progressive rock

The Las Vegas Sun reports that Rick Wakeman’s son, Oliver Wakeman, is donning his father’s cape – or at least walking in his footsteps – and rocking with progressive rock band Yes.

“(Yes) asked Dad if he had anybody he recommended, and he recommended me, which is very nice,” says Oliver Wakeman, 37, who was born the same year one of the most popular Yes albums, “Close to the Edge,” was released.

“I’ve always been a fan of that style of music,” says Wakeman.

“I do distinctly remember being 9 or 10 and having a record player in my room,” Wakeman says. “And the records I had were records that Dad had left behind when he moved out. I remember to this day, there were ‘Six Wives of Henry VIII,’ ‘Tales of Topographic Oceans’ and Styx’s ‘The Grand Illusion,’ and I thought they were great.”

Wakeman didn’t look to his father for advice on re-creating his classic sounds and Minimoog solos.

“He wouldn’t tell me and I wouldn’t ask,” he says. “We never really talk about music, to be honest with you. I just went to the job as if I was any other keyboard player that had gotten the job.”

Wakeman is touring with a rig of about seven or eight keyboards. “We’re very close with a lot of the sounds; they’re pretty authentic. I have a Mellotron sampler, and I use a new Moog (synthesizer) rather than one of the old ones, because the new ones have auto-tuners and things like that that keep them a lot more stable.”

Yes is on a 26-city US tour.

This documentary on prog-rock is narrated by a female robo-narrator. Strange, but interesting. 

via ProgAlbums