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BEYOND AND BEFORE

OVERTURE

“I don’t believe it – he’s eating a curry!” Jon Anderson’s jaw drops. Clad in brilliant white robes, bathed in laser beams and facing a vast audience, the singer pauses in mid song to glare across the stage. Yes are in the throes of a thunderous performance, their music cascading around them from dozens of speaker cabinets, a great swirl of amplified guitars, keyboards and drums. But instead of concentrating on the depths and intricacies of their masterwork Tales From Topographic Oceans, Rick Wakeman, their berobed keyboard wizard, is cheerfully chomping on a chicken Byriani.

While Jon is singing his Lancashire heart out to admiring crowds, his star sideman is once again staging a private rebellion. Handily placed on top of the banks of keyboards before him, where you might normally expect to find a pile of sheet music or at least the racing results, is Rick’s supper. And he’s tucking in. Is this a simple prank, or a calculated act of defiance?

Of course, it could be dismissed as a carnivore’s protest at the vegetarian food served back stage. Jon and his guitarist Steve Howe are both high profile veggies while Rick is a steak, chips and six pints of beer man – or was before his first heart attack. Only later does it emerge that Wakeman was undergoing the kind of pressure that many members of this extraordinary band have endured over the years. The pressure caused by the constant struggle for perfection. The pressure caused by his leader’s constant cry of “Get it right!”

No band in the history of rock has dedicated itself to creating original music with quite the same intensity as Yes. In the process they have produced some of the most richly satisfying, exciting and challenging work of their era. The cost has been the shredding of nerves and battering of personalities. Yet amid the rows and upsets, the strife and torment, that have beset their thirty extraordinary years together, there have been wondrous songs, spectacular stage shows and chart topping records, all of which has endeared them to a vast following of loyal fans throughout the world.

And in this band that is so often and somewhat mistakenly regarded as the epitome of earnest intent, there has also been a good deal of comradeship and laughter. Indeed, it was frequent outbreaks of mirth that kept them sane as they hit the road to fame. Whether it was crazed exploits in Ireland, an aborted gig next to a pork abattoir, setting up cardboard cows in their recording studio or erecting Red Indian tepees in the dressing rooms, there was always more cause for hysterical fun than gloomy despair.

There is also a dark fascination concerning the moments of crisis that have faced Yes, the details of which have until now invariably been concealed from public scrutiny. Such matters are investigated herein, and revelations of turmoil exposed for the first time might place the individuals in the group in a new and not always flattering light. But for most of their career they have enjoyed tremendous success and experienced the good times and euphoric happiness that only a transcendingly brilliant stage performance, a stunning hit single or a blockbuster album can bring.

It can never be said that Yes have been a party to the violence, drug busts, arrests and the general lawlessness that are de rigeur in most rock band sagas. Theirs is truly no disgrace. Well, there was the time when the drummer hit the bass player – but then you would expect a little tension in a band that has been going strong since 1968 and was still busy winning new audiences in 1998.

The story of Yes sometimes appears as complex as much of their music. Behind it all lies a simple truth, as Jon Anderson is wont to explain, “Yes – life is worth living. Yes – life is exciting and wondrous. Don’t let go of your dreams and your ideology. That is what Yes is really all about.”

FIRST MOVEMENT

Yes were born and nurtured in the fertile soil of the British rock scene of the psychedelic Sixties. It was a time when idealism and increased playing skills combined to produce some of the most exciting and intensely creative music devised beyond the realms of jazz and the classics.

Dubbed leaders of ‘progressive rock’, Yes were at the forefront of this new musical movement. Although hailed as pioneers of the genre, they didn’t really sound or play like any other band. An intense drive for perfection amongst its members actually turned an ordinary, albeit prodigiously talented, pop covers group into something quite extraordinary. Their fairly rapid progress from the tiny clubs and bars of London’s West End to huge stadium rock venues around the world would see a whole procession of eager, ambitious and gifted musicians drawn into the Yes environment. Each would make a vital contribution and themselves become part of Yes lore.

Many would find their stay a mixed blessing. Some who came and went were shattered by the experience and have yet to fully recover. Yet all regard their stay in the band as the most important years of their musical lives. Yes would also mean a lifetime’s work and experience to various non-musicians who became part of the team. Former and current managers, technicians, graphic artists and road crew all regard Yes with a mixture of affection, respect, awe and occasionally anger. The anger stems from what they see as misjudgements and missed opportunities. But then they wouldn’t be angry unless they really cared. And people associated with Yes do care. Their affection and loyalty towards the band was invariably rewarded when the group somehow managed to pluck victory from the jaws of disaster, and come back in triumph when their house of cards seemed certain to collapse.

