Lambe YES 1968-1991

Every Album, Every Song
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-78952-585-4
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 128 Seiten

Yes are the archetypal 1970s progressive rock group. Playing powerful and adventurous music when it was briefly part of the mainstream, the band thrilled millions with their iconic albums and epic live shows. Records like Fragile and Close To The Edge helped define an era, and although the band dissolved at the end of the decade, Yes emerged once again with 90125, a streamlined, modern sound in the 1980s and a US number one hit single in 'Owner of a Lonely Heart'. Now in their sixth decade, the band continues to release albums and play live into the new millennium, despite numerous, sometimes controversial, lineup changes.
Revised and expanded from the author's single-volume edition first published in 2018, this first of two books looks at each of Yes's studio albums between their debut in 1968 and the controversial Union album and tour, highlighting the many high points and the rarer missteps, and focusing on the changes in band dynamics that led to varied - but always interesting - music. In addition to a complete re-evaluation of those seminal early albums, it includes a more detailed review of the live performances recorded during this period, making this the most comprehensive examination of the music created during those 23 years yet written.

Stephen Lambe is an author, publisher and journalist. In addition to having written three books about Yes, he writes regularly for Prog magazine and has interviewed many current and ex-members of the band, including Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes, Billy Sherwood, Rick Wakeman, Oliver Wakeman, Tony Kaye and Trevor Rabin. His first live concert - of many hundreds - was Yes at Wembley Arena in 1978. He lives in Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, UK.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lambe, Stephen

Leseproben

Chapter 1

Cast Of Characters (Up To 1991)

I cannot think of another major rock band that has had so many lineup changes. Even though King Crimson have reinvented themselves many times over the years, their lineups always revolve around one man, Robert Fripp. In the case of Yes, these changes have generally been more gradual, built around a group of musicians rather than just one. Until his death in June 2015, only Chris Squire had been in every incarnation of the ‘official’ band. Overall, 12 musicians were ‘official’ members of Yes during the timescale discussed in this book, so what follows are brief thumbnail sketches of them all.

Only ‘full’ members of the band have been included. Even this is moot, since in later years some members were probably on contracts rather than considered ‘permanent’. My definition, therefore, is any musician who played live and was also involved in creating new music in the studio. Tony Levin has a good claim to full membership due to his participation in Union, but has not been included. I have also left out Eddie Jobson, who joined briefly in 1983 when Kaye left for a few months but decided not to stay. I have considered the band dissolved between 1980 and 1983, and despite my inclusion of the album in this book, participation in ABWH is not considered to be membership of Yes.

Jon Anderson (born 1944)

Vocals, harp, guitar, percussion. 1968-1980, 1983-1988, 1991-2008, 2017-2018 (ARW)

Born in Accrington, Lancashire, Anderson is felt by many fans to be the ‘soul’ of Yes, not only for his lyrics but also for his overall orchestration of the fortunes and music of the band, particularly in the early days. His relatively meagre skills as a musician set him apart from the virtuosity of the rest of the group, but his musical vision – as well as his unusual worldview – makes him one of the most singular musicians of his generation. And then, of course, there is ‘that’ voice – his unusual alto. He has rarely had problems with his voice, and singing the right note (i.e., pitching) has not been an issue since decent onstage monitoring became a ‘thing’ in the early 1970s. If you consider all those live recordings, he doesn’t always sound like his voice is in great shape – perhaps too many dates into a long tour – but does he sing the wrong note? Hardly ever.

Outside of Yes, Anderson has had a varied solo career, and not always a successful one. He supposedly has as many unfinished projects as he has finished. He enjoyed a short but interesting career as a vocalist for hire in the 1980s, and his most prolific time as a solo artist was the early to mid-1990s. However, it was his career with Greek keyboard player Vangelis – himself one of the great sonic stylists of the 1970s and 1980s – that gave him the greatest success outside Yes. The duo released four studio albums and had two massive hit singles in the UK with ‘I Hear You Now’ and ‘I’ll Find My Way Home’.

As for Yes, Anderson is a quirky character and supposedly not always easy to work with, and his relationships with Squire and Howe, in particular, were caught up not just in (allegedly) financial squabbles but also in personality issues that blighted the band from the late 1970s onwards. Yet, perhaps equal with Chris Squire, Anderson remains the most beloved of the Yes family, and it’s not hard to understand why.

