HISTORY:
The seeds of Yes were planted in a chance meeting between Jon Anderson and
Chris Squire at the La Chasse Club in London, where Jon had been working. The two
discovered that they agreed in their musical ideals, especially in the idea of forming a
band that was extremely strong vocally and instrumentally. Squire's band Mabel Greer's
Toyshop was winding down and so they started to put together what was to be the first Yes
lineup: Jon Anderson (lead vocals), Chris Squire (bass guitar and vocals), Bill Bruford
(drums), Tony Kaye (keyboards) and Peter Banks (guitar and vocals). The group proceeded to
live in poverty and play some of the worst gigs known to man, hoping that it would pay off
someday...
EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER ONE: "BEGINNINGS"
STEVE, (1992):I consider myself a natural player because these
had always been something naturally driving me, ever since I was twelve. Not being a very
studious child I had to work at it even harder - there were no tuition books available
apart from chord books and there were no rock guitar teachers around who I could
communicate with. In the sixties I was known as a pretty hot session player, but I also
played in four different bands - the Syndicats, the In Crowd, Tomorrow, and Bodast. After
Bodast I was P.P. Arnold's guitarist for a tour supporting Delaney and Bonnie, who had
Clapton playing with them at the time. That gave me a great shove because I saw that it
was possible to make it and rise above the club and ballroom circuit. I realized what I
needed was a vehicle in which to express my playing, then fortunately Yes came along...
RICK, (1974): My earlist memory of the piano was probably from when I was
about four years old. I saw my dad playing and of course I wanted to play the piano like
daddy.
(1981) I started when I was five with piano lessons. I took lessons until I
was eighteen, then I went to the Royal College of Music in London for two years. I did
session work for people like David Bowie, Cat Stevens and about two thousand other
sessions (literally) between the ages eighteen and twenty-one. Then I got the chance to
join the Strawbs, for $50.00 a week. They were a folk group at the time, but I loved
playing in fron of an audience...
ALAN, (1995):I was on the stage within three months of getting
my first kit. At that time I joined a band called the Downbeats. Basically we did a lot of
Beatles, copy stuff with some original material. I think the best place to learn is on
stage. It makes demands of you and you really start creating. I was in that band two years
and they cahnged their name to the Blue Chips and we won a bunch of competitions
nationwide in England. We got a record contract, but I went to college. I was there about
two years and the principal of the college said, "You;re making more money doing this
than I am being a principal. You should be a musician." So I quit and have been a
musician ever since.
More excerpts from Chapter One of YESSTORIES are here.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER TWO:"THE
MUSIC"
TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS (RELEASED JANUARY 1974)
This has been a controversial album and will probably always be so. People either love it or hate it, but there is not much middle ground. It certainly was the cause of much friction between the band members themselves, and Rick Wakeman in particular was very unsatisfied with it. Tales was a massive undertaking for Yes at the time and a truly demanding and esoteric listening experience for their audience. This was especially true when the band went on tour and decided to play all four sides of the album in their show. Some nights were incredible, but more often the band found that the crowd was unwilling to sit through so much new music. The group adjusted their set accordingly, but after the Topographic tour was finished, Rick Wakeman decided he'd had enough and left the band.
STEVE, (1992):We had so much space on that album that we were able to
explore things which I think was tremendously good for us. Side one was the most
commercial or easy-listening side of Topographic Oceans, side two was a much lighter,
folky side of Yes, side three was electronic mayhem turning into acoustic simplicity and
side four was us trying to drive the whole thing home on a biggie. So we saw them much
smaller than they are in reality. Big arrangements, certainly, but we didn't see any
problems with it! The critics did, though - it was the most critically knocked album we
ever did. We were trying to paint a very big landscape and when I hear the beginning of
side three I can't believe we were going so far out.
EDDIE OFFORD (1975): That album was a really horrific album. Yes albums were starting to take longer and longer as time went by and as there was more money to play with. And since it was a double album it took twice as long to make, maybe even more. At that point it was obvious that Rick beame really much more outside the rest of the band. It wasn't so much musical direction....If you want the honest truth it was the fact that the whole band was into smoking dope and hash and Rick was into drinking beer. He never touched pot. I don't know what it was, but he was on the outside. That album almost killed me...there was a lot of fighting, even between Jon and Chris...
READ YESSTORIES FOR MORE "TALES...."
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