To Jon Anderson and Chris Squire, who created the band, Yes is not just a group. It is an entity, a kind of living being. For them above all the others, the battle to keep its heart pulsing would become a crusade. Even when Jon was physically absent from the band on at least two occasions, his presence was the glue that held it all together. When Jon first quit the band in 1980 his manager Brian Lane told the remaining members of Yes, “You should get down on your knees and kiss Jon Anderson’s feet and beg him to come back.”

Yes is a band that has constantly rebuilt itself from within. Such a process inevitably fuels arguments which lead to resentments, some lasting for years. Yet the end result has nearly always been music of such quality it has inspired tremendous love and loyalty from its fans and continuing respect from fellow musicians. There was a time when every aspiring young musician with the ability to contribute wanted nothing more than to be a part of Yes – but once on board the roundabout the centrifugal force could fling off all but the most tenacious.

Says Jon Anderson, “One of the reasons the band has survived this crazy music business more or less intact is because there has been this guiding force. When you start making music that is neither sex, drugs and rock’n’roll nor politically correct but is more spiritual, then it becomes like a crusade. The aim has been to create very good music and at the same time create a good message that the word ‘yes’ implies. We have had to do battle all the way through even though it’s been a good fight. It still is a good fight. There have been times when people have said, ‘Why don’t you sell more records, why don’t you make a pop hit?’ And I’ve actually tried to and it never worked. So I’ve just continued on the path that has been set out for me and at least I’ve been true to that ideal. At many times during the course of our career there have been very sobering moments … especially when we got to the Cork pork abattoir!”

Yes at their peak epitomised the sound and fury of the Great Age of Rock Excess. Yet they started out as a penniless covers band, scuffling for gigs and living in squalor. It was the vision of Anderson and Squire that led them to create what they saw as the ultimate supergroup. Says the more pragmatic Chris Squire, “If ever there was a blueprint for the band it was to be able to have good instrumentals and vocal harmonies as well.” It was a simple enough policy that would lead to magical performances of semi-mystical songs and extended works. ‘Heart Of The Sunrise’, ‘I’ve Seen All Good People’, ‘Yours Is No Disgrace’, ‘Siberian Khatru’ … these are themes that once performed stay in people’s consciousness, to emerge like bursts of sunshine evaporating the fog of mediocrity.

During their glory years they sold albums by the ton. Fragile, Close To The Edge and Tales From Topographic Oceans caused a sensation during the Seventies. The band packed out concert halls and stadiums on tours that broke all attendance records. And then, during their unexpected renaissance in the mid-Eighties, new recruit Trevor Rabin ensured Yes had even greater success with the smash hit single ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’ and their dance influenced 90125 album.

Yes was always more than just another ‘stadium rock’ battle wagon. They constantly changed and absorbed new influences while retaining their basic beliefs. Particularly important to their fans was the way Yes exuded a seductive, mystical image in which brute strength was countered by frailty, melody by discord, innocence by aggression. This ebbing and flowing of musical moods was notably complemented by the wondrous fantasy world created by artist Roger Dean, whose work graced many of their most important album covers. The famed swirling, almost Daliesque, Yes logo and graphics he devised became an instantly recognisable symbol for their band and their music, so much so that whenever Dean worked for other artists their albums invariably looked like Yes albums.

Jon Anderson’s enigmatic lyrics also set the band apart. Eschewing more common rock themes like romantic love or the angst of adolescent confusion, he wrote virtual sound poems, awash with words rich in imagery that defied logical interpretation and contained the sort of fabulous motifs that the receptive could appreciate and the rest could absorb as simply a part of the band’s overall sound. Yes – but what does it mean? The answer was – whatever you wanted it to mean.

According to the founding fathers, the stated aim of Yes was to be a ‘selfless’ band in which the music was put above the aspirations of the individuals. This noble but demanding ideal resulted in the many dramatic changes of direction and personnel that have enlivened their career. It was amazing. Here foregathered were the most charming and civilised of English gentlemen, yet there was hardly another bunch like them for upsets and disturbances. To the best of my knowledge, every single member, including the lead singer, has stomped off, quit or been fired at least once and in some cases twice or even three times!

