This is the second part of the Owlbadger guide to Yes. It covers, what I’m calling their ‘early classic period’, the albums: The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge and Yessongs. This is when the band produced much of their best work. The output of these albums is consistently excellent, especially compared with the more patchy ‘late classic’ period that we will be looking at next.
- Part 1. Introduction and Early Albums
- Part 2. Early Classic Period
- Part 3. Late Classic Period
- Part 4. The Rest (to come)
Guitarist Peter Banks left the band after recording Time and a Word, he later said he was fired by Anderson and Squire. They hired guitarist Steve Howe after Jon Anderson had seen him playing with 60’s psychedelic band Tomorrow. Thus clicked into place another essential element of the Yes sound. Howe became, alongside Jon Anderson, the main songwriter and arranger, and in many ways he is the heart of the Yes sound. By any measure Howe is a virtuoso. His stylistic breadth is astonishing, he can play classical guitar as well as many name classical guitarists and could probably challenge John Renbourn on folk. What makes him interesting as a rock guitarist is more what he doesn’t do: the cliche of distorted minor pentatonic blues, which is entirely absent from his sound. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hendrix, Clapton, Page and the others, but Howe’s jazz/country/folk/classical guitar styles give Yes a wholly different colour palette from most of their contemporaries. It’s odd that he doesn’t have a higher profile as one of the great guitarists of the 1970’s, but I think that has a lot to do with his stylistic incongruity; he just doesn’t sound like most people’s idea of a rock guitar hero. Howe was also pursued by Keith Emerson for his new band. Emerson later said that he was the only guitarist he would have considered for what became ELP. Imagine an alternative universe where that happened!
Their next release, The Yes Album, begins the classic Yes period and is essential listening for any fan. For some it’s their favourite album, especially if you find the Wakeman era a little too baroque. It has a raw, hungry sound or a band full of energy, who realise that they are onto something special. It’s particularly a showcase for Steve Howe as he lifts Yes up to a whole new level. At last the rhythm superpower of Squire and Bruford meets its match. You can almost hear the first track, Yours Is No Disgrace, as the manifesto of how things are going to be; first some cod Anderson chords, with an accompanying simple line from Kaye, then the Squire/Bruford machine gets going at 0.40 before being joined at 0.54 by a wonderfully intricate and joyful guitar line from Howe that lifts the song into the sublime. The Album consists of four main songs: the previously mentioned Yours Is No Disgrace, Starship Trooper, I’ve Seen All Good People and Perpetual Change, all between 7 and 10 minutes long with multiple sections. There’s nothing to miss here, all four are excellent. There is also an incredibly impressive live acoustic piece, The Clap, by Howe and the rather forgettable A Venture, which is the only filler on the record.
Tony Kaye found himself outclassed by the rest of the band and had an especially poor relationship with Howe. He was sacked as the band began work on their next album and replaced with Rick Wakeman, classically trained ex-keyboard player with folk band the Strawbs and with a long and impressive list of session work, including the beautiful piano part for Bowie’s Starman. He’s widely recognised as one of the outstanding keyboard players of the 1970’s. Wakeman was the last piece of the classic Yes jigsaw puzzle to slot into place. The band was now world class in all instruments. Wakeman also accentuated the classical influence and added a certain class to the sometimes rough arrangements that featured on The Yes Album. Bruford later said that he would provide just the right modulation and timing to join disparate pieces together in an elegant and satisfying way. He also brought new instruments, notably the Minimoog and Mellotron, to widen the sound. Yes now became a five man orchestra, with Howe still largely providing the main themes and solo instrument, but over a far richer and more exotic harmonic base. It’s the rich, deep, inventive and intricate arrangements, all played with astonishing virtuosity that really marks out the classic Yes era.
