Lambe / Watkinson Yes In The 1980s

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78952-459-8
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Reihe: Decades

When Yes ran into problems recording their tenth album in Paris at the end of 1979, it was almost the end. Yet in the 80s, the band rallied, firstly as part of an unlikely collaboration with new wave duo The Buggles, then with the most successful album of their career, which spawned a number one hit in the USA with 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart'. The band failed to capitalise on this success, however, lingering too long over its successor and by the end of the decade, Yes had effectively split into two versions of the same group.
   With most authors concentrating on the group's 1970s career, looks in detail at this relatively underexamined era of the band's history, featuring rarely-seen photos courtesy of author David Watkinson. The book follows the careers of all nine significant members of the group during a turbulent decade which saw massive highs but also many lows. Not only does it consider the three albums the band itself made across the decade, but also its member's the solo careers and the other groups - including Asia, XYZ, The Buggles, Jon and Vangelis and GTR - formed by those musicians as the decade wound towards a reunion of sorts in the early 1990s.

Stephen Lambe is an author, publisher and festival promoter. His ten books include the best-selling (Amberley, 2011) and (Sonicbond, 2018). He lives in Tewkesbury, UK.

David Watkinson is an author and collector, with a specific interest in Yes. His books include (Plexus, 2001) and (Sonicbond, 2018). He lives in Sussex, UK.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lambe, Stephen

Watkinson, David

Leseproben

Introduction

A vast amount has been written about the Yes of the 1970s, particularly the period 1971 to 1978 when what many people,including your author, believe the band were at their adventurous peak. But what happened next, and for the next ten years, is the subject of this book. It’s a fascinating period, both musically but also politically. A band that – despite a few lineup changes along the way – remained relatively stable in the 1970s suffered several severe shocks in the challenging decade that followed.

While Yes – the band - released just three albums during those years, there was some astonishing music from its members as part of other projects, not to mention a fair few that fall into the ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’ category, as they attempted to find paths for themselves in a decade in which they often felt forgotten.

With the band on the rocks at the start of 1980, nobody could have predicted what would take place over the next decade. Taking as its basis the fortunes of the five members of the band as it was – officially at least – on January 1 1980, we’ll track the albums that Yes made during the decade, as well as the genesis of a fourth full band ‘almost-Yes’ album at the end of those years. We’ll also follow the other fortunes of those five musicians across the ten years, particularly as they were all to reconvene in 1990 as an eight-piece supergroup, and we will welcome four other musicians in and out of the fold during that time: Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes, Trevor Rabin and a returning Tony Kaye. Other musicians that played a part in that era – like Eddie Jobson, Billy Sherwood, Tony Levin, Casey Young and another returning bandmate in Bill Bruford – will also get a well-deserved look in.

For some of these nine musicians – particularly Jon Anderson and Steve Howe – the decade was as busy outside Yes as it was for them within the band. Anderson enjoyed a stop-start solo career and a couple of big chart hits with Greek keyboard player Vangelis, while Steve Howe had success with both Asia and GTR. For Rick Wakeman, the 1980s were more difficult, but he emerged from it a stronger man and a more successful musician. Horn and Downes – although fleeting members of the band itself – remained associated with it one way or another for the better part of the decade. However, other members – particularly Chris Squire, Alan White, Trevor Rabin and Tony Kaye – have careers within this ten-year period built rather more specifically around the fortunes of the band itself.

Most significantly, of the five musicians that began 1980 as members of the band, four were able to repurpose their playing for a more straightforward, but massively more lucrative age. Only Wakeman really struggled. After all, he was a virtuoso musician in an era that fundamentally distrusted such virtuosity. Where was he without that Wakeman ‘style’? Howe and Squire were able to play in a more simple fashion and still make it work, but simplicity just didn’t suit the beleaguered ivory tinkler.

A fair amount has been written about the decade by the members themselves. Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe have covered the period in their autobiographies, as has Bill Bruford, while Yes chroniclers Chris Welch, David Watkinson and Alan Farley have also discussed the decade in a bit of detail. The two Trevors – Rabin and Horn – have also spoken extensively about their involvement in the band during this time. Alan White discusses the period from time to time, although his testimony is variable and usually highly diplomatic. Jon Anderson has an autobiography in the works, although if the first chapter that appeared in 2019 is anything to go by, it may gloss over gory detail. Sadly, the death of Chris Squire in 2015 means that we only have his public utterances, which were usually couched in a certain amount of diplomacy, to go on.