There have been no less than 14 full time Yes men since the group first assembled in 1968, and a scattering of shadowy figures in the background that have undergone periodic reshuffles. Although there have only been two significant Yes drummers powering the engine room, there have been at least three lead guitarists, a brace of singers and innumerable keyboard players. By 1998, the year that marked their 30th anniversary, only bass player, singer, composer and founder member Chris Squire had remained continuously on board the roundabout.

Squire, the tall, friendly giant is usually regarded as the quietest, most equable Yes person. Jon Anderson is perceived as the leader, the spokesman and the keeper of the flame. However even Jon, gentle poet, mystic and lover of mushy peas, has twice quit the band in high dudgeon. When it comes to rows it seems none are more prone to bust-ups than the old firm of Anderson and Squire. During one extraordinary period of infighting, Jon even fronted an alternative, rebel outfit which assembled in Europe under the name of ABWH – Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe.

Although they sounded like a firm of lawyers, in fact they held out a promise of rekindling the flames of creativity, until rock biz politics intervened. Meanwhile Chris Squire retained the Yes name and led another version of the band in California with ‘new’ guitarist Trevor Rabin. And so for a while there was a Yes in the West and a Yes in Europe. Rabin had actually been the power base of a revitalised Yes for some nine years at this point, though his very presence in Yes was enough to cause apoplexy in Steve Howe, a man whose sole raison d’être would seem to be the furthering of his extraordinary dexterity on fretted instruments. Still, when you probe deeply enough, you find even mild mannered Steve has trodden on a few toes in his time. Yet, somehow, against all odds, the two factions came together again to smoke a pipe of peace and a Yes that once more featured both Anderson and Squire finally came together for their Union tour in the early Nineties.

When the smoke had cleared, Chris Squire emerged as the real power behind the throne. Unless, of course, you talked to Jon Anderson first. So it seems odd, given the air of love and peace always mooted to be at the heart of Yes music and expressed in the lyrics so endlessly debated by eager fans, that there should be a prevailing atmosphere of feuding and dissent. The ascerbic Bill Bruford, bruised by his experiences in ABWH, has his own explanation.

“There are seething undercurrents in Yes,” says Bruford. “Only very few people surely can have failed to see behind the love and peace? If you took the group only at that level, then you’d have to wonder where all that aggressive playing came from for a start. There has been some severely aggressive playing in Yes. It is an interesting irony that there is all this love and peace and hippiedom, whereas in fact Yes is a very tight, highly structured, nerve-wracking organisation always short of money and always spending too much and always in trouble, which is eventually reflected in the music. If they had better inter-personal skills and better management things might have been different. Yes has always been dogged by this short term vision and crippled by extremely bad management in the past. That has had its effects on the music which is why in 1998 they are still playing Close To The Edge from 1972.”

SECOND MOVEMENT

On April 22, 1998, Jon Anderson sits in a communal rest area back stage at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls during the band’s Open Your Eyes tour of England. He is tired and suffering from a cold. He and the revitalised band, complete with new Russian keyboard player Igor Khoroshev and additional guitarist Billy Sherwood, have been on the road for weeks. It is good to see him for the first time in ages. As Jon enters the room, which is filled with rather glum roadies mulling over egg and chips, the darkness fades and the place lights up with his smile. I suddenly remember Jon and his first wife Jenny struggling to get past a pram in the hall of their tiny flat in London’s Cromwell Road. That was in the summer of 1970 and we were off to find a restaurant. There we sat for one of many far reaching conversations laced with wine and laughter. Jon was smoking Benson & Hedges and mulling over the prospects for the band. The tape recorder was whirling while he talked excitedly about some new piece of music he’d discovered or written. I remember him once asking me, “Chris … what does Topographic mean?”

It’s amazing how much can flash through your mind in the time it takes to shake hands and sit down. “Make it funny,” was Jon’s only injunction when I told him about my plans to write a book about the band.

“There was a time when I was thinking of giving music up completely and going to live in China,” he blurts out. I am shocked. Such has been the stress and strain of trying to keep the Yes dream alive for all these years. It seems that Jon, the incurable optimist, the romantic dreamer, has been close to the edge of despair. But he met a new lady friend who urged him, “You are a musician. This is what you do. You’ve got to carry on.”

It was all the encouragement Jon needed. He forgot about carving a new life in the Far East and returned to singing. Old mates and some new faces helped him recreate the magical, timeless sound of Yes. Jon gets up from the table. He’s got to forget the past for a moment and try to forget his cold. His audience awaits. “Why don’t you come on the road with us?” he asks as he heads for the stage. Where were they going? “South America!” Alas Croydon would be the extent of my 1998 tour with Yes.

