Rick Wakeman- The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1973)

Today, we'll examine the debut offering from Yes' most famous keyboardist, the oft-praised, oft-mocked Rick Wakeman. The composition of this album is a little interesting for a concept album. As I'm sure you can guess, Wakeman's concept here is to capture the personalities of the six wives of Henry VIII via progressive rock. While touring Yes' Fragile, Wakeman read a book on the wives, and he was reminded of old melodies he had written down but never used for anything. He decided to revive those tracks, flesh them out, and make this album, recorded for A&M records. This is the result. Many members of Yes guest on the proceedings.

I'm a student of Tudor history myself (I'm currently working on an undergraduate thesis on the counter-reformation of Queen Mary), so I've listened to this trying to see if Wakeman actually tried to make a stab at history or was just throwing down melodies. For the most part, I say: no, he did not actually make an accurate instrumental rock opera about the wives of Henry VIII. Why is the notoriously slutty Catherine Howard getting a calm, grand piano driven ballroom piece, which then morphs into a harpsichord driven bar-room jig? In an overall sense, Wakeman uses bombastic, loud grand pianos, harpsichords, and keyboard sounding synthesizers to capture the feel of Catholic Mass music that would have been contemporary to Henry. He makes the interesting decision to put the wives out of order, with the Catherine of Aragon leading off like she's supposed to, but then doing Anne of Cleaves and Catherine Howard, followed by Jane Seymour, and then Anne Boleyn. He finishes with Catherine Parr, like history did. Very interestingly, Catherine of Aragon, despite being Henry's wife as long as the others combined, gets the shortest track by far. Individually, other than that Cathedral feel which is this album's backbone, the tracks vary greatly in tempo and Wakeman's keyboard instrument of choice. Catherine of Aragon is a slower, strong peice that builds to a climax, representing her tenacity under fire from Henry (this is one part he did well historically). Anne of Cleaves is more upbeat, Jane Seymour is almost strictly a pipe organ, representing her piety, and so on. However, performance-wise, this is all about Rick Wakeman. He deftly bends his keyboard melodies across instruments with immense intensity. All else fades into the background under the onslaught of Wakeman's bombastic keyboards. The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

I don't think Wakeman read that book very closely. There doesn't seem to be much a theme to this outside of "inspired by the Renaissance". However, nothing here is outright bad. I think these melodies are fine, and they did deserve better than to just be discarded. I'm glad Wakeman dredged them up. There's intensity and skill here which make The Six Wives of Henry VIII worth having, though the record could use more sonic variety than "prog-church music".

Grade: B-