Rick Wakeman: Just Another Yes Man

WHEN HE was six years old, Rick Wakeman's father dispatched him to a very fine lady piano teacher in Harrow. Two lessons later the infant Wakeman had decided to be a concert pianist. He never actually made it to the concert platform – all kinds of other small diversions like football, girls and bands kept getting in the way. But he did make it to the Royal College of Music in London, where, at his first clarinet lesson, he stunned the entire teaching staff. Not exactly by his brilliant virtuosity, but because he collapsed at their feet in a drunken stupour.