Rick Wakeman reinterprets Led Zeppelin, David Bowie & Yes on new solo album
Rick Wakeman has announced full details of his brand new studio album ‘Piano Portraits’.
As the title suggests, the 15-track record sees the keyboard wizard interpret a variety of rock classics and traditional songs in the piano format.
Recorded at The Old Granary in South Norfolk, the album boasts two David Bowie classics that Rick originally performed on – the seminal ‘Life on Mars’ and Bowie’s breakthrough smash ‘Space Oddity’.
Other piano renditions include Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’, The Beatles’ ‘Help’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’, 10CC’s ‘I’m Not In Love’ and Yes’s Jon Anderson penned anthem ‘Wonderous Stories’. There is also an original composition entitled 'Dance of the Damselflies'
“I’ve been wanting to do a piano album for years and I spent quite a bit of time looking at everything from straight classical pieces to stuff that I’d played on in the past like ‘Morning Has Broken’ and ‘Life On Mars’,” Rick explains.
“Plus pieces of music that I thought would work really well like ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and classics like ‘Clair de Lune’. Nearly all of the tracks have a memory for me somewhere down the line and it just seemed to work.”
‘Piano Portraits’ is released on 13th January 2017. To pre-order it in a variety of formats click here.
The full track-listing is as follows:
- Help
- Stairway to Heaven
- Life on Mars
- I’m Not In Love
- Wonderous Stories
- Berceuse
- Amazing Grace
- Swan Lake
- Morning Has Broken
- Summertime
- Space Oddity
- Dance of the Damselflies
- Clair de Lune
- Vow To Thee My Country
- Eleanor Rigby
Don’t forget, Rick is hitting the road in March 2017 with Jon Anderson and Trevor Rabin to perform “an evening of Yes music and more” under their ARW moniker.
Recently expanded to include an extra London date, tickets to all shows are on sale from Planet Rock Tickets now.
See Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman at the following shows:
MARCH 2017
Cardiff Motorpoint Arena - Sun 12th
Birmingham Symphony Hall - Mon 13th
Brighton Dome - Wed 15th
Bournemouth International Centre - Thu 16th
London Hammersmith Eventim Apollo - Sat 18th - EXTRA SHOW
London Hammersmith Eventim Apollo - Sun 19th
Nottingham Royal Concert Hall - Tue 21st
Edinburgh Usher Hall - Wed 22nd
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall - Fri 24th
Manchester Apollo - Sat 25th