Tony Funderburk

The Rick Wakeman story is a total yawner. Yeah, he’s your typical rockstar. Six kids. Happy marriage. Healthy lifestyle. So, nothing to see here, folks. Keep it moving.

Have you even ever heard of Rick Wakeman?

Wouldn’t surprise me if you haven’t. I mean, stories don’t come much more boring than his. Well, boring if you leave out the other three marriages and divorces he had before his current marriage. And if you leave out his 100+ albums (that’s not a typo). And, oh yeah, if you leave out his heart attacks and alcohol problems.

Uh-huh. Leave that non-essential stuff, and you’re left with two words. Bo. Ring.

Even his Christian journey lacks pizazz. Don’t get mad at me for talking about it that way. Rick described it this way:

“I’d like to be able to tell you that it was some blinding flash of light, etc. But it was not like that. I was brought up in a Christian family. When I was five, I was sent to South Harrow Baptist Church because my father’s church was too far away. I hasten to add I never had anything forced on me. I loved it and spent many enjoyable years there. It became a second home to me and I became sort of a church member and was baptised in September 1968.

Prior to that I did a two-year course on Sunday School teaching. I was also heavily involved with the Boys Brigade. In a nutshell I suppose that was the whole basis of the building of my faith. I can never remember a time in my entire life when I had any doubt that God existed.”

Cool. I’m not the keyboardist Rick is. But I can relate, somewhat, to his Christian path. Because I was also raised in a Christian family and didn’t have it forced on me. And that’s a big plus since a relationship with your Creator should never be forced. Love should be freely given. God doesn’t need a legion of Yes-men.

How’s that for a segue into part of Rick’s fame.

He was the famous keyboardist for the very successful “progressive rock” band, Yes. I can’t even write that without hearing “Roundabout” in my head. Or “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”

But I digress, a bit.

Rick also described the progression of his life like this:

“I’ve had some bad times in my life and, there’re days I’ve wandered off paths as most people have. But I never ever had a moment in time that I didn’t believe in God, very strongly.”

Keep that in mind as you check out this next section.

Mr. Wakeman endured three heart attacks, pneumonia, and sleeping on park benches. And, by his own admission, he could “out-drink anybody.” And he’s aware that his excessive drinking could have led to the three heart attacks.

But there you go. I guess I was a little hasty when I said his story is Bo Ring. Turns out Rick has had a long and illustrious life in the rockstar realm.

One interviewer asked him how he could reconcile his belief in God with the rock-n-roll. And his answer is familiar.

“Even though I was making mistakes and doing lots of wrong things, I never ever had a moment when I didn’t believe in God or the power of God or had the fear of God. I was aware of it when I was doing some things wrongly. I use a comparison sometimes of the number of times God said to Israel, ‘Right, I’ve had enough of you. But I’ll give you one more chance.’ Because He is ever-forgiving, providing that you own up.”

And Rick Wakeman seems to understand the value of pressing on.

He added this in an interview:

“So there comes a moment in your life whether you’ve had faith before or never had it, when you have to own up and look up towards the heavens and say, ‘Alright God, point taken, come back on board.’ Two interesting things happen from there. First of all, there aren’t any blinding flashes of light, your problems aren’t solved ten seconds later.

What you have got is, if you do it properly and mean it, you’ve got a clean bill of health. You’ve got a clean sheet to start with. What’s gone before is forgiven, providing you have asked for that forgiveness. And then if people throw it back at you, you go, ‘Okay, I can live with that,’ because I know that from the moment you regale your life or you gave it for the first time you’ve got a clean bill of health. Basically that’s what happened to me in the mid-80s.”

Now, Rick has focused a lot of his extensive talent to the “Christian music scene.” He shared some opinions about it:

“Now I’m not saying that all Christian music that’s available on record is of bad quality. But there is certainly not the choice available and the quality available that people would like. And I’m talking of people again of all ages.”

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that.

Too much fluff-n-stuff in churches these days. Rick also said this about the Christian music:

“There’s too much being written by people who are just sitting in rooms churning it out. In a secular setting this stuff wouldn’t see the light of day. I’m not saying that all of that should be totally reversed but I think that it needs a good kick in the pants and we’re hoping that Hope Records will do that.”

And Rick’s a realist about it, too. He knows if you’re gonna work on more substantial Christian music instead of adding to the fluff, it’s gonna be way more difficult to prosper. He put it like this:

“But I’m still obviously going to have to spend some time doing the secular shows, the rock shows because otherwise I wouldn’t have a house to live in.”

I’m glad that, at 74, Rick Wakeman still wants to use the gift God gave him. And I’m especially glad that he dedicates much of his focus on the Word. Because without it, none of us would have music or anything else filled with hope.

Stay tuned,