It’s been a long time coming, but Oliver Wakeman is back with a new solo album. With contributions from Nightwish’s Troy Donockley, vocalist Hayley Griffiths and Pendragon drummer Scott Higham, Anam Cara is a Celtic-flavoured melting pot of delight. The keyboardist discusses the good stories and wonderful musicians that make up a record he hopes will capture the listener’s imagination.
Last year Oliver Wakeman’s label politely pointed out that he hadn’t made an album for a long, long time. He was taken aback; to him it felt like he’d barely stopped releasing music.
There was Collaborations – the 2022 box set featuring expanded reissues of The 3 Ages Of Magick, his record with Steve Howe; and Ravens & Lullabies, with Gordon Giltrap. The year before saw Tales By Gaslight, a three-disc set comprising his albums with Arena’s Clive Nolan – Jabberwocky and The Hound Of The Baskervilles plus a previously unreleased selection, Dark Fables.
In 2019 there’d been a high-profile Yes ‘mini-album’ From A Page, predominantly made up of shelved pieces the keyboardist had written for the band during his tenure in the late 2000s. On top of that there’s been his live work with Strawbs, the occasional charity gig with his old man, Rick Wakeman, and hundreds of other engagements.
“In my head I’d been doing records and sessions for the last 10 years, since working with Gordon on Ravens,” Wakeman tells Prog. “The record company said, ‘Yeah, but you haven’t done one of your own.’ But I never think about that. Every record I do is as important to me as a solo record. And in an odd way, this new one is a solo record, but it’s not really – it’s me with a bunch of musicians that I really like working with.”
Anam Cara is the first album released under just his name since 2005’s rocky Mother’s Ruin. Recorded by John Mitchell and mixed by Threshold’s Karl Groom, the work’s Celtic feel is enhanced by the uilleann pipes and whistles of Nightwish’s Troy Donockley, and lyrical violin from Telergy’s Robert McClung.
Alongside Wakeman’s long-time electric guitarist David Mark Pearce, Oliver Day (Amy Birks, Yes tribute band Fragile) adds classy acoustic guitars, lute and mandolin. Due to a quirk of fate, seasoned sessioneer Scott Higham recorded most of his drum parts for the record in Clive Nolan’s lounge.
The album title is derived from a Gaelic term that translates as ‘soul friend,’ and its 10 songs tell stories of Wakeman’s characters’ interactions with others, and themselves. “I thought ‘anam cara’ was a wonderful description of these relationships,” he explains. “These soul friends can be good or bad. They could be the internal relationships you have with yourself.
“It also matched well with the relationships musicians have with each other. You often meet other musicians who you haven’t known for years, but you end up having an intimate trust of each other. As a writer, I’m trusting these people to deliver something that’s going to enhance the piece of music. I felt the title covered that as well.”
Drawing on the strands of prog, rock, folk and new age music woven into the 52-year-old’s output, Anam Cara is marked by some extraordinary instrumental prowess, but ultimately it’s a collection of female vocal-led songs. So Wakeman needed a versatile, powerful vocalist. Enter Hayley Griffiths, known well in these parts for her work with Karnataka and her own band. The two were introduced by their mutual friend, Touchstone’s Adam Hodgson.
In our family, everybody does music. It’d be a bit like talking shop, so we just don’t do it
“She was great,” says Wakeman. “Some of these songs are traditional songs of longing, or about the challenge of relationships. But some are short stories, historical stories, stories of abandonment – all these different emotions. I needed a vocalist who could sing like an angel, who could go into classical, soprano-type stuff, but who could also add gravel to their voice; give it a bit of welly when the band is let loose.
“I haven’t come across many people who can do that, and Hayley can. One minute she can sound like the most wise, mature person in the way she’s projecting a song; the next minute she can sound angry, then sweet and light. It’s quite wonderful. She did a fantastic job.”
One of the standout tracks, The Queen’s Lament, sees Griffiths portray the young Catherine Howard as she awaits her executioner, having been caught in a dalliance behind the back of her husband, Henry VIII. Its writer was painfully aware of what the reaction might be – given the already strong connection between the Tudors and the Wakemans.
“I really love the song but I struggled with the fact that the Wakeman name is so renowned, through Dad doing his Six Wives Of Henry VIII album. I thought, ‘Do I really want to put this out there?’” It’s a good thing he did – the song’s cleverly composed, beautifully produced and stands on its own merits.
We only get one life; you’ve got to sort of follow some of your passions somewhere
When the Wakemans meet up, Oliver says the topic of conversation is much more likely to be comedy or cars than keyboards. “In our family, everybody [including younger brother, Adam] does music. It’d be a bit like talking shop, so we just don’t do it. I like that we talk about other things.”
It’s actually elsewhere on Anam Cara that the prog apple seems to have fallen closest to the tree. As well as the robust musical spine underpinning the entire endeavour, the family gene is present in the rip-roaring blues piano codaof Instead Of My Fear; the dextrous Moog solos of the opulent Here In My Heart; and the country-tinged Miss You Now and dramatic Lonely.
This latter keyboard break is all the more thrilling for its thematic connection to the story, about someone who has, Wakeman says, “gone off, become a musician and followed their dreams. We only get one life; you’ve got to sort of follow some of your passions somewhere. That’s why that piece suddenly goes right over the top.”
One of Anam Cara’s most evocative and cinematic moments, Marble Arch, is based on a story Wakeman wrote as a youngster. It’s a tale of two foreign spies vying for the secrets of a British scientist, leading to a love affair, betrayal and a violent death. It could easily be expanded into a novel befitting Graham Greene or John le Carré.
Insert quote hereI loved It Bites’ Plastic Dreamer – the idea of being in a toy shop and all the toys coming to life…
It presents a man waiting all night for a woman under the titular building, then visit a subterranean jazz club (with some sensational playing from the band, notably saxophonist Mick Allport) and then back to the arch again. Then, the windswept closer Golden Sun In Grey is another lovelorn tale effectively told, as a woman waits in vain for the return of the sailor whose baby she’s carrying.
Having a good story is one thing – but, Wakeman says, “if you’ve also got a good melody, and if you use your instruments in the right way to enhance the emotional pull, then you’ve got something that’s particularly exciting. One of the songs I loved as a kid was It Bites’ Plastic Dreamer. The idea of being in a toy shop and all the toys coming to life – I remember thinking it was fantastic.
“I’m just a bit of a magpie. I love music. My son always says to me, ‘Why did you write that song?’ And I say, ‘Because no one else had.’ And that’s my premise behind writing: there’s a song I want to hear and no one else has written it, so I might as well do it.”
Wakeman, Griffiths, Day, Higham and Magenta bassist Dan Nelson played pieces from Anam Cara and From A Page at Winter’s End Festival in April. If this record goes down well, Wakeman has his eyes on more live shows with a full band.
“If I had the budget that’d be a wonderful show to do. Anam Cara is a record I wanted to write with good stories and wonderful musicians, that might capture people’s imaginations. That’s what I’m hoping for.”
