Music Awards for two sold-out performances of multi-million dollar selling Journey to the Center of the Earth at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Wakeman has wowed audiences at London’s O2 Arena, Royal Festival Hall, and prestigious Palladium Theater, where he’ll perform brand new concert arrangements of his The Six Wives of Henry VIII, The Myths and Legends of King Arthur, Classic Yes, and The Knights of the Round Table in 2023 with the English Rock Ensemble and English Chamber Choir.

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