The first album of the Wakeman era, Fragile, is undoubtedly one of their best. Once again the band tick another notch upwards with the three best songs, Roundabout, Heart of the Sunrise and Long Distance Runaround, some of the best tracks they ever recorded. Roundabout is probably the track I’d recommend as a first listen for anyone coming to Yes for the first time, a fantastic urgent rollercoaster ride through 8 minutes, with several sections including one of the best keyboard solos in Rock music (at 5.50). There’s a scene in the Jack Black movie, School of Rock, where Black’s character hands one of his students a CD of Fragile and says, “listen to the keyboard solo on Roundabout.” Legendary indeed. Producer Rick Beato has an excellent YouTube video where he decontructs Roundabout, showing the intricate and clever structure and how each member of the band works within the arrangement. A must watch for any Yes fan.
Fragile is made up of 9 tracks, four longer ‘band’ tracks and five short individual pieces by each of five members. Apart from Steve Howe’s excellent Mood For a Day, a lovely flamenco solo guitar piece, the rest are just filler and act as a major irritation when one listens to the album as a whole. One of the band tracks, South Side of the Sky, is also quite forgettable, despite having a nice middle section with some lovely interplay between Squire’s bass and Wakeman’s piano, it doesn’t really gell as a single piece of music. Long Distance Runaround is the shortest of the band tracks at just 3.30, but is one of my favorite pieces of Yes music; a really charming and clever interplay between Squire Howe and Wakeman, much like a classical quartet and with a lovely melody from Anderson. Squire’s bass line is especially impressive when he plays the counterpoint to Howe and Wakeman’s lead line. The last and longest track, Heart of the Sunrise, is classic Yes of the highest order. From the blistering main theme (obviously a nod to King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man) through to the extended Bruford/Squire bass/drum section and then onto the huge contrast of quiet but beautiful main vocal at 3.40 accompanied solely by Howe’s arpeggio guitar. It’s a showcase for how wonderfully the band brought together different combinations of instruments to provide huge dynamic and textural contrast to a single track.
Producer and engineer Eddie Offord had been working with Yes since the beginning, but he also steps up a notch with Fragile. There’s an openness and clarity to the sound that The Yes Album doesn’t have. Everything has its space and it’s easy to follow all the different instruments, essential for music as complex as this. To my ears Offord reached his peak with Fragile and Close to the Edge. The album also features the debut of album cover artist Roger Dean who established a visual style for Yes as strong as their musical identity. The rounded Yes logo that first appears on the next album Close to the Edge was designed by Dean and has been used by the band ever since. It was all part of the Yes experience to put on the record and listen to the music while gazing at the glorious gatefold sleeve and the handwritten lyric sheet. My town, Lewes in Sussex, is also the home of Roger Dean. He has a permanent exhibition at the Trading Boundaries gallery in Sheffield Park just a few miles north of here and I was lucky enough to meet him and hear some of his reminiscences of being on tour with the band in 1970’s. A lovely man.
The next album, Close to the Edge, is in my opinion their best, and one of the best rock albums of all time. It’s a hugely ambitious and intricate work. It consists of the side long title track clocking in at 18 minutes and two other tracks, And You And I, at 10 minutes and Siberian Khatru at 9. There’s not really a duff note or filler anywhere here, although I would argue that Close to the Edge is allowed to get a little too long from the middle onwards.
The title track is one of my favorite pieces of music, at least the first 8 minutes or so. I just wish that they’d found a better way of wrapping it up. The second half unfortunately doesn’t live up to the first. But those first 8 minutes are sublime. The track fades in with a crescendo of birdsong breaking into an extraordinary Howe guitar solo of breathtaking complexity. The whole band are playing “on the edge” through this with Squire’s bass as intense as the guitar and Wakeman providing a wonderful bubbling backing on organ. At intervals the band breaks while Anderson and Squire sing out a single chord. It makes the whole 3 minute section quite exhilarating. This is followed by the main theme repeated with a variety of different harmonic accompaniments before the song launches into the first verse. The main song section has a quite wonderful arrangement playing off between the various instruments, although it somewhat overpowers Anderson’s vocals at points. The lyrics are the usual Anderson impenetrable abstract wordscape, best not to try and glean any meaning from them, just enjoy the visual images. But at around 8.40, the wonderful music ends and we are transported to a soundscape of dripping water, long chords, and volume-pedalled guitars. This leads to a surreal counterpoint vocal section. It’s interesting, but one can’t help feeling that it’s the sort of thing that Pink Floyd would excel at, but that doesn’t play to Yes’s strengths at all. Eventually we are lead to a reprise of the main theme, then a rather pedestrian Wakeman organ solo, disappointing if you’ve listened to Roundabout, and eventually to a rather lovely crescendo as the song reprises. Much later on Going For The One, the same lineup, save for Bruford, create the most beautiful quiet middle section for Awaken; if only they could have pulled off something similar here. The song almost feels as if the band is exhausted after creating the pinnacle of 70’s prog during the first 8 minutes and just coasts through the rest.