But what had caused Jon to even consider giving up? The answers came in dribs and drabs, as I spoke to band members both past and present over the coming months. It proved to be far more than just a story of a big rock band buffeted by the winds of change.

Of course they’d had their share of knocks. Once punk rock overturned prog rock they had to abandon the big, epic productions of the Seventies that had once seemed so … progressive. The mid Eighties saw Yes streamlined, modernised and relevant to a new world order. During their Indian summer, Yes were hip again. Come the Nineties there was a general unwillingness by the media to even acknowledge their existence. Jon tells how his management phoned a major music company on Yes business and were greeted with the reply, “Yes? Who are Yes?”

A band that has been making records, touring and shaping the course of rock music for thirty years expects a few snubs and humiliations along the way but they don’t deserve to be ignored and forgotten, not when the music they have made is so special and worth all the pain that has so often accompanied its creation.

So we are not talking about any old English rock band from the Sixties here. This is Yes – creator of ‘And You And I’, ‘Heart Of The Sunrise’ and ‘Long Distance Runaround’ – soaring, dynamic and very special music. Sometimes they overreached themselves. Sometimes studio perfection came at the price of spontaneity. But there isn’t one track on any of their albums or singles that does not have something to say and that does not bear the Yes stamp of originality.

THIRD MOVEMENT

Yes mesmerised me when I first saw them play, on the night of November 26, 1968. They were booked to support Cream at their farewell concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall and they blew the audience away with an astonishingly mature and confident performance. I became a fan and was determined to trumpet their cause to all who would listen – or read.

I wasn’t the only Yes fan in the media. There were plenty of other rock critics who recognised the potential of a group who sang in near perfect harmony (when they finally got some monitor speakers) and played with all the dynamic power and subtlety of a big band. Tony Wilson, my colleague on Melody Maker, was also an enthusiastic and perspicacious Yes man. He was invited to write the sleeve notes for the band’s début album. It’s worth quoting his comments to emphasise the impact Yes made on the scene.

‘At the beginning of 1969 I was asked to pick two groups who I thought would make it in the following year. One of my choices was Led Zeppelin. A bit obvious perhaps, but then we all like to back a winner occasionally. The other was YES. I’d just heard them in a London discotheque where all too often the groups tend to be over amplified and under talented. Yes were not. They had much more than the usual wallpaper music sound. There was life, virility and musicianship in their approach. They had a superior vocal sound – assured, clear and harmonic. They knew what they were doing and did it with style. It showed in their own songs and imaginative arrangements. It all shows on this, their first album. So Yes became my other choice. My second runner in the Great Group Most Likely To Make It Stakes. And my money is on them! Naturally I’ve watched them with special interest – the Marquee, the Speakeasy, in concert with Janis Joplin and Cream. Totally convinced after these events, my choice is confirmed.’ Tony Wilson.

Tony was quick to pinpoint the special qualities of the band that everyone was talking about. One of the first non-American acts to be signed to Atlantic Records, they were clearly destined to be huge. At least that’s the way it seemed to everybody except the band themselves, who knew the reality of living on handouts, helpful girlfriends and a few grubby pound notes doled out by grudging promoters.

What seemed so fresh about Yes to Tony Wilson was the way they brought together such a broad and unexpected range of influences, from folk to jazz and rock and made it all sound new, fresh and attractive. They were already playing advanced arrangements. Here were songs that stopped and started with nerve shattering suddenness, paused for reflection and then stormed back again with all guns blazing.

Songs like The Byrds’ ‘I See You’, Paul Simon’s ‘America’ and Lennon and McCartney’s ‘Every Little Thing’ were given the Yes treatment. They re-arranged songs by taking them apart, dissecting the verses and choruses and rebuilding them as pieces with several layers, extending instrumental bridges, adding harmonies to a hitherto familiar single voice, and placing a sudden, unexpected emphasis where before there was none. It was an approach that contrasted sharply to the kind of one dimensional, locomotive rumbling of the average ‘beat group’.

