IN 1971, Rick Wakeman got a call from David Bowie, who wanted to play him some new songs on a battered 12- string guitar and told him to come to his Kent “Palace”.

“One after one, he played these magnificent songs,” Rick recalled, instructed to “make notes”.

Review done and dusted, Bowie turned to the keyboards king and said: “Now I want you to play them. I want them to all be piano solos”.

Life On Mars and Changes were among the “magnificent” tracks that, together, Wakeman and Bowie arranged.

The new album? Hunky Dory.

So, spine-tingling, over 40 years later, for a Taunton auditorium to hear Rick Wakeman play Life On Mars once again; one of many such moments that left the Quartz Festival audience stunned on its final night.

A genius whose talent can’t be overstated, the ‘Very Intimate Evening’ with the Caped Crusader was just that.

Sheetless piano solos played on a grand, and jaw-dropping anecdotes, moving and hysterical.

Where did the man who was keyboardist for prog-rockers Yes, fathered the concept album, arranged Cat Stevens’ smash-hit Morning Has Broken, sold millions of copies of over 100 different records, and wrote a rock opera, start?

Where it all began: his first ever piano recital, See A Monkey on a Stick.

There was also Catherine Howard from his Six Wives of Henry VIII instrumental album – a gleefully received tale of Brian Blessed’s Hampton Court antics.

There was a “serious one”, Gone But Not Forgotten, which he’d played for a straight four hours after his mum died.

Even better, he performed in bright white trainers. No airs, no graces. Just a lifelong love affair, one man and his keys.

What a way to leave Quartz until 2014. What a gift.