Journey to the Centre of the Earth (album)

Did You Know?

• The conductor's score was lost for years until a water-damaged copy arrived from Australia in 2009.
• Wakeman's then-wife applied makeup to hide narrator David Hemmings' black eye during the concert.

Background

By January 1973, Wakeman had been keyboardist in Yes for about a year and a half and had released his first solo album, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, a commercial hit for A&M Records. He wanted his next album to tell a story, inspired by a childhood concert performance of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, which used a narrator and orchestra to depict action. A fan of science fiction, Wakeman had first read Verne's novel at age twelve and found that while many people knew of the book, few knew its story, which he felt offered wide possibilities for musical adaptation. He first considered the idea in November 1971 but set it aside until finishing The Six Wives of Henry VIII in October 1972, by which time he had some music written and funds available. In December 1972, while participating as a guest musician in orchestral concerts of The Who's Tommy, Wakeman discussed his idea with show producer Lou Reizner, who connected him with conductor David Measham. Wakeman read the book multiple times, summarised the story in narration form, and sketched music at the piano, producing a rough demo using a Minimoog, Mellotron, Rhodes piano, and clavinet. After playing the demo for Measham, who agreed to participate, Wakeman announced the project to his manager Brian Lane, expressing his wish to use the London Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Choir, a rock band, and a narrator. Studio recording costs were too high, so A&M agreed to record a live concert. Wakeman used all earnings from The Six Wives of Henry VIII, mortgaged his home, and sold several cars to help cover production costs, reported by Melody Maker as £20,000, though Wakeman later said it was double that.

Plot

In 1863, the German professor Lidenbrook came across an old document that described a trip to the Earth’s core by an Icelandic alchemist named Arne Saknussemm. His nephew Axel decoded and translated the parchment, which pointed to an entry point inside the dormant volcano Snæfellsjökull in Iceland. The two men left Hamburg with their guide, Hans. Once inside the volcano, they went through a lava gallery and arrived at a fork in the path. Lidenbrook picked the eastern tunnel, but after three days they hit a dead end. With only a day’s worth of water left, they made it back to the fork exhausted and thirsty. After resting, they pressed on. Hans heard water running behind a rock wall and broke through it with his pickaxe, releasing a stream of boiling water that they allowed to cool. They understood this flow would lead them downward and named it the Hansbach after their guide. The group split up for a time, and Axel, alone, grew terrified. Thinking about his loved ones back home, he wept and ran aimlessly through a tunnel. He was about to give up when he heard Lidenbrook’s voice in the distance. Figuring he was only four miles away, he set out to find him. The ground gave way beneath Axel, and he woke up on a shore beside Lidenbrook and Hans, next to a sea they called the Lidenbrook Sea. They built a raft and sailed toward a harbor they named Port Grauben, after Axel’s fiancée. Five days into the voyage, they saw a fight between an ichthyosaurus and a plesiosaurus, which the ichthyosaurus won. A four-day storm then struck, forcing them to take cover under some overhanging rocks. The storm had only pushed them a few miles north of Port Grauben, so they continued on foot to follow Saknussemm’s original path. They crossed a field of bones and entered a forest where giant mastodons roamed, led by a twelve-foot Proteus. Shocked, the three fled back to the Lidenbrook Sea and entered a dark tunnel that went deep into the rock. They used dynamite to blast through, but the explosion caused an earthquake. Trapped inside the shaft of an active volcano, they were shot out onto the surface at Mount Etna in Sicily.

Production

The concerts were announced in October 1973 and scheduled for 18 January 1974 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, during a break in Yes' tour for Tales from Topographic Oceans. Rehearsals began in December 1973 at Farmyard Studios in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire, with the orchestra joining for six full rehearsals from 5 January 1974. The stress affected Wakeman's health: he had not slept for three days before the show, developed a stomach ulcer, and needed emergency dental surgery for a cracked tooth and nerve damage. Music reporter Tony Tyler attended a rehearsal and noted Wakeman looked unwell, with hair resembling yellow paint, and watched him rehearse himself and his band into a coma. Final rehearsals started at 9 a.m. on the day of the concerts. Wakeman recalled being nervous for the first time in his life, realising he alone bore the responsibility. Two shows were held at 6 and 8 p.m., each to a sold-out audience of 3,000, each lasting one hour and forty minutes. Unable to secure two seats for his parents, Wakeman bought a pair from a ticket tout for £15. A screen above the stage initially showed stock footage of mountains and caves, until 20th Century Fox granted permission to use clips from the 1959 film adaptation. Plans to film the concerts for a home video release fell through. Bassist Roger Newell recalled several politicians, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney, Yes guitarist Steve Howe, and Peter Sellers in attendance.

Release

The album faced an uphill battle from the start when A&M’s management in England disliked it and refused to put it out. Because Wakeman was signed to the label’s American branch, a cassette made its way to co-founder Jerry Moss in California. Moss approved of what he heard and instructed the London office to proceed with a release. It came out on 3 May 1974 and became the first A&M record to top the UK charts, hitting number one for the week ending 25 May. In the US, it peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 for two weeks in July, staying on the chart for 27 weeks. It also reached number two in Canada and Australia. Time magazine noted that the album had become a multimillion-dollar seller within six weeks. Wakeman earned both an Ivor Novello Award nomination and a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. The Recording Industry Association of America certified it gold in September 1974, and it was the first A&M title issued in the four-channel Quadradisc CD-4 format. A sequel, Return to the Centre of the Earth, followed in 1999 for the 25th anniversary, chronicling a new group of adventurers trying to retrace the original journey. In May 2016, a CD and DVD Super Deluxe Edition box set appeared, featuring a fresh remaster of the original album, live recordings from 1974 and 1993, and a DVD-Audio with Quad surround sound and Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab mixes.