The Wizard of Prog: My Autobiography, Rick Wakeman (Ebury Spotlight)
Devil on my Shoulder: a Memoir, Alice Cooper (Ebury Spotlight)
Two autobiographies, both written with acknowledged assistance from others. Both big hardbacks published with an eye on Christmas, both by subjects well known for theatrical music, jokes, pranks and mischief, both survivors still out there gigging, both of whom have had some sort of return to a Christianity they grew up with and then abandoned.
Rick Wakeman is, of course, best known for his flamboyant capes, solo synthesizer albums and over-the-top live presentations of them. (Who can forget King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table on ice, Wembley 1975?) And for his contributions to the best albums by Yes, and as a grumpy old man of magazine and TV appearances. I met Wakeman once, literally bumping into him as he came out of Gatwick Airport’s Gents as I was going in. I normally avoid talking to famous musicians, but having apologised told him I’d enjoyed the Yes gig I’d seen a couple of months before and we chatted briefly before we went out separate ways. He wasn’t grumpy at all, seemed very down-to-earth and approachable.
Unfortunately, he is a better keyboard player than writer. The book’s a bit pedestrian to be honest, there’s – somewhat surprisingly – hardly any gossip about anything, instead just about everything gets skimmed over before moving on to the next chapter. Renowned as a raconteur, even the jokes are disappointing, with the best ones being his reports of tall tales from friends!
Wakeman seems to have a lot of friends. He likes everyone, stays in touch with everyone, bigs up everyone and has nothing much to say about any of them. He played piano on David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’ and other tracks and was friends with Bowie from then on. End of story. He played with Strawbs for a bit, including on their best album, From the Witchwood, then left the band to join Yes (although he was also offered a place in The Spiders from Mars). End of. He loved being in Yes, loved everyone in Yes, but didn’t like Tales from Topographic Oceans, so left the band. End of. (Then joined again before leaving before joining again before leaving again. End of, end of, end of…)
He appears to have no regrets and, when it comes to himself, no self-judgement. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that had he perhaps spent less time drinking with Black Sabbath than contributing to Topographic Oceans, he might have been more interested in the end result; and he doesn’t seem to have learnt about losing money on tours for many years, repeatedly went out to play live and came back broke. And a couple of times he was also away so long he ended a marriage.
It’s all very mundane considering how famous this man is or has been, how much of a world traveller he was, the famous friends he had/has and the amount of music he’s composed, played and recorded. He occasionally strays into Royalist or conservative territory, and there’s the odd hint of sexism here and there, but I ended up longing to hear something really funny, opinionated or a bit outrageous. I mean rounds of golf and a cream fight with Norman Wisdom, his neighbour on the Isle of Man for many years, is not very rock‘n’roll, is it?
But if we are to believe this self-deprecating version of Wakeman, the days of drink and a huge collection of expensive cars are long gone. He is now a hard-working, well-behaved and respectable pillar of the community and family man, who continues making his own music and occasionally recording it for low-key releases, but also does charity work (of course) and attending his local church. I think I preferred the mythical progrock keyboard king who would eat curries and drink beer onstage whilst playing long epic tracks in concert.
Alice Cooper is, of course, known as more of a ghoul, a kohl-eyed deviant who at the peak of his fame killed chickens, used a real snake as a scarf, and staged guillotine executions live on stage. He wrote rock anthems such as ‘School’s Out!’ and ‘Under My Wheels’ and later surprised us all with the tender ‘Only Women Bleed’, a song about emotional hurt not menstruation. Somewhere along the line since Alice Cooper the band released Pretties for You in 1969, Vince Furnier became Alice Cooper rather than a front man, the band signed to a major label and what had been promoted as a degenerate freak show, aligned with The Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefheart, became a carnival or pantomime.
Cooper’s book, Devil on My Shoulder, unfortunately takes its title seriously. Every so often, and far too often, a debate takes place between good and evil Alice about what was going on at the time. Cooper tries to blag or joke his way through, one or other version of Alice remembers it differently and question’s Cooper’s motivation and behaviour at the time.
Cooper nowadays is, like Wakeman, an elderly golf-playing mainstream Christian, having re-embraced his religious upbringing. (His father was a minister.) Having ‘become’ Alice for a major part of his career, and enjoying shocking his audience with outrageous stunts, costumes and staging, he learnt a while back to separate stage persona from real life. Like Bono becoming Mr. Mephisto in concert, Vincent Furnier as Alice Cooper could embrace cartoon antics and trick-or-treat frights, but no longer felt the need to permanently inhabit or adopt Alice’s dark side.
Cooper is much more jocular and liberal about his past provocations and degenerate demeanour than Wakeman. He still sings the same songs, there’s still plenty of fake blood, screaming and spectacle, but that’s all it is: a show, with everyone in on the joke now, although at one point Furnier suggests that ‘Our show is a morality play with a rock-and-roll twist.’
Be that as it may, Cooper’s book is a fun rollercoaster of a ride, despite the occasional moralistic interruptions and confessions. To be honest, I prefer much of Rick Wakeman’s music to that of Alice Cooper’s but bookwise the latter has the edge on several fronts, not least readability.
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Rupert Loydell
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