Tony Cummings quizzed rock music's keyboard virtuoso RICK WAKEMAN about his 'Amazing Grace' DVD and CD set.

Rick Wakeman

Rick Wakeman wears his legendary status with the relaxed air of a musician with little left to prove. His pioneering contributions to progressive rock stars Yes have in themselves gained him gold albums and critical plaudits while with well over 100 solo albums his keyboard wizardry has earned him a loyal legion of fans. This Easter Studio T released a two disc DVD and CD set 'Amazing Grace' featuring Rick's concert grand interpretations of "Abide With Me", "Amazing Grace", "Morning Has Broken", "Jerusalem", "Ode To Joy", "All Things Bright And Beautiful" and a heap more classic hymns of yesteryear. I spoke to Rick about the project.

Tony: How did the 'Amazing Grace' project come about?

Rick: It's actually an extension of a project I did quite a few years ago - 10, 12 odd years ago - when it occurred to me how lovely some of the hymn tunes are. And of course, as you know, most of the hymn tunes if not virtually all of them that are classics were never written for the hymn, they were separate pieces of music that people actually mixed and matched and put them together. I just happened to be looking through my Dad's old hymn book, 'cos we moved house recently and I found his old Hymns Ancient And Modern, in fact they're in front of me here. I was looking through and thought, these are great tunes, and looking at the names of the tunes I was thinking, these are matches made in Heaven. When you hear a certain tune - "All Things Bright And Beautiful", "We Plough The Fields And Scatter", "Amazing Grace" - you hear the tune and you automatically think oh, that's that hymn. I thought I'd like to take those tunes and do variations on them so you can take them on their own little journey. I recorded an album called 'Morning Has Broken' where I did that and it was rather fun to do. Then last year I decided I wanted to take it one stage further and re-do a lot of these hymns, re-master them and add a load more. I went to my friend Robert Garofalo at Classic Media to talk to him about it. He said, "You could have some wonderful visuals to these. Why don't you do it as a DVD and a CD in one set?" I said, "That sounds lovely." He said, "You could do some really inspirational visuals with it," and I said, "Well, that's your department. Get on with it!" And he did a fantastic job. I recorded a load more pieces and carried on.

And then a very strange thing happened. There's one word that needs to be removed from the dictionary and that's the word "co-incidence". I just don't believe in co-incidences. You know, I think there are certain things that are preordained and meant to happen. I got a call right at the beginning of January from Jonathan Mayo who is head of special projects for the region of Essex for the BBC and he said, "I want to tell the story, the proper story of 'Amazing Grace' and John Newton and I'd love you to present it, would you like to?" I said, "I'd love to," and he said, "Do you know anything about him?" I said, "Well, only the Sunday school bits and pieces - you know the famous story we are told about him on the slave ship, big storm, finds his faith, lets the slaves go and comes back." He said, "Totally wrong! We're coming into the year when, trust me, they're going to tell it all wrong and I want to tell the story of 'Amazing Grace' properly." So I said, "You know, you are not going to believe this but I have just started recording a DVD and CD ready for Easter release which includes 'Amazing Grace' on it." So we had a chat and I started reading loads and loads of books. I got sucked in with this subject and in fact I went back and recorded yet another version of "Amazing Grace" so there's two on there. So all of the tracks, with the exception of one of the versions of "Amazing Grace" (sung by Rick's daughter Jemma), are instrumental.

Tony: How do you think our modern worship songs from the likes of Matt Redman and Hillsong compare with the old hymns?

Rick: It's slightly different because the current worship songs that people like Graham Kendrick and loads of other really good writers bring us, they are writing the music and the words. They are actually written together. The marriage is already there so it's slightly different. I think the thing that I find fascinating and always have done is that music has always been a real problem within the Church.

Tony: In what way has it been a problem?

Rick: Well, I mean, if you go back into the 18th century where hymns were really frowned upon quite heavily by the Church as being extremely dodgy and it could be an area where the rectors or the ministers could actually get over what they wanted to rather than the Gospel. It was very much limited to psalms and psalter and things. In fact when people such as Newton and Wesley wrote great hymns they were sort of almost grudgingly accepted by the Church, even then the tunes that they were allowed to sing them to were old psalters and very dirge-like. Certainly no organs or musical instruments in churches. I suppose it was the Americans who sort of, shall we say, motored things up a little bit initially by taking a lot of the hymns that we know. It was a chap called Walker in America who put the tune that he had written to "Amazing Grace" before another guy called Exel did the final version. The Americans did that very well and their versions sort of came back to us. We were always a bit slow. My late mother, who was a Methodist and loved her church, was very honest. She said, "You know I can't stand the happy-clappy," as she used to call it. She said, "That's not what I want from my morning in church. I don't want it but I understand that some people do." You've got a problem if you try and mix and match old hymns and modern worship songs. It's the old thing of trying to please everybody. So you're going to have people who want the traditional hymns and don't really like the praise and worship songs. They're singing with gusto when the hymns come but the people who like praise and worship are muttering. . . It's a very tricky situation.

The other alternative is very much what's happened in America which is what I call, and I use this very much as a generalisation, designer churches where the church is designed almost around its congregation and what the people want. Now that's good in one respect but also very dangerous in other respects. You know, there are always pros and cons. So the thing is, music is always going to be a huge bone of contention within a church and it's never really been addressed. I think the reason that it's never really been addressed is that nobody really has an answer.

Rick with daughter Jemma

Tony: I thought your selection of hymns was excellent. One choice which intrigued me was "Morning Has Broken" because of course one of my Trivial Pursuits questions is about you playing the piano on the Cat Stevens' version. And here you are, all these years later doing the song again. To be fair, until Cat Stevens did his rendition it was relatively unknown.

Rick: A children's song.

Tony: That's right. It wasn't particularly well known and suddenly it's an international hit. Can you still remember that Cat Stevens' session?

Rick: Very well indeed. We only had like a little hymnbook with three verses in and it was marvellous. It was just a lot of fun to do as well because it is a great song. And I, obviously, personally, get very proud when the odd hymn or the odd Christian piece of music does that great crossover and jumps the divide. I mean, "Amazing Grace": we have to thank Judy Collins for that. I know Judy very well and I said, "Do you realise what you gave back to Britain with that? And the rest of the world." And I think when that happens it's marvellous. And when "Morning Has Broken" jumped that divide I must admit I had a huge grin on my face. I just got my little session fee but I was thrilled that it brought this wonderful hymn to the public. It was mainly sung by children simply because the range of notes that it's written in is almost impossible for a congregation to sing! It's impossible to pitch a key that has any space either at the top or the bottom that everybody can sing.

Tony: Tell me a bit more about that BBC TV Easter special.