Of course it wasn’t all original thinking, and – like the ensembles that followed – the original Yes quintet brought together a wide variety of disparate influences. The Who under the aegis of Pete Townshend, especially their extended works, inspired original guitarist Peter Banks. The free-flowing Jimi Hendrix Experience was an influence, as were The Nice with Keith Emerson. Jon Anderson loved classy performers like Frank Sinatra and Paul McCartney. Chris Squire liked The Fifth Dimension, The Byrds and The Beatles. Drummer Bill Bruford was into Miles Davis. Yes were cool. They could dig it. They were also very together. They were ready to take ideas and push them someplace else.

And they had the musical firepower to make their ideas work. The earliest Yes line-up became the articulate voice of the post-Flower Power generation. They appealed to the intelligence of their audience, considered a dangerous move in rock’n’roll. It was all done with infectious enthusiasm and zeal. When Yes took a piece of music and reshaped it into a concert piece, Yes weren’t being ‘pretentious’. They were being true to themselves.

Rare colour film of the band during this period shows a shockingly young looking bunch of 20 year olds acting more like The Monkees than serious prog-rockers. A clip of Bill Bruford in a studio, cigarette between his lips, blond hair flying and roaring over his drum kit during a storming performance of ‘No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed’ is the epitome of pop cool!

Peter Banks’ guitar style was at the core of early Yes music and set standards that have been adhered to ever since. His playing, rich in improvisational skill and tonal ingenuity, shone through the first two albums Yes (1969) and Time And A Word (1970). Steve Howe, who replaced Peter, would become the guitar star most readily associated with Yes. His output was astonishing on a huge mass of work from The Yes Album, Fragile and Close To The Edge to Tales From Topographic Oceans, Relayer, Going For The One and more. Trevor Rabin, who took over the Banks/Howe tradition in the Eighties, would spearhead the Yes revival and help create some of their best selling music.

Tony Kaye, the band’s ebullient first keyboard player, was a master of the funky organ sound. His swirling crescendos and classical flourishes established what became the pattern for keyboard playing in Yes. Even the more technically capable Rick Wakeman who joined later would pay tribute to Tony’s contribution, while Geoffrey Downes continued in the tradition with his own richly rhapsodic playing.

Bill Bruford was something special. He wasn’t just a great young percussionist with a sharp and intelligent mind, he was a vibrant, sometimes even abrasive personality; practical where others were scatty, eminently sensible when others weren’t. His background, education and instincts meant that he tended to be amused by rather than hung up on the rock and roll lifestyle. A jazz fan for whom Philly Jo Jones and Max Roach meant more than Keith Moon, Bill was enthusiastic about the opportunities Yes offered. Alas, he quickly tired of the regimented discipline that lay behind the laissez faire, hippie idealism. It was a great shock when he decided to quit the band to join King Crimson in August, 1972. His replacement, Alan White, came just in time to power up the band in readiness for its onslaught on American touring. His powerhouse playing and rock steady beat were all that Yes needed to enter their second phase.

The old firm of Anderson and Squire has reigned over Yes since the days when they were called Mabel Greer’s Toyshop. Jon, from Accrington in Lancashire, is a soft spoken man for whom Yes became a medium through which to express his own pent up love of emotional, joyous music. Stravinsky, Sibelius, Frank Sinatra and The Beatles are all sources of inspiration for Jon. Warm and gentle in character, Jon has long aspired to different religions and varieties of mysticism, and he was a natural convert to the hippie idealism of the Sixties which sought to unify all religious beliefs into a kind of single Earth spirit. Yet Jon is also a hustler, a hardened music business pro, fully aware that if he doesn’t exert his authority others might try to use or abuse him. As a bandleader he has been called ‘a little Napoleon’ but he could bring together warring factions and instil order – most of the time. Although he was unable to write or read scores or even play an instrument with any great skill, he could sing like a bird, and exhort his players to turn personal flights of fancy into playable form, into magnificent reality.

If his determination to succeed and create would earn him a reputation for being a stickler and a disciplinarian, then it was no worse a reputation than any other truly successful bandleader before him. What some found shocking was his ability to make sudden, abrupt decisions that directly affected their lives. Invariably they were for the best reasons. During innumerable conversations with Jon over the years, the message has clearly emerged that it was never his intention to hurt anybody. Ever. He still regrets some of his actions. But he always knew that if Yes was to survive and have a future, then firm decisions would have to be taken. And Jon, with the ready laugh and angelic voice, had the power to decide.