Chris Squire (born 1948, died 2015)

Bass, vocals, piano. 1968 -1980, 1983-2015

Alongside Anderson, Squire is widely regarded as the keeper of the Yes flame, and his death in June 2015 was met with understandable grief by many thousands worldwide. His nickname ‘Fish’ (not to be confused with the erstwhile Marillion vocalist) came, amongst other things, from his habit of taking enormously long baths. He was also constantly, and famously, late for everything. A chorister in his youth in London, Squire was tall, elegant and good-looking, with big hands that earmarked him for life as a bassist. However, he came at his chosen instrument from a supremely melodic angle, almost as a lead instrument. For me, his playing is a hybrid of the traditional bassist role – providing the ‘bottom’ – and a lead instrumentalist, offering the band unusual options when seeking that extra texture in an arrangement.

He usually played with a pick, and his main instrument in the early years, the Rickenbacker bass, with its famously accentuated ‘high end’, meant that he cut through the mix better than most bassists. In a nutshell, he is one of the most ‘heard’ bassists in history, with a technique that is completely different from that of the jazz-oriented players so popular in the 1970s.

His strong backing vocals, which complemented Anderson’s so well, were also a crucial part of the band’s character, particularly in a live setting.

Unlike Anderson, most of Squire’s work was within Yes. He released a superb solo album, Fish Out Of Water, in 1975, and his collaboration with Billy Sherwood, Conspiracy, produced a couple of decent rock albums, too. But Squire will always be associated with Yes above anything – and almost anybody – else.

Peter Banks (born 1947, died 2013)

Guitar, vocals. 1968-1970

Banks was the first musician to leave Yes – ousted by Anderson and Squire – and it is clear that the anger and disappointment this produced never left him throughout what was a stop-start musical career. A talented and versatile player in his own right, he went on to form the groups Flash and Empire. Both bands showed promise but never fulfilled their potential, and his solo album Two Sides Of Peter Banks, which included a guest appearance by Jan Akkerman of Focus, also failed to live up to expectations. The debut album by Flash – released in 1972 – is a rather spooky ‘alternative Yes’. It features a more primitive progressive rock, looser and a little bluesier, considering that by then Yes were recording the groundbreaking Close To The Edge.

Banks had a career revival in the 1990s and 2000s as a solo artist and also in the improvisatory trio Harmony In Diversity, but these projects never rose above cult status. He was involved in early discussions to take part in revivals of both The Syn (with whom he had played with Squire prior to Yes) and Flash, but was ultimately excluded from both projects. His 2001 memoir, Beyond And Before, is an excellent read. Many of his recordings have been reassessed in recent years, and several have reappeared via the excellent Esoteric label. They are worth checking out.

Bill Bruford (born 1949)

Drums, percussion. 1968-1972, 1991-1992

It’s hard not to admire this most enigmatic of percussionists. Born in Kent to a relatively well-off, middle-class family, Bruford has had a hugely varied and creative career, contrasting extreme pragmatism in his financial and organisational affairs with a desire to pursue art rather than untold riches. He developed his studied and very musical style of drumming while in Yes, then mystified the band by leaving just as the group were about to ‘make it big’ to join King Crimson. He also pioneered the use of electronic drums in the 1980s via a long-standing relationship with manufacturer Simmons, a texture he brought to Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe and his brief tenure back in Yes thereafter. However, for me, it is his solo band – Bruford – that was his most successful, musically, mixing jazz with rock in a very British-sounding fusion.

Later years were spent teaching and mainly playing the music that is his first love – jazz – via his band Earthworks, but there were many other, relatively low-key projects until his retirement in 2009. He has since refused to return to exhibit his perceived decline in musical powers in front of thousands of people each night for large sums of money. Unlike other members of Yes, Bruford has always had an unusually balanced view of his life, and a return to playing seemed very unlikely; when he did finally return, in the 2020s, it was to perform in a low-key jazz group, The Pete Roth Trio.

Tony Kaye (born 1946)

Keyboards. 1968-1970, 1983-1995

Handsome, enigmatic and private, Tony Kaye is probably the most underrated musician in the Yes family. The first two Yes albums show him to be a dexterous and inventive player, particularly on his favoured instrument, the organ. However, he seemed musically intimidated by the arrival of Steve Howe in 1970 and lost his place, as much for his unwillingness to embrace the new orchestral direction of that band as for any perceived lack of technique. Yet he has spent more time in Yes than Rick Wakeman, even if, during the 90125/Big Generator era, he was little more than a live keyboardist, with Trevor Rabin playing many of the keyboards on those albums.

When outside Yes, he formed the band Badger, played live with David Bowie and did many sessions, going ‘off radar’ for years at a time. He also formed a strong friendship with Billy Sherwood, playing with him in the band Circa and touring as a duo. When the band received their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame award in 2017, he was the only living member of the band not to attend. He was involved in the 50th-anniversary celebrations and released his first...