The two other tracks offer a very nice contrast in feel. And You And I is classic Yes grandiosity; huge in ambition and dynamics, and diverse in texture. It’s full of Wakeman’s classical influences and has some of Anderson’s best melodies. It starts with a charming strummed acoustic guitar song with Wakeman’s flute-like Minimoog playing little solo phrases. There’s a slightly awkward segue into the main theme full of Mellotron and Minimoog and soaring Anderson vocals before another awkward segue back to the acoustic guitar, which builds towards, “I listen hard but could not see”, Anderson melody writing at its finest. The song winds up with a return to main grand theme. For me, it’s the weakest track on the album, despite having some of the most beautiful pieces of music. It just doesn’t gell as a single piece; the joins are too jaring.
Siberian Khatru, on the other hand is an intricate Howe riff driven rocker and an arrangement work of art. The song starts with the guitar main riff with counterpoint bass and mellotron followed by the verse and chorus featuring some very nice Anderson Squire harmonies. After repeating a couple of times we are treated to a Wakeman/Howe harpsichord and guitar solo and then into the lovely “Hold down the window” slow section, then back into the main theme before another “Blue tail, tail fly” quiet section featuring Bruford demonstrating that he’s the master of the snare roll. There’s a return to the main theme, which the band then jam on to the end. It’s a true Yes masterpiece, captivating from beginning to end. Bruford has said that it’s his favorite Yes track and it’s probably in most Yes fan’s top 10.
This really is an album to sit down and listen to in a single sitting; it’s always rewarding, and each listen gleans something new. The texture and depth is such that you feel as if your musical brain has massaged to perfection. For once Yes managed a new album without any change of personnel and the output is what one would expect from a group of now well integrated virtuoso musicians at their creative peak. Once again Eddie Offord acted as engineer and producer, and the mix has a very similar feel to Fragile, clear crisp, with every instrument audible. The cover is Roger Dean’s second for the band, simple with just the classic Yes logo making its first appearance on a textured green background. The inside of the gatefold LP sleeve featured a fantasy scene with a lake and a deer. The green texture beautifully compliments the music. It suggests a rich deep forest, much like the music, somewhere were you can easily get lost.
Bruford found the album especially painful to make and found his relationship with the rest of the band, particularly Squire, deteriorating. He decided to leave Yes for the more improvisational and immediate world of King Crimson. It was a great loss to the group and things were never quite the same. For music lovers though, his subsequent work during King Crimson’s glorious mid 70’s trio of albums and the second trio the 80’s more than make up for his loss from Yes. That’s another blog post though. Bruford was replaced by Alan White, another excellent drummer, but with a more traditional rock style. As Jon Anderson said, he perhaps gave Yes more drive and was certainly technically very proficient, but to my ears Bruford’s clockwork precision fitted better with Chris Squire’s intricate bass and the general feel of the band.
The early classic period was capped with an audacious live triple album, Yessongs. A tour de force of presentation and musicianship, it showed Yes at their peak as a live act playing almost all the material from the last three albums including a long excerpt from Rick Wakeman’s solo album, The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth. Alan White is quite exceptional in how well he steps up to the mark and his more rock-like driving feel make this recording of the material a real contrast to the studio albums. Some of the songs, especially those from the Yes Album, are greatly improved in these live versions. I’ve Seen All Good People being the best example. The huge gatefold sleeve unfolded with a set of magical Roger Dean landscapes and inside was a booklet featuring photos of the band. The concerts were filmed and can be found on YouTube. Highly recommended.
Part 3. Late Classic Period