Chris Squire, Jon’s long term vocal partner, is perhaps the most enigmatic Yes man. Slower than most to show his feelings or reveal his inner thoughts, he can nevertheless sometimes appear impatient and agitated. Eager for a laugh as much as the next muso, there is a more calculating air about the man who has actually held Yes together since it started. While others chatter and scamper around at his feet in a frenzy of emotional activity, Chris remains laid back and impassive. There are probably very good reasons for his gentle giant demeanour. Tall people quickly learn that unless they are very careful they can knock people and things over very easily. Better to approach life at a slower pace. Less risk of damage. But this apparent slow down of the body clock can be infuriating to others.

Quite early in the band’s formative years Chris gained the nickname Fish, simply because he spent too long luxuriating in the bath. Okay when you are living alone, but when you are living with an entire band and various girlfriends, who have to get ready for the next gig, and there is only one bathroom in a shared flat, then tempers get frayed. Doubtless Mr. Squire got called worse names than Fish when the group were packed together in their flat in Munster Road, Fulham. Some complained at the way he consumed the band’s precious resources. But then it was Chris and Jon who had put the band together. They were entitled to reap the rewards of their labours, and to take their time in the bath.

What Chris brought to Yes, apart from his unshakeable power as one of the three great British rock bass guitarists (along with Jack Bruce and John Entwistle), was his dogged determination to keep the whole thing going. And yet, you could never quite pinpoint a decision making moment. “Things just happened – behind the scenes,” says one band member. Whatever happened to Yes, you could be sure that Chris, above all others, would keep his eye on the ball.

Sometimes the ball seemed in danger of going out of touch. Peter Banks and Tony Kaye were early victims of Yes purges. When Bill Bruford left of his own accord, just as the band were enjoying major success, it was a big shock. Yet replacements arrived in a steady stream and the group continued to prosper. All became accepted as part of the Yes family from the moment they joined but as we shall see, it was a family frequently at war. When Rick Wakeman left to concentrate on his solo career, it was an even greater blow than Bill’s departure. The group hastily recruited Patrick Moraz who stayed for three productive years. But when Rick came home again he brought his own very special charisma as well as his keyboard talents. Patrick would find a more comfortable home with The Moody Blues.

More dramatic still was the moment at the end of the Seventies when Jon Anderson quit and Rick left for the second time. How was it possible that the voice of Yes, surely the key element in their unique sound, could leave the group? And how could they carry on as if nothing had happened? And yet that’s just what happened. This bust-up, the most controversial of their career, was precipitated by the failure of the band to record a new album to succeed their unsatisfactory 1978 effort Tormato and might well have brought down the final curtain. Yet only two months later, in May 1980, Chris Squire recruited two new members whose pedigree caused even the most die-hard Yes fan to gasp. Enter producer, singer and bassist Trevor Horn, and keyboard player Geoff Downes, better known as The Buggles.

The Buggles!!!? In Yes!!!? This latest twist to the tale seemed like the final nail in the band’s coffin. But it wasn’t. In the event, it actually ensured their survival. The Buggles version of Yes lasted until April, 1981. Then Steve Howe left to form Asia with Geoff Downes which led to a Yes renaissance with guitarist Trevor Rabin writing the songs and Jon Anderson back at the microphone. The comeback was sealed with the number one US single, ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’, and their astonishing album 90125.

In many ways this album represented the end of their quest for technical perfection. Ironically, this was a needless quest by the Nineties. There was no excuse for imperfection when studios and stages were equipped with the latest in digital, computer technology. Sampling had replaced the need for ‘live’ orchestras and drum machines could provide that metronomic beat and crisp sound all producers craved and audiences now took for granted. Pop music technology had advanced rapidly.

Human skills, the skills that had made Yes so precious, were less important. It was now possible for a recording star to sell millions of CDs without ever venturing out of the studio, and certainly never having to battle up and down motorways in the search for gigs. The whole concept of Yes seemed out of date and redundant. Except … it was Yes that conceived many of the innovations now taken for granted. And there was a new generation of fans for whom a living, breathing band of top performing musicians was a rare treat.

In 1998 a low budget CD appeared on the market. It wasn’t given much space in the music press reviews pages, if it was noted at all. The origins of the CD were somewhat dubious but it served an important purpose in that it brought back to light the original sound of Yes. Titled Something’s Coming it comprised broadcast recordings of Yes from 1969 to 1970. Would it shatter long cherished beliefs and illusions? Would the sound of the band first heard in London all those years ago now seem too primitive?

