Rick Wakeman cannot be blamed for a lack of productivity. The blonde keyboarder, who decisively shaped the sound of Yes, has recorded more than a hundred solo albums in the meantime. One of his favourite musical children is still the setting of Jules Verne's novel "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", which is now available in a completely renewed and expanded version. In an interview with eclipsed, Wakeman revealed how this new recording came about.
eclipsed: The current recording of "Journey" is an extended version of the 2012 re-recording, right?
Rick Wakeman: Basically it's the same recording as the 2012 fanpack, but with a slightly different tracklist. With the original I had to limit myself to thirty-six minutes, now I finally had the opportunity to use the missing parts again. My sound engineer also insisted that we didn't use sounds that didn't exist in 1974. At first we didn't know what to do with the new recording, but then the editor-in-chief of "Classic Prog" contacted me and said: "It sounds fantastic. How about a limited fan pack of 12,500 copies?" I said, "Okay, but if people aren't happy, I can't get the CD out." The reactions, however, were phenomenal.
