Rick Wakeman is the new boy in Yes - a perfect fit for a band that is ready to completely reset their table. An accomplished keyboard player who did the Mellotron parts on David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” he has just been airlifted out of The Strawbs in the summer of 1971 to replace organ player Tony Kaye.

“I was asked by a magazine called the Melody Maker which bands I really liked back then and I said bands like Yes I really wanted to watch because they had gone off in an orchestral direction. (And) if the orchestral sounds were going to come from somewhere it would have to come from the keyboard department and Tony wasn’t that keen on going down that route so that’s really where I came in.”

Wakeman had played Moog modulars, but his first Minimoog came from teen acting sensation Jack Wild, who wasn’t interested in it once he found out it could only play one note at a time. With the Model D now in his rig, Wakeman was able to shift the sonic balance of the band, particularly when it came to solos.

“Before I joined (the solos) were always very much done by Steve (Howe). Up until then guitarists had always been much louder than anything a keyboard player could do…suddenly then came this sound that would cut through concrete and it frightened guitarists to death, and I loved it.”

Coming into the sessions for the “Close To The Edge” album, which many feel is a high watermark of their career, Wakeman’s synth parts were often handed featured roles. In “And You and I” for instance, the Minimoog leads the listener from the opening guitar passages into Jon Anderson’s vocals before appearing again prominently in the final third of the song.

“It’s not particularly flashy part or anything like that but it’s exactly right and I think that’s the great thing about the Minimoog. If you get the sound exactly right for a particular piece then that just makes it something really quite special.”