Art-rock group Yes formed in 1968 with Jon Anderson on vocals,
Peter Banks on guitar, Tony Kaye on organ, Chris Squire on bass
and Bill Bruford on drums.
Anderson started out during
the British beat boom as a member of a combo called The Warriors,
who recorded a single for Decca in 1964, and later was in the band
Gun, before going solo in 1967 with two singles on the Parlophone
label.
 He was making a modest living cleaning up at a London club
called La Chasse during June of 1968, and was thinking of starting
up a new band.
One day at the bar, he chanced to meet
bassist/vocalist Chris Squire, a former member of the band The Syn,
who had recorded for Deram, the progressive division of Decca.
The two learned that they shared several musical interests
(including an appreciation for the harmony singing of Simon
and Garfunkel) and within a matter of days were trying to
write songs together.
They began developing a sound that
incorporated harmonies with a solid rock backing, rooted in
Squire's very precise approach to the bass.
The duo saw the groups around them as having either strong
vocals and weak instrumental backup, or powerful backup and weak
lead vocals, and they sought to combine the best of both. Their
initial inspiration, at least as far as the precision of their
vocals, according to Squire, was the pop/soul act The
Fifth Dimension.
They recruited Tony Kaye, formerly of The Federals, on
keyboards; Peter Banks, previously also a member of The Syn, on
guitar; and drummer Bill Bruford who had only just joined the
blues band Savoy Brown a few weeks
earlier.
 The British music scene at this time was in a state of flux.
The psychedelic pop era, with its pretty melodies and delicate
sounds, was drawing to a close, replaced by the heavier sounds of
groups like Cream. Prog
rock, with a heavy dose of late-19th century classical music,
was also starting to make a noise, in the guise of acts such as The
Nice and the original Deep Purple.
The group's break came in October of 1968 when, on the
recommendation of The Nice's manager, Tony Stratton-Smith (later
the founder of Charisma Records), they played a gig at the
Speakeasy Club in London, filling in for an absent Sly
& the Family Stone.
The group was later selected to open for Cream at their 26
November 1968 farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
This
concert, in turn, led to a residency at London's Marquee Club and
their first radio appearance, on John Peel's
Top Gear radio show.
They subsequently opened for Janis
Joplin at her Royal Albert Hall concert in April 1969, and
were signed to Atlantic Records soon
after.
Their debut (self-titled) album was released in November of
1969, displaying the basic sound that would characterise the
band's subsequent records, including impeccable high harmonies,
clearly defined emphatic playing, and an approach to music derived
from folk and classical rather than the R&B from which most
rock music sprung.
The album featured cover versions of songs by The Beatles
and The Byrds, but also present was a hint
of the "space rock" sound (on Beyond and Before)
in which they would later come to specialise.
Anderson's falsetto lead vocals gave the music an ethereal
quality, while Banks' angular guitar - seemingly all picked and
none strummed - drew from folk and skiffle elements. Squire's bass
had a huge sound (owing to his playing with a pick which gave him
one of the most distinctive sounds on the instrument alongside The
Who's John Entwistle) while Bruford's drumming was very
complex and Kaye's playing was rich and melodic.
While the band were renowned for their technical and musical
ability though, their songs and sets were often interminably long.
In February of 1970, Yes supported The Nice again at their
Royal Albert Hall show while they were preparing their second
album, Time and a Word. By the time it was released in
June of 1970, Peter Banks had left the line-up, to be replaced by
guitarist Steve Howe, a former member of The Syndicats, The In
Crowd, Tomorrow (of My White
Bicycle fame), and Bodast.
This record was far more sophisticated than its predecessor,
and even included an overdubbed orchestra on some songs - the only
time that Yes would rely on outside musicians to augment their
sound. The cosmic and mystical elements of their song writing were
even more evident on this album.
The group's fame in England continued to rise as they became an
increasingly popular concert attraction, especially after they
were seen by millions as the opening act for Iron
Butterfly. It was with the release of The Yes Album
in April of 1971 that the public began to glimpse the group's full
potential.
That record, made up entirely of original compositions, was
filled with complex, multi-part harmonies, loud, heavily layered
guitar and bass parts, beautiful and melodic drum parts, and
surging organ (with piano embellishments) passages bridging them
all.
Everybody was working on a far more expansive level than on any
of their previous recordings - on Your Move (which became
the group's first US chart entry, at number 40), the harmonies
were woven together in layers and patterns that were dazzling in
their own right, while StarshipTrooper (which drew its
name from a Robert Heinlein novel, thus reinforcing the group's
"space rock" image) and All Good People gave
Howe, Squire, and Bruford the opportunity to play extended
instrumental passages of tremendous forcefulness.
