Grumpy Old Rock Star: and Other Wondrous Stories (17 page)

‘My son has told me all about you,’ she said in perfect English with a slight French accent, in the gentlest of voices. ‘I hear you play the piano but also the harpsichord. Is that correct?’

‘That is correct. I very much enjoy the harpsichord.’

At this point, she indicated a very old but beautifully preserved harpsichord in the corner. She asked if I would like to play it and I jumped at the chance, I couldn’t believe my good fortune.

‘Well, let’s have some champagne as you do,’ she said,
with a real glint of excitement blazing in her wrinkled eyes. She had had brought in a selection of incredibly rare vintage bottles of champagne. She carefully opened one, filled two glasses and gently sipped hers. I slugged mine back in one gulp.

‘That’s the last bottle in existence,’ she said.

‘Nice,’ I said approvingly.

I later discovered that at auction that bottle would have been worth in excess of £10,000.

I wish I could remember what it tasted like!

I sat at the harpsichord and played and played. It was an exquisite instrument. Another bottle of champagne was opened and I had a few good slugs but slowed down to more polite sips when I asked her if this was the only bottle left of this particular vintage and she said, ‘Rather nice, isn’t it, Mr Wakeman? It’s from 1896 and is one of only two surviving bottles in the world.’ She was half laughing and you could see that my gargling on this priceless bubbly had clearly amused her greatly.

And so I spent one of the most beautiful afternoons of my life, sampling vintage champagnes, eating hand-made nibbles served on a silver platter by a butler, playing a famous harpsichord and talking about life and the world with this delightful lady. I could see that she had a cheeky streak and I have to admit to occasionally pouring the remnants of one vintage glass of bubbly into the start of the next glass, as much to make her giggle as anything else.

‘My son tells me that you like history,’ she said.

I told her I was fascinated by history and how I believed it is important to understand because it’s what shapes our present and our present is what shapes our future, so they are inextricably linked.

‘I want to show you something,’ she said, returning to her serious self momentarily.

Fred’s mother took me through to an antechamber in the middle
of which was a huge table covered in maps. ‘This is where Napoleon used to come to plan out his battles,’ she explained. These were original charts and maps and must have been priceless. I pored over them gleefully for a while. Then she said, ‘Sadly, we have run out of time today, Rick, but would you like to come and play the harpsichord again tomorrow?’

Over the next few days, I visited this remarkable old lady and we chatted, sipped champagne and I played the harpsichord. She told me the most amazing stories, particularly about her family’s experiences during the Second World War, which really put my showbiz world into perspective. She showed me a picture of her family when she was quite young and – with her voice but a whisper – explained that as they were the most renowned family in the area the Nazis lined up several of them one day and executed them to force the villagers to do what they were told as most of them worked for the family producing champagne.

After that horror, the Nazis forced the villagers to produce champagne for the German army’s own consumption and profit. Despite the atrocity that Frederick’s mother had just described, that twinkle returned into her ageing blue eyes and with a sparkle in them she leaned over to me and said, with an impish smile filling her face, ‘If you ever come across a bottle of our champagne from 1942–44, it’s probably best if you don’t drink it as you may get a bit of a tummy upset. During that period, some of the French workers didn’t always make the trip out of the caves where the champagne was being produced in order to relieve themselves . . .’

After that wonderful visit, whenever I played a concert anywhere for the next few years I would always go backstage to find a dozen bottles of the very finest vintage champagne with a little note from Count Frederick. Sadly, Fred died young and I lost touch with the family, but what an amazing lady his mother was; I will never forget her and I was very sad when I heard she had passed away.
I can still hear her now, explaining about the ‘special’ champagne they had made for the Nazis with that glint in her eye . . . ‘Every little thing we could do, Rick, every little thing . . .’

This brings me to another wonderful old lady who adored music, the late Lady Bradford. Her esteemed family was noted for helping to raise millions of pounds over the years for one music-related charity in particular. When she passed away, I was very sombre but my spirits lifted somewhat when I received a call asking if I would kindly play at her memorial service. I was told it was a very casual affair and that there was no dress code. The piece they wanted me to play was ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’.

On the day of the service, I was tired but hauled myself out of bed early so as not to be late. I was playing in a charity golf tournament on the same afternoon so, to save time and as it was only a casual affair, I decided to put my golfing gear on beforehand, the idea being that as soon as I’d played my piece I could sneak off and drive down to the course without having to go home to get changed first.

At this juncture I should explain that I like dressing flamboyantly when I play golf, and for this day had chosen a pink-and-lilac patterned golf shirt with a pair of bright yellow trousers with a blue, green and red check. This was the mid-1980s and at the time I was driving a chocolate-brown Rolls-Royce. This beautiful car had one of the very first car phones ever fitted – the equipment and wiring took up most of the colossal boot but I didn’t care because I had a phone in the car! It was pretty unheard of at the time and cost a fortune to make calls as well.

Somehow, my early morning start had turned into slow progress and I realised as I was driving into London that time was not on my side. Then my car phone rang – I felt like bloody Batman – and it was my agent, who’d been away for a few days.

‘Rick, where are you?’

‘I’m just driving into London. Traffic’s bad but don’t worry, I’m nearly there.’

‘Can you get to a Moss Bros?’

‘What?’

‘OK, listen, I’ve just been going through the mail and Rick, I thought you should know, there’s been a change of plan about Lady Bradford’s memorial. It’s no longer a casual event, it’s very formal, in fact you need ideally to wear a morning suit.’

Shit
.

‘And they’ve now got Edward Heath and Michael Foot speaking, several lords are making speeches too . . . there’s even royalty coming . . .’

‘And it’s become quite a high-security event, there’ll be strict entrance criteria and security presence . . .’

