“Will you stay in our lovers’ story”
Following on from last month’s exclusive BBC first play of the Bombers/Andy Warhol Intro from the BOWPROMO RSD release, a rare early mix of Kooks from BOWPROMO is to be given its first official radio play on Rick Wakeman’s Key To Keys programme.
Rick played piano on the original recording of Kooks, among other tracks on the classic 1971 Hunky Dory, such as Life On Mars? and Quicksand.
On the show, Rick shares his memories of the sessions at Trident studios and the Trident piano used for the recordings:
“I must have played on 200 sessions and I can recall some of them. I remember the ones that were just so special and Hunky Dory is definitely among them.”
“This piano just recorded sensationally. It was a semi-closed, cloth over the top, which the engineers used special mics for. For whatever reason, they just got the most fantastic sound. And everyone who wanted a piano based track wanted to use it. David Bowie used it an awful lot. I did tracks with Marc Bolan there, I did Al Stewart tracks there.”
“The reason that it was such an interesting sound was that the piano was just at the right age. The hammers, where they are soft when they are brand new, had slowly worn down so they didn’t sound brittle or nasty; it was just that lovely in between. There were two to three years where the Trident piano was at its absolute best and people paid premium money to go in there and use it. It was a joy to play on.”
During the show Rick also plays some of his other favourite and notable keyboard tracks. He is joined at the Radio 2 Elton John piano by his son Adam, who will discuss his father’s influence on him and his own work with Black Sabbath, Annie Lennox, Will Young, Atomic Kitten, Travis and 10cc, amongst others.
Rick Wakeman’s Key To Keys is broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Easter Monday, April 17th, 9.00 – 10.00pm.
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