Why Rick Wakeman Chose Yes Over David Bowie’s Band

In July 1969, Rick Wakeman was simply 20 years previous, however he was already incomes a status for himself as a extremely gifted session musician.

Wakeman was a Royal Faculty of Music dropout – he’d tried beginning a rock and jazz membership there, to no avail, and he didn’t jive with the college’s normal aversion to all issues non-traditional. He was clearly meant for one thing else.

When Wakeman lastly left college and began taking up extra session work, he quickly turned often called somebody who knew their means round a Mellotron. This electro-mechanical keyboard was then nonetheless coming into style. That is why, sooner or later, he acquired a name from producer Tony Visconti.

READ MORE: The Greatest Music From Every David Bowie Album

“‘I am at Trident Studios with [producer] Gus Dudgeon and David Bowie,'” Wakeman later recalled being advised on the cellphone. “‘David desperately desires the Mellotron to go along with the opposite strings, and no person can preserve the effing factor in tune.’ So I walked into Trident and met David for the primary time. He stated, ‘Gus and Tony say, for you, this can be a piece of cake. Ever performed a bit of cake earlier than?'”

At that time, Bowie wasn’t the Bowie he would ultimately grow to be, commercially that’s.

“It was earlier than David was well-known, so I wasn’t nervous about assembly him – it was simply one other little bit of session work,” Wakeman defined to The Guardian in 2017. The observe, titled “House Oddity,” was carried out in lower than half an hour. Launched on July 11, 1969, to coincide with that yr’s moon touchdown, the one went to No. 5 within the U.Ok., adopted by reissues in later years that went even increased.

Hearken to David Bowie’s ‘House Oddity’

Extra Work With Bowie

Wakeman’s work on “House Oddity” impressed Bowie a lot that extra conferences befell. A couple of yr after that first session, Bowie requested Wakeman if he’d come to his home in Beckenham, Kent and play piano on some new songs.

“I nicknamed it Beckenham Palace as a result of on the time I used to be residing in a tiny little terraced home in West Harrow and his kitchen was greater than my whole place,” Wakeman recalled.

“Issues had actually modified for him. He was a profitable artist, and he had a younger household. I sat on the piano whereas he performed a load of songs to me on his battered previous 12-string guitar. ‘Life on Mars?’ caught out as being one thing very particular. He wished a piano solo; he wished the album to be very piano-orientated. I used to be given full freedom by him.”

“Life on Mars?” was one other hit, and most likely a part of the explanation Wakeman was then requested by Bowie if he’d like to affix his Spiders From Mars band. Wildly sufficient, Wakeman was additionally requested to affix Sure on the identical day — Tony Kaye had left the group, and Wakeman had already participated in a handful of Sure rehearsals throughout the Fragile period.

Wakeman gave the provide critical thought. “It was like being requested to affix Manchester United or Chelsea,” he advised Traditional Rock in 2024. This wasn’t a matter to take calmly; there have been professionals and cons to each.

Making the Resolution

“I drove dwelling, and I used to be making an attempt to weigh it up as a result of David was miles greater than Sure have been on the time,” he advised Rolling Stone in 2019. “I believed, ‘What do I do? David is my greatest affect ever. I really like enjoying his music. The one drawback is that if I am enjoying his music on a regular basis, there shall be a ceiling with how a lot I can take part and contribute. There shall be a high line, whereas with Sure, the band is rising. It has new concepts about the way it desires to do music and I really like the thought of that. I can develop extra with them.”

Hearken to David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars?’

In the end, Wakeman went with Sure.

“I imply, again then, it did not appear to be such a giant deal. However trying again, it was fucking enormous, actually,” he mirrored to Mojo. Fortuitously, there have been no exhausting emotions, and Bowie knew precisely the place the keyboardist was coming from. “I phoned up David, and he was sensible. He stated, ‘Completely the correct resolution.'”

READ MORE: All 207 Sure Songs Ranked

Ultimately, Wakeman nonetheless felt good in regards to the work he’d contributed to Bowie’s catalog.

“I heard later that he liked what I did on ‘Life on Mars?'” he relayed to The Guardian. “He stated it made the observe, however that’s not true; the track made the observe. The person was a genius.”