Rick Wakeman - Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (Lp) (1974) - €10,00

posted by ad-vinylrecords

“Journey to the Centre of the Earth” is the second album by English keyboardist Rick Wakeman, released on 3 May 1974 by A&M Records.
It is a live recording of the second of his two concerts at the Royal Festival Hall on 18 January 1974, the premiere of his 40-minute orchestral rock piece based on Jules Verne’s 1864 science fiction novel of the same name.

It tells the story of Professor Lidinbrook, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans, who follow a passage to the Earth’s centre originally discovered by Arne Saknussemm, an Icelandic alchemist.

Wakeman performs with the London Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber Choir, and a group of hand-picked musicians for his rock band, which later became the English Rock Ensemble. Actor David Hemmings narrates the story.

The 40-minute piece is in four distinct sections: “The Journey”, “Recollection”, “The Battle”, and “The Forest”.
Wakeman wrote all the lyrics and narration. Wakeman was not confident with his lyric writing, and admitted that his first set of lyrics were “really bad” which prompted a rewrite. His band nicknamed him “Longfellow”.
“The Forest” includes an excerpt of In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg.

It can’t be easy having been the interesting member of Yes. While the rest of that most hilariously pompous prog-rock act had their heads firmly jammed up their own derrieres, keyboard twiddling cape fancier Rick Wakeman alone was responsible for ‘keeping it real’. 

Or as real as things can be when your vocalist sounds like he has a rather delicate part of his anatomy jammed in a slowly tightening vice. 

While it’s not strictly true that Wakeman didn’t indulge in the Yes ethos of ‘forget the quality, listen to how many notes we can play!’, or even that he was the best musician in the band (Ridiculously self important he may be, but Steve Howe could genuinely play the guitar with a considerable amount of skill), he at least managed to keep his feet on the ground and realised how overblown and pompous Yes had become, even going to the point of eating a takeaway curry mid-gig as the rest of the band interminably soloed their way through another formless epic.

Grounded and earthy everyman he may be, but Wakeman’s career is dotted with concept albums such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth, where his banks of analogue synthesisers wibble and squiggle over the top of pretentious orchestral backing with occasional equally pretentious vocals. 

This was the zenith of all this preposterousness and remains Wakeman’s best known solo work as well as one of the most ridiculous progressive rock releases. This is Wakeman and the London Symphony Orchestra does Jules Verne. Live. Seriously, how bonkers does that sound? Bonkers enough for The Wombles to mercilessly lampoon it.

Regardless (or perhaps because) of the insanity such an undertaking, I get the feeling that Wakeman was characteristically tongue in cheek about the whole thing. 

While he took his music very seriously indeed and held great faith in his own abilities as well as those of his collaborators, I get the impression that much of his joy in creating such music was down to his ambition and ideas dwarfing those of his contemporaries and (more importantly) his band-mates. He effectively went bigger, better and more ambitious primarily because he knew it would get up everyone else’s collective nostrils.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth is not an album for the feint hearted. It’s a heavily orchestrated and dense album with an intermittent narrative and far too many synthesiser solos. 

For a prog-rock fan it’s an example of just how far the genre could cross-over into orchestral music. If you’re a fan of orchestral music, you’ll find much to admire and much to baffle you. Despite all it’s indulgence and pomp Journey to the Centre of the Earth is an album I would encourage anyone to listen to at least once, as it could lead you into fantastic musical worlds you never dreamed existed or you may never want to hear it ever again after that.

Side A

A1.  The Journey / Recollection  (21:12)

Side B

B1.  The Battle / The Forest  (18:59)

Musicians

• Rick Wakeman – 3 Mellotrons, 2 Minimoog synthesisers, grand piano, Hammond organ, Rhodes electric piano, RMI electric piano, Hohner clavinet, Honky-tonk piano^[15]
• Gary Pickford-Hopkins – vocals
• Ashley Holt – vocals
• Mike Egan – electric guitar
• Roger Newell – bass guitar
• Barney James – drums
• David Hemmings – narration
• David Measham – conductor
• London Symphony Orchestra
• English Chamber Choir

 Production

• Danny Beckerman – arrangements
• Will Malone – arrangements
• Pete Flanagan – engineer
• Keith Grant – production engineer
• Lou Reizner – production co-ordination
• Paul Tregurtha – engineer
• Michael Doud – original art direction
• Michael Wade – original design
• Chris Foster – photographer
• Paul Wakefield – photographer
• Peter Waldman – photographer
• Nigel Messett – photographer
• Ken Randall – photographer

Notes

Release: 1974

Format:  LP, Vinyl

Genre: Progressive Rock

Label:  A&M Records

Catalog#  AMLH 63621

Vinyl:  Goed (VG)

Cover:  Goed (VG)

Prijs: €10,00