Journey to the Center of the Earth (album)

Journey to the Center of the Earth is the third music album of Rick Wakeman .

Journey was recorded live during the second concert on January 18, 1974 at the Royal Festival Hall in London . In retrospect, that was the first major solo concert Rick gave. To finance all had to grope Rick far in the pouch. A & M Records had a budget of 4,000 pounds sterling and the rest was accounted for Wakeman. A rock band, a choir and the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of David Measham played that evening. There are rumors that Wakeman went almost bankrupt (could not pay the milkman). The same thing happened a few years later, incidentally Emerson, Lake & Palmer, which even went touring with orchestra and soon had to dismiss the orchestra.

A & M Records subsidiary United Kingdom was the shots in their stomach; they did not produce. Wakeman convinced branch United States to be the same for this album.The album sold millions of copies.

The album is a concept album about the book to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne . Originally the piece was longer, but the maximum length of an LP (then about 40 minutes) and the cost made ​​sure it was heavily curtailed. The other music was lost after three divorces. The shots that ultimately ended up on the album had to be modified because there was an annoying noise crept into a part of the concert. The sound quality of this live album was moderate; Also the compact disc (especially theJapanese pressing of 1987 ) could not help improve it. Perhaps the version from 2000 (not remastered) better sound quality. It was in the 70s a quadraphonic edited version. The case was of Michael Doud .

Became one of the concerts of the tour of North America recorded for the radio and appeared in 1980 as LP and CD in 1993, when bootleg titled Unleashing the Tethered One. Wakeman tried to stop the album; his former record label A & M did nothing about it. Eventually Wakeman released this version in 2002 itself as part of The Treasure Chest. In 1975 a concert was filmed in Melbourne and appeared much later on DVD .

In 1999 followed Return to the Centre of the Earth ; a kind of sequel in which a group of travelers, the trip originally going to repeat overdeed.Dit time with guest musicians including Justin Hayward and Ozzy Osbourne and Patrick "Star Trek" Stewart as narrator .. "Return" is not a remake but a " sequel to " EMI Group .

The relationship between A & M Records, and Rick Wakeman has over the years remained poor. Wakeman barely got royalties for his work from the 70 Therefore he first made in 2009, a live remake of The Six Wives of Henry 8th.

Sometime in 2010, a box of sheet music was delivered to Wakeman. In it he found a part of the original score which was used by conductor David Measham at live concerts. Created based on this score were new arrangements and the documents had to be omitted reconstructed the original recording. In 2012, a new studio recording of Journey to the Center of the Earth released, including the missing material not in the original version stond.Deze version was released in 2013 in the journal PROG MAGAZINE and in June 2014 as an official release.

There are in addition to the two official versions of this album countless bootleg versions and re-makes. 1. At the official DVD of the concert in Australia was added later a CD. 2 The aforementioned Unleashing the tethered one / Journey plus 3 A studio version without choir, orchestra and without narration can be found on the semi-legal CD Classic Tracks 4 A full instrumental version with only Keyboards, drums and bass guitar in single issues, covers the second CD of the album Rick Wakeman's Greatest hits 5.In 2011 published two bootleg boxes as The Caped Crusader Collection Club. That is why bootleg versions of very poor quality of a concert at Crystal Palace in 1974 and Boston in 1974.

Musicians [ edit ]

 * Rick Wakeman - synthesizers
 * Gary Pickford-Hopkins (former Wild Turkey ), Ashley Holt (ever candidate for Deep Purple ) - vocals
 * David Hemmings - narration
 * Mike Egan - guitar
 * Roger Newell - bass
 * Barney James - drums
 * London Symphony Orchestra
 * The English Chamber Choir
 * David Measham - conductor