The Yes Album reached number seven in England and
number 40 in America in the spring of 1971. Early in 1971, Yes
made their first US tour, opening for Jethro
Tull, and they were back late in the year sharing billing with
Ten Years After and The
J. Geils Band.
The band began work on their next album, but were interrupted when
keyboard player Tony Kaye quit in August 1971, to join ex-Yes
guitarist Peter Banks in the group Flash.
He was replaced by Rick Wakeman
(ex-The Strawbs), who was a far
more flamboyant musician than Kaye, not only in his approach to
playing but the number of instruments that he used and the way he
played them. In place of the three keyboards that Kaye used,
Wakeman used an entire bank of upwards of a dozen instruments,
including Mellotron, various synthesizers, organ, two or more
pianos, and electric harpsichord.
This line-up of Anderson, Squire, Howe, Wakeman, and
Bruford - which actually only lasted for one year from August 1971
until August 1972 - is generally considered the best of all the
Yes configurations, and the strongest incarnation of the band.
The group completed their next album, Fragile, in less
than two months (partly out of a need to get a new album out to
help pay for all of Wakeman's equipment). The new album
featured only four tracks by the group as a whole, Roundabout,
The South Side of the Sky, Heart of the Sunrise and
Long Distance Runaround - although,
significantly, all except Long Distance Runaround ran
between seven and thirteen minutes.
Anderson's voice was represented in multiple overdubs on We
Have Heaven while Squire's bass provided the instrumental The
Fish, which later became an important part of the group's
concerts; Howe's Mood for a Day showed him off as a
classical guitarist; Bruford's drums were the focus of Five
Percent for Nothing; and Wakeman turned in Cans and
Brahms, an electronic keyboard fantasy built on one movement
from Brahms's Fourth Symphony.
Fragile (December 1971) reached number seven in
England and number four in America. The album's success was
enhanced by the release of an edited single of Roundabout,
the group's first major hit, which reached number 13 on the US
charts. For millions of listeners, Roundabout, with its
crisp interwoven acoustic and electric guitar parts and very vivid
bass textures, exquisite vocals (especially the harmonies),
swirling keyboard passages, and brisk beat, proved an ideal
introduction to the group's sound.
Neither ELP nor King
Crimson, the group's leading rivals at that time, ever had so
successful a pop-chart entry. The single's impact among teenage
and college-age listeners was far greater than this chart position
would indicate - they simply flocked to the band - with the result
that not only did Fragile sell in huge numbers, but the
group's earlier records (especially The Yes Album) were
suddenly in demand again.
Even the album's jacket, designed by artist Roger Dean,
featured distinctive, surreal landscape graphics, which evoked
images seemingly related to the music inside. These paintings
would become part-and-parcel with the audience's impression of
Yes, and later tours would feature stage sets designed by Dean as
an integral part of their shows.
 Close
to the Edge, recorded in the late spring of 1972 and released
in September of that year, showed just where Yes were headed,
consisting of only three long tracks in which the overall sound
and musical textures mattered more than the lyrics or any specific
melody, harmonisation, or solo.
Siberian Khatru was almost a rock adaptation of
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, while And You and I seemed
to take Your Move to a newly cosmic level. The fans and
critics alike loved Close to the Edge, and the album
reached number four in England and number three in the United
States without help from a hit single.
Bruford left to join King Crimson and session drummer Alan
White (pictured at left) stepped in to replace him for the triple
live album, Yessongs (May 1973).
Wakeman had meanwhile released his solo project The Six
Wives of Henry VIII (February 1973) but remained with
Yes to complete Tales From Topographic Oceans (January
1974) before quitting in June to promote his Journey To The
Centre Of The Earth LP (May 1974) and being replaced by
Patrick Moraz for 1974's Relayer album. This line-up
remained stable for 18 months. Meanwhile, the various band members
engaged in solo side-projects.
Wakeman returned to the fold in 1976 before ultimately
departing once more in 1980. Vocalist Jon Anderson departed at the
same time to work with Vangelis. In an unlikely pairing, the duo
were replaced by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes from Buggles (of Video
Killed The Radio Star fame).
Following an album (Drama) and a large UK/USA tour,
Howe and Downes teamed up with Carl Palmer (from ELP) and John
Wetton to form 'supergroup' Asia.
Yes re-formed in 1983 when their single Owner Of A Lonely
Heart became a surprise US Number 1 in January
1984. Regrouping with original members bassist Chris Squire,
keyboardist Kaye, singer Jon Anderson, long-time drummer Alan
White and newcomer-guitarist Trevor Rabin, Yes shucked its world
of fairies and Ancient Ones for a hard-edged, modern techno-pop
sheen, aiming squarely at a brand new MTV
market.
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