I explained to my agent what had happened and that even if I could find a men’s outfitters there was no way I’d be able to get sorted and still make it in time, and a no-show was out of the question as I had to play ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’. Resolving to turn up on time – albeit in my golfing gear – and keep a low profile, I parked the Rolls and headed to the church in Westminster where the service was being held. On my approach, I noticed a side door and, sensing salvation, I forged a cunning plan. I would get hold of Lady Bradford’s son, Richard, explain the unfortunate circumstances and suggest that I slide through the side door and get seated at the organ, where I could remain seated and relatively hidden until they announced my piece, which I could then play, and sneak off afterwards. That way no one would be any the wiser about my loud check-patterned golfing trousers. As I got nearer to the church, everybody I saw was dressed either very formally or in a morning suit; I was dressed as Rupert the Bear.

Then I spotted Richard Bradford . . . who had already spotted me.

He was stunned.

I explained my cunning plan.

No good.

The side door was locked for security reasons.

Grasping for a glint of hope, I thought to myself,
At least they’ll probably put me near the front, so I can walk quickly to the organ and hide behind it.

‘So where am I sitting, Richard?’

‘Right at the back, Rick.’

So there was Rupert the Bear sitting at the back of this church, alongside lords, ladies, politicians and judges.

I was so embarrassed.

At least they might go into my piece quite low-key
, I was thinking . . .

. . . And that was when Edward Heath stood up to introduce me . . .

He mentioned how one of Lady Bradford’s favourite charities was Music Therapy, how she loved rock musicians and ‘always applauded the wonderful work they did . . . one such musician is Rick Wakeman who wrote a piece of music called “Gone But Not Forgotten” which she was very fond of and he is going to perform it now.’

This was the cue for Rupert the Bear to stand up and walk, all the way from the back of the church, slowly, painfully, agonisingly to the front where the organ was situated. It felt like it took me about a year to get there. The silence was deafening, although I did hear the odd whispered comment as I walked by the rows of pews.

‘It’s obviously drugs,’ was one I recall.

The organ was behind a railed fence and when I arrived at the little gate which I had to open to walk to the organ, I discovered it was locked.
I shook it, rattled it, swore under my breath at it and then after a minute or so of chronic embarrassment, Rupert the Bear put his leg over and climbed in.

I played the piece and that all went off well. However, there was no way I was going to walk back to my seat, so I just sat there for the rest of the service. Afterwards, outside the church, people in all this formal wear were coming up to me asking for pictures with Rupert the Bear, it was unbelievable. I could see Richard Bradford in the background, howling with laughter; eventually he came over. After what I thought had been something of a debacle, I was really rather worried about what he was going to say . . .

‘Rick, thank you so much. My mother would have absolutely loved that.’

THE POLICE WERE VERY GOOD ABOUT IT

This might sound strange but even though my band was full of mischief, we were never malicious, never hurt anybody or set out to do any harm. Sadly, you do read stories of bands nowadays going around fighting and hitting people, but I have to say we were never like that. We were just very
naughty
. Boys who refused to grow up, who grew bigger, being naughty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we didn’t
offend
anyone.

Take the notorious Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs incident.

On the road, we used to get through almost as many tour managers as we did drinks. No one lasted the pace – at one point we were getting through one tour manager every fortnight. One particular favourite was a gentleman whom I shall call Pat. He was a very good tour manager who once appeared in a double-page spread in the
News of the World
which included a photograph of him with a toilet roll on the end of his knob. He moved into publishing, funnily enough. Very nice chap.

When he was tour manager for the English Rock Ensemble, he worked on the principle that if he could keep the band occupied,
then it kept them out of trouble and maybe, just maybe, he might even get some sleep.

On the European tour in question, he arrived in Germany with a Super-8 projector and two films:
Deep Throat
and the rudest animated version of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
you’ve ever seen. Pure Disney, but . . . er . . . not exactly family entertainment.

Snow White
started, as you would expect, with all the dwarfs marching from behind a mountain, singing ‘Hi-ho’ and all that. Just like the Disney classic. With one small difference, or rather seven rather large differences, as they all had the most gigantic erections. Basically, they all went round to Snow White’s house to sort her out, etc., etc. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to bonk they go.

Early on in the tour, we were due to eat at a very pleasant, traditional German restaurant, because we all fancied some Bavarian sausage dishes. It was a reasonably posh place but the staff were very nice and the food was excellent. Pat got the drinks in and was looking very confident that a half-pissed band would behave themselves and eventually roll back to the hotel quietly and fall asleep.

This restaurant was actually made up of two rooms that had been knocked through into one another, and we had pretty much taken over one half of the place. After a few minutes Pat stood up and wandered over to the waiter, had a little chat then came back to the table.

‘Listen, lads, I’ve had a word with the waiter and he’s going to let us put a tablecloth up in the space between the two rooms so we can watch my movies, with the sound at minimum volume, if you know what I mean, so it won’t disturb the other people eating. I doubt they will understand what’s being said anyway as it’s in English. After that it’s back to the hotel for a few drinks and then we’ll call it a day, eh? Sounds good?’

It did, indeed, sound good, so nods of approval all round.

Pat got this enormous tablecloth and started standing on
chairs and taping it up to the ceiling and walls either side, taking great care to make sure that no one else in the other half of the restaurant could catch the slightest glimpse of these highly naughty films. After about ten minutes, his makeshift projector screen was ready and, from where we were all sitting, the rest of the diners would be oblivious to the content of the movies. We were all feeling rather chuffed with ourselves, especially Pat.

‘Hi-ho, hi-ho . . .’ rang out and we all settled down with our sausages to watch.

Then Snow White appears and starts to get very excitable with these seven dwarfs whose willies are anything but small by this stage.