2026 PCGG Day Seven: Rick Wakeman’s Autobiography

The first pick in this second week of The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide ties into today’s episode of Prognosis on The AIR. Today and 3 PM, you can hear a special episode from 2023 devoted to Rick Wakeman’s Journey To The Center Of The Earth and Return To The Center Of The Earth. At 5 PM another episode of Prognosis will be devoted to Rick Wakeman performing live.

And that should be a good hint that our pick today is the perfect gift for fans or Rick Wakeman, Progressive Rock and hilarious storytelling. It’s a new autobiography from Rick Wakeman.

The Wizard of Prog
The Truth And Something Like The Truth
by Rick Wakeman
Ebury Spotlight
ISBN: 9781529983869
$26.72 from Blackwells (UK)

First of all, even though this book is available in Audiobook and Kindle from Amazon now, it won’t be in print in the US until next May, and that will just be in paperback. However, you can order it in hardcover form now from Blackwell’s (no relation to Mark) in the UK now, and it’s both reasonably priced and has free shipping to the States.

Aside from being a beloved virtuoso keyboard player who made his name working with David Bowie, YES, and Strawbs as well as having successful solo career, Rick Wakeman is one of the funniest men on the planet.

This is, after all, the man who turned the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction speech for the band, YES, into a long, drawn-out meandering boner joke.

Let me quote from the publisher’s blurb:

‘From the beginning to not quite the end… just yet’.

From piano-playing child prodigy, through to classically trained keyboardist and onto his rise with Yes and as a solo artist, Rick Wakeman’s life so far has been one of very dramatic spirals, spectacular comebacks and legendary rock ‘n’ roll excess.

The first of his epic concept albums, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, was released in 1973 to indifferent reviews, but was a worldwide hit, to the vast surprise of his record company. The following year, Journey to the Centre of the Earth was another phenomenon. He took it around the world, with huge orchestras and choirs, which he funded, spending every penny he’d earned. After headlining Crystal Palace Park, he suffered a heart attack aged just 25. Languishing in hospital, he wrote his next album, The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Ignoring doctors’ orders to retire, he went straight out on tour. However, the high cost of his lavishly staged concerts, combined with his second divorce, eventually caught up with him, leaving him impoverished, homeless and occasionally even sleeping rough by 1980. He lived to tell the tale and many more like it.

While Rick takes his music and creativity very seriously, he views his life as material for a sitcom. This unmissable memoir is the story of a musical genius with a taste for adventure, a delightful sense of the absurd and a winning gift for comedy. It’s the book Rick has always wanted to write and the sole unsurprising thing about it is that it’s a hell of a read.

As mentioned above, if you have a fan of Wakeman and Prog Rock on your holiday shopping list, you can’t go wrong by getting them this book from the UK, months before it’s published over here.