Rick Wakeman

Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the... pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets. No fewer than 17 musicians have been a part of the band's line-up, with its current form comprising singer Jon Davison, bassist Chris Squire, guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, and keyboardist Geoff Downes. Yes have sold close to 50 million albums worldwide, including 13.5 million certified units in the United States. Formed in 1968 by Squire and singer Jon Anderson, the first line-up also included guitarist Peter Banks, keyboardist Tony Kaye and drummer Bill Bruford, who released two albums together to lukewarm reception and sales. Yes began to enjoy success after the release of The Yes Album and Fragile , which featured new arrivals Howe and Rick Wakeman. They achieved further success with Close to the Edge and Tales from Topographic Oceans , the latter of which featured White on drums. Wakeman was replaced by Patrick Moraz, who played on Relayer .
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Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe was a project of four progressive rock musicians: vocalist Jon Anderson, drummer Bill Bruford, keyboardist Rick... Wakeman, and guitarist Steve Howe . They had played together in Yes in the early 1970s. With the exception of Anderson, the only remaining member of the line-up from that period, they had not been playing with Yes for many years. Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe released one self-titled studio album in 1989 and a live recording from their immediately subsequent concert tour in 1993. In the meantime, Arista Records had co-opted the material they had written for their second studio album for a 1991 "union" album of ABWH and members of the more recent Yes line-up around Chris Squire, who owned the rights to the name "Yes". Although conceived by Anderson as being a Yes reunion, others in the band were keen to distance themselves from the "Yes" name.
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Warhorse were a British band formed by the former Deep Purple bassist, Nick Simper. Simper left Deep Purple in 1969, and joined Marsha Hunt's backing... band. Not long after, Simper replaced her backing band with Ged Peck on guitar and Mac Poole on drums. When Hunt became pregnant, the band stopped touring, and Simper and Peck re-organized the group as Warhorse. Holt became the band's singer, and they recruited keyboardist Rick Wakeman. When their first demo was recorded in April 1970, Wakeman was replaced by Frank Wilson. Warhorse signed to Vertigo, and released their debut album, Warhorse in November 1970. Warhorse was managed by Ron Hire, originally part of HEC Enterprises, the original investors in Deep Purple. The band began to tour, but made little progress, and the album failed to chart. A single, "St. Louis", was also released, which also failed to chart. By 1971, after arguments about style, Peck left and moved to classical guitar playing. He was replaced by Pete Parks. In June 1972, their next album Red Sea was released, but soon after its release, Warhorse were dropped from the label. Around the same time, Poole decided to leave Warhorse, for Gong.
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EMI Classics is a record label of EMI, formed in 1990 in order to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogs for internationally distributed classical music releases. Classical recordings were formerly simultaneously released under combinations of Angel, Seraphim, Odeon,... Columbia, His Master's Voice, and other labels, in part because competitors own these names in various countries. These have been moved under the EMI Classics umbrella to avoid the trademark problems. Releases created for distribution in specific countries are still distributed under the historical names, except for Columbia as EMI sold the Columbia name to Sony Music Entertainment. The red logo harkens back to the Red Seal releases, introduced by EMI predecessor the Gramophone Company in 1902. So HMV classical releases had red labels. EMI Classics also incorporates the Virgin Classics label.
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Charisma was a record label founded by former journalist Tony Stratton-Smith in 1969. Manager for The Nice, the Bonzo Dog Band and Van der Graaf Generator at the time, Stratton-Smith was unable to find a record company willing to release an album by one of his favourite groups so he founded his own... company and released the Van der Graaf Generator album The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other himself. Charisma's first record label was a distinctive "pink scroll" design. The company proudly proclaimed itself "The Famous Charisma Label". Its second logo of Sir John Tenniel's drawing of the Mad Hatter made the label instantly recognisable. Its most successful acts were Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Julian Lennon and the Monty Python comedy team. It also released material by Van der Graaf Generator, The Nice, Lindisfarne and Alan Hull, Hawkwind, The Alan Parsons Project, Clifford T. Ward, String Driven Thing, Jack The Lad, Audience, Vivian Stanshall, Brand X, Sir John Betjeman and Malcolm McLaren.
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Voiceprint Records is a company and record label based in England, founded in 1990 by Rob Ayling. They specialise in re-releasing old material, especially progressive rock, but also have new releases, all under the Voiceprint and other imprints. The holding company, Zeit Distribution Ltd., went... into insolvency in 2010. It was replaced by the phoenix company, Gonzo Multimedia. Voiceprint operates a number of record labels, including some for a single band or set of related artists. Major Voiceprint labels include Blueprint. The first release on Voiceprint was a Daevid Allen album, ‘The Australian years. Among the many other artists whose recordings have been released by the company are Leonard Cohen, The Fall , Fish, Gong, Hawkwind, Steve Hillage, Patrick Moraz, Anthony Phillips, Rick Wakeman, and Yes. The company also releases classical music and related documentaries.
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Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has... its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
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