The opening bars of Something’s Coming with its triumphant organ and guitar chords and the unexpectedly violent drums, recalled all the magic. Jon Anderson sang ‘Who knows?’ in his husky Lancastrian burr, answered by witty musical ripostes from the ensemble. All the charm and excitement of their original performances came surging back. This was the song and arrangement that knocked me out when I saw the band for the first time. The echoing radio sound quality, so different from the muffled albums of the period, itself had a nostalgic ring. The record transported this listener back to people, places and memories once thought lost in space and time. ‘Something’s Coming’ and companion pieces like ‘Everydays’, with their rapidly shifting moods and exciting solos, seemed like a revelation, a restoration of faith and values.

Strangely enough, this CD of ancient recordings gave me even more pleasure than the very latest high quality Yes release Open Your Eyes. This was a daring young band, rough at the edges and taking risks. These BBC tapes culled from the archives, done with barely time for a sound check, let alone a rehearsal, capture Yes at a crucial moment, on the verge of greatness, still full of naïve hopes and dreams.

Which is more important – yesterday or Yes today? The answer is that Yes continues to grip the imagination in all its forms, past and present. There are fanzines and websites throughout America and Europe devoted entirely to their doings, and for whose subscribers Yes is a ruling passion. They are the people who gathered for a special ‘Yestival’ held in America on June 27 and 28, 1998, one of a series of annual events held to celebrate the band’s life and times.

Aficionados gathered at Cherry Hill, New Jersey, from all over the States to greet their heroes and other guests from Britain. Ambassadors from Yes past and present came to receive homage. Chris Squire was there – keeping the fans on tenterhooks as the large audience waited for a special interview session. There were ‘new boys’ like Billy Sherwood while veterans Alan White and Steve Howe were happy to meet, greet and even perform. Peter Banks, a hero from 1968, flew in from his home in Barnet and jammed while Geoff Downes played a special concert described as ‘awesome’ by delegates and visitors alike.

But what had drawn them all together in celebration? Yes is much more than a joke about curry on the organ, or a series of internal rows about money, or the reasons behind its shifting personnel. It is about the power to create music that moves the heart and mind.

The musicians themselves have grown up over these past thirty years and many of the old problems have been solved or simply faded into insignificance. Says Steve Howe, “As you get older you are more able to talk and deal with the psychological and physiological things that go on and the business problems that always plague a group. There’s an awful lot more to being in Yes than just playing the music! I wish there wasn’t. Some members of the band have said quite regularly, ‘That’s it. I’m not having bugger all to do with the business. I’m just going to sing, or play and let everything else go.’ And then they don’t know what to do.

“They just dissipate or become phased out. You can’t leave any part of your life just to destiny. Jon has said to me many times that he’d sooner live for two months up a mountain. He has that ability to go off into the unknown. I just like to create a space for myself and get lost in my music. I can’t force music to happen. You can’t turn it on like a tap. But if you can create the right environment then it will flow. In Yes the guys want you to use self control, to be very organised and together, happy and positive. It’s a big demand. You can’t be in Yes and take a back seat. There’s no room for someone to take a back seat. They’ll be out! But if there was any time when I’ve thought what a good band Yes was – it’s right now.”

And right now we go back to the beginning, to beyond and before.

2
SOMETHING’S COMING

If any single member truly embodies the spirit of Yes, at least in the eyes of their fans, it is Jon Anderson. A dreamer with a passion for alternative life styles and what used to be called hippie philosophy, he is also a practical man. As a touring rock singer he quickly learned how to cope with the harsh realities of life. He was once described as, ‘An incurable romantic with a deceptive iron streak, a babbler of dreams with a firm grip on reality.’

There is no doubt that his beliefs run deep. The quest for wider arcane knowledge is as important to him as the creation of good music. Jon Anderson comes from an ordinary, hardworking background and left school at an early age. As a musician he is very much self taught. He can play the guitar and dabbles with percussion. As a singer he learnt from everyone from The Beatles and Otis Redding to Frank Sinatra and Simon & Garfunkel. All his general knowledge and accumulated wisdom has been gleaned from reading, listening, observing and, above all, conversing with other people. His working-class roots were no impediment to his gaining a heartfelt appreciation for art, literature, religion, philosophy and classical music.

The inspiration he gets from great music and grand ideas is genuine and something that has never left him, even during his darkest moments of self doubt. Yes became Jon’s orchestra of the imagination. Chris Squire, his kindred spirit, helped turn the vision into a reality but from their first enthusiastic beginnings Yes was a means to surf the cosmic waves of possibilities. All he and Chris had to do was find the right people to share their vision. It was only when that quest was thwarted, either by personal intrigue or financial pressure, that battle ensued.

