Jon Anderson
Peter Banks
Bill Bruford
Geoffrey Downes
Steve Howe
Trevor Horn
Patrick Moraz
Tony Kaye
Trevor Rabin
Igor Khoroshev
Billy Sherwood
Chris Squire
Rick Wakeman
Alan White
 
 

Thirty-Two Years of Yes

Yes was formed in 1969 in England. At first they performed a lot of Beatles cover tunes and included some of them on their first two albums. For their third album, in 1972, they finally obtained the unique futuristic sound of their own and appropriately titled it The Yes Album. This album contained "I've Seen All Good People" which went to the top of the charts in England. In 1974, they came out with an album called Fragile, which has been deemed by the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame as one of the top 100 albums that changed rock 'n' roll.
 

Through the 70's, Yes went through various changes in its membership, but stayed pretty true to their sound. At the beginning of the 80's they went through drastic changes in membership. Jon Anderson, the lead vocalist of the group left to work on solo projects. For one album only, called Drama, Trevor Horn and Geoffrey Downes, from the group the Buggles ("Video Killed the Radio Star") joined the remaining three members of Yes in 1980. Without Jon Anderson's recognizable voice, Yes fans became unsatisfied. During their tour in England, they were sometimes booed during the performance of classic Yes songs.
 

After the short-lived tour, the five members of Yes decided to split up. For three years, there was no Yes. During this time Tony Kaye, Alan White, and Chris Squire were still writing songs together and considering calling their group Cinema. They sent their demo tape from California all the way to Jon Anderson in England. Hearing the demo, Jon wanted to supply his voice on the tracks. The rest of the guys thought that that would be really cool. Meanwhile Jon Anderson found a demo from this guy name Trevor Rabin from South Africa. Included on that demo was a song that would soon become very popular. The five of them all met in California and became the new Yes. In 1983 that demo song became a reality and hit the #1 slot in America. It was "Owner of A Lonely Heart.
 

In 1989, while Jon Anderson was clearly back in Yes, he was also collaborating with three of the members of the most popular incarnation of the "classic Yes". They came out with an album called Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe. In the meanwhile, Yes (Anderson, White, Squire, Kaye, and Rabin) were working on their new album. Together, the two groups had enough material to make a whole album. Chris Squire added his bass rifts to the new ABWH tracks and wallah... you have a phat album called Union which featured all eight Yesmen. Following the album, they partook on a huge tour which consisted of each of the groups playing their stuff with Anderson and Squire alternating groups and then having all eight play unbelievably huge music together.  The line-up which called themselves Yes before their reunion, lasted all the way until 1994 after which Tony Kaye went on to produce music and Trevor Rabin went on to compose music for motion pictures such as Con-Air and Face-Off.
 

Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe rejoined Yes in 1996 with Anderson, White, and Squire and made two 2-CD sets called Keys of Ascension I and II. On each set, the first cd was live tracks from a two day only event in San Opis, California and the second cd was all new studio tracks.  In 1997 Yes was joined by Billy Sherwood and started to record a new album and plan for a world tour. Meanwhile, due to differences,  Rick Wakeman left the group once again and Yes was now without a keyboard player. Yes quickly grabbed a Russian by the name of Igor Khoroshev, they finished the album and began touring. This sixsome- Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, Igor Khoroshev, and Billy Sherwood- came out with another album in 1999 called The Ladder, which has been said by critics to be the group's best album since Fragile.

Soon after the release of The Ladder, the new guys, Khoroshev and Sherwood, departed the band to persue other projects. Yes was now left with what many fans considered the core of Yes- Anderson, Howe, Squire, and White. However, they were now once again without a keyboardist. This gave them an idea. "Instead of finding a keyboardist," they asked "why don't we just use a 50-piece orchestra?" So that's exactly what they did. They recorded a new album, entitled Magnification, (which was released in early December) with an entire orchestra and then set out on an American tour with the orchestra. They are now on their national symphonic tour, and making wonderful music into the 21st Century.

Yes Fact of the Week:

The only band member that has performed on every Yes album is Chris Squire, the bassist.

Yes links-

    Notes From the Edge- An online Yes newsletter with up to date news, tour schedules, discography, lyrics, photos, etc..

    Yesworld- Another great site on everything you wanted to know about the supergroup.

Bands connected to or influenced by Yes-
    (Click on each of them to go to their official sites)

King Crimson
Emerson, Lake, Palmer
Asia
Jethro Tull
Spock's Beard
 
 

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