Piecing together the ‘facts’ of this period is not as easy as it might seem. While I have no doubt that there’s any intention to stretch the truth from any particular protagonist, viewpoints do differ, even on some points of fact. As can occur in life generally, we tend to see situations from our own perspectives, filtered through our own biases, which can lead to slight exaggerations or an emphasis on viewpoints that favour our own agendas. This is as true of members of the band as it is with the testimony of some of the key support players during the decade, like Atlantic executive Phil Carson and the band’s manager Brian Lane. Differing perspectives are rife throughout the Yes story, particularly in the complex and political 1980s. However, with some creative reading between the lines, some sort of approximation is possible.

The purpose of this book, therefore, is to tie all the various threads together to provide a musical biography of the band and its members across the decade. It is quite a complex tale with many solo releases to mention (and a fair few to pass over fleetingly), but we will take as the core of the book the twists and the turns, the triumphs and the tragedies, that befell the band itself during this turbulent decade. In parallel, we’ll track the musical journeys of all those individual musicians that played a part in this often almost unbelievable story.

Although the five musicians that comprised the band at the start of 1980 will provide the backbone of the book, three other figures, in particular, influenced the fortunes of the band throughout the decade. We must not forget the influence of the two Trevors, of course – Messrs. Horn and Rabin. Horn features prominently in the stories of all three ‘official’ Yes albums during the 1980s, firstly as vocalist (and de facto producer) of Drama, then as the producer of 90125 and finally the first producer of Big Generator. Rabin – that great, benign control freak – is, without doubt, the most important figure in the creation of those latter two albums.

However, another name crops up from time to time during the course of this story. This figure is a shadowy one, but his influence cannot be underestimated. Brian Lane was Yes’ Manager during the Drama era and remained involved in the fortunes of Squire, White and Howe as they tried to find their ways in new bands after the 1981 split. He was intimately involved (you might even say ‘to blame’) in the formations of Asia, GTR and ABWH. It’s also notable that he was NOT involved in Cinema and the construction of the 1983 version of Yes. Lane’s role in this (for want of a better word) ‘drama’ is somewhat veiled but cannot be underestimated. A former record plugger before moving into band management, he did the deals and exercised his powers of persuasion on the creatives, for better or for worse. Lane does not appear as a talking head in either of the Yes video documentaries, but he has been interviewed about this period, so we’ll tap into his voice from time to time.

Finally, while Lane plays an important part in our story, another – somewhat less shadowy – ‘suit’ also has a major part to play. Phil Carson at Atlantic records had been involved in the fortunes of the band throughout the 1970s, and, as we shall see, it was he that introduced Chris Squire to Trevor Rabin; it was he that suggested Tony Kaye join the new band, and it was he that manoeuvred Jon Anderson back into the band in 1983. It’s clear that from a very early stage – probably as soon as Cinema formed – Carson envisaged a new version of Yes. Whatever his motives – commercial and sentimental, one suspects – he’s an important figure.

The Lead Singer Problem

If this book has a theme, it is the importance to any ambitious and successful band to have the best lead singer possible – both in the eyes of the group itself and the ‘suits’ that might be putting up the money that allows the band to exist. Throughout the 1970s, Yes did not have a problem in this regard. Whether you love or hate his voice (and if you’re reading this book, there’s a strong chance that you love it), there is no doubt that Jon Anderson is a great lead vocalist. When he left the band at the start of 1980, the band were – in a sense at least – lucky, in that a decent – if inexperienced - singer fell into their laps, in Trevor Horn. The problem arose when he was required to demonstrate his talents in front of thousands of people.

When the band splintered further at the start of 1981, this problem remained. Steve Howe’s new project Asia chose John Wetton – a fine but unconventional lead singer – against the initial wishes of the band’s label Geffen and their management team, headed by Brian Lane. The band stood fast, and made the arrangement work. For a while, at least.

Meanwhile, Chris Squire and Alan White had formed Cinema with whizz kid Trevor Rabin. Slightly uncomfortably, this new band had two potential lead vocalists in Squire and Rabin. Although Squire has taken the odd short lead vocal throughout his career – he was the original vocalist when the band played the ‘Dissolution’ section of ‘Starship Trooper’ as part of another song ‘For Everyone’ as early as 1969 – he had usually done so reluctantly, with good reason. He’s an excellent harmony vocalist, but there’s a timbre to his voice that doesn’t please everyone. So too Rabin, whose voice is pleasing but boyish, with a tendency to strain on higher notes. Record companies, understandably, felt uneasy about either musician fronting a band with this level...