From his stage and public persona, Jon Anderson might seem a gentle, inquisitive character, a soft touch perhaps, someone who can be taken for a ride. Jon is indeed charming and approachable and gifted with a sparkling sense of humour, and he is not so precious that he can’t laugh at himself or others. But at the same time his steely determination to communicate his ideas induces a kind of iron resolve that brooks no argument. He is stubborn. Proud. Determined. A wave of the hand and an intense look are the warning signals all but the most insensitive must surely recognise. He is no sucker. Having travelled the world and dealt with many a threatening situation, he is more aware of life’s perils than most.

But where does the little guy with a velvet voice and big ideas find such strength of personality? How did he beat his way to the top of a business notoriously unsentimental and oft steeped in treachery, devious machinations and downright skulduggery? How could a spiritual soul, who has on occasion been known to set up a portable tepee in his dressing room and sport Red Indian feathers and face paint, come to be harshly spoken of as ‘Napoleon’ and even ‘Hitler’ by some of his more fearful confreres? To find the answers we must explore his background.

John Roy Anderson was born in Accrington, Lancashire, on October 25, 1944. His father Albert was a salesman, while his mother Kathleen worked in a cotton mill, then the staple industry of Lancashire. John grew up in a small house in Norfolk Street and was the second youngest of four siblings, Stuart, Tony and Joy.

“They named me John Roy after a music hall singer who was billed as ‘John Roy the Melody Boy’,” he says. “You can find his name on some of the old variety show posters from the Forties and Fifties. In my dreams my name was always ‘Jonathan’ but it was actually John. When I came to London I decided to drop my ‘aitch’ and become the Jonathan that I always wanted to be. Roy comes from ‘Royston’ which is a classic Scottish name.”

Jon’s father was Scottish and his mother was second generation Irish with French ancestry. “I never had any problem about relating to people from different countries and that came out later in my life when I was working with Vangelis Papathanassiou. I’ve always been adventurous about who I work with. You don’t have to be an English person in order to make good music. Sometimes that became the criteria in Yes. It always had to be done with English musicians in England. Towards the end of the Seventies I rebelled against that idea and said there was no reason why we couldn’t write music abroad.”

Although Jon’s parents were not musicians they had a keen interest in the world of entertainment. They were both accomplished ballroom dancers and county champions. “It’s only in the last two or three years that I’ve realised how much influence my father had on me as a performer,” says Jon. “I can remember seeing him on stage in Accrington when I was two or three years old, working as a comedian. He was from Glasgow and he had a kilt on. When he was in the Army he was in ENSA (the troop’s entertainment service, alternatively known as ‘Every Night Something Awful’) and he would go on stage, tell jokes and sing a couple of songs. My mother and my father were ballroom dancing champions of East Lancashire. They had cups on display and photographs of my mother in her beautiful ballroom gown and my father in his bow tie. Basically they were a couple of show offs!”

Jon went to St. John’s Infants School in Accrington and his teachers remembered him as a strong class leader. One of his teachers, Mrs. Irene Smith, says, “He was a lovely looking little boy with a happy disposition. He always seemed to have a smile on his face and loved singing.” Mrs. Ada Thurman remembers Jon as a, “very happy little boy who thought a lot about his classmates and school, and in particular his sister”. Another teacher, Clifford Collinson, recalls that he was “a good leader in the class, with a particular expertise in geometric drawing, but Jon did not wish to go to Grammar school”.

Times were harsh and money was tight in the Anderson household. Says Jon, “I lived on a farm when I was eight years old and worked as a labourer from the age of 15. My father used to be very ill and I had to work hard.” Anderson was very keen on football and dreamed of playing for the famous local side Accrington Stanley. But when his father became ill, he had to leave school at 15 to go to work. He toiled as a farm hand with his older brother Tony and later got a job driving a lorry delivering bricks. He also worked on a milk round for a while. It all seemed a far cry from the artistic life he dreamed about. There was no chance now of going to a Grammar school, let alone a university. Instead of giving in to circumstances Jon was determined that one day he would succeed – at something. For the moment he had to earn a living to help support his family.

Said Jon later, “Being in a working-class area of Accrington, you work for a living. You don’t become an artist. You don’t paint. For me it was a fight to get away from that kind of situation. I didn’t want to end up all my life driving long distance lorries or delivering milk.”