Agent Triple P was just coming out of HMV near Bond Street Tube yesterday and who should be wandering along the street but Rick Wakeman! Triple P was very excited and had to forcibly restrain himself from saying something to the keyboard wizard!
Rick Wakeman's White Rock was the very first non-classical record we bought, in 1977. We also really like Criminal Record (his best album in Triple P's opinion) and Rhapsodies but are less keen on his vocal works (King Arthur, The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, for example, despite them being his best known pieces).
White Rock, Criminal Record and Rhapsodies are no longer available as the record company that issued them. A&M, was bought out in 1998 and the current owners have no intention of re-releasing them, although some tracks from all three are available on his Voyage, compilation. After long searches, that in the case of White Rock totalled nearly two decades, Triple P managed to get official Japanese issues of the CDs mainly, we seem to recall, from the much missed Sam the Record Man store on Toronto's Yonge Street.
