Guitar men in a row - Live

I'm gonna do like a farm kid and go 4H

Holdsworth>Hackett>Howe>Hillage

richardh wrote: I've seen Howe 8 times (Yes between 1995 and 2005 and with Dylan his son a couple of times after that and once with Asia on the Phoenix tour), Hackett 3 times with his band and Fripp just the once with the 3 drummers line up. Hard to weigh them up on those numbers.  It's a random thought but I would love to have seen any of them play with Keith Emerson then I would know which I prefer! I find it odd that Howe has almost become a villain in modern prog circles for his apparent vice like grip on Yes. He always comes across as affable and personable as does Hackett. Fripp has always been an odd sort but his marriage to Toyah has done him a power of good and I find myself warming to him. I suppose it's Howe > Hackett > Fripp but really they are all equals.

Richard,

It's interesting that Howe gets the hate for his iron grip on Yes when it was Chris Squire who canned Jon Anderson for monetary demands he made of the band and not being honest about his health which led to Yes cancelling a tour. Yes had waited on Anderson for about 4 years to start touring again and that was the last straw for Squire.

What's interesting is Alan White, by all rights a decent person was in agreement with Squire on firing Anderson ( as was Howe). Anderson seems to get a pass by many when it comes to Anderson not being in Yes. It seems that the band, also didn't particularly care for how demanding Anderson could be or that in some instances undermined members in the band in the studio. Upon Squire's death the rights to the name Yes passed to Howe, which is what Squire wanted.

As for Keith Emerson and you may know this being a fan of Emerson, he stated the one guitarist that he wanted to play in a band with was Howe. Apparently, they had jammed together after guitarist David O'List had been sacked by the band, The Nice, for being unreliable. It went well and Emerson asked Howe to join the Nice. Howe declined for some reason. But both Emerson and Howe had a lot of respect for each other going forward from that jam session.



Edited by Big Sky - January 29 2025 at 21:02

Heart of the Matter wrote: ^ Maybe in the explanation of who gets the public hate, and why, we'd have to consider more likely their public demonstrations, than their private ones. I've seen Howe reprimand Downes on and on, during a concert with Asia, and the poor keyboardist look away, shake head, and keep playing while saying nothing. Later on, one maybe reads about who did this or that - in PRIVATE - but by then the opinion is already set.

No, the explanation is that Anderson knows how to play the PR game. The "I was fired from Yes, because I was unhealthy and unable to tour." Or "I would love to be in the band and would go back today, it would be magical." Or "you would have to ask Steve or Chris why they don't want me in the band." Obviously, I'm paraphrasing, but these are comments Anderson has made.

Anderson leaves out the fact that he made demands to get a greater share of the money than the other band members. Demanded that he have even a bigger say of what would appear on an album. That he kept the band waiting to tour for 4 years. Not being honest about his health and allowing the band to commit to a tour and then have to cancel when it was found out only after Wakeman went to visit Anderson and saw he was very ill and would be unable to tour.

Several band members have talked about how demanding and at times unbearable Anderson was in the studio. In some instances he went around band members back to get things done ( Union album in particular). Big Generator sessions saw Trevor Horn try to keep Anderson away from the writing process. According to Rabin, Squire and Anderson were not getting along and Squire was fine with Horn trying to keep Anderson at arms length in the studio. According to Kaye, Rabin had already written a fair bit of material prior to the Big Generator sessions, but Anderson wanted Rabin to go "crazy" and do Stravinsky like music, which the rest band was not interested in. History shows the recording of Big Generator was difficult.

Anderson has stated that he always wanted to record a studio album with ARW. Indeed, files were passed between Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman, but eventually no studio album would come forward. Rabin and Wakeman cited time demands as the culprit, even though both men were known to work quickly in the studio. I think the real reason is Rabin and Wakeman did not want to deal with the headaches with working with Anderson in the studio.

In public, Howe can come off at times as a curmudgeon, whereas Anderson seems to be quite pleasant. Anderson is great at PR and Howe will lose that battle no matter that there may be more to the story.

Heart of the Matter wrote: ^ I'm not a fan of the people who model themselves to satisfy the needs of publicity either, I rather like Steve with his rants and sincerity on the sleeve. I was just saying that there's a price to pay for that, which he's paying.

Oh, no doubt about that. Howe lets you know where he stands for better or worse and many people do not like that. Sometimes he does come off looking bad as with his backhand compliment of 90125 as being a good pop rock album but was it really Yes music. Which my response would be is it was not supposed to be a Yes album and only became so after the fact.

Further could someone make the same criticism of the Drama album? It did not have Anderson and certainly did not sound anything like what had gone before ( By the way, I'm a big fan of Drama).

Howe seems to be in his happy place when talking about guitars and guitar players he likes. His rig rundown for Premier Guitar shows Howe in a very good light, congenial and taking his time to answer the interviewers questions.

Big Sky wrote: Heart of the Matter wrote: ^ Maybe in the explanation of who gets the public hate, and why, we'd have to consider more likely their public demonstrations, than their private ones. I've seen Howe reprimand Downes on and on, during a concert with Asia, and the poor keyboardist look away, shake head, and keep playing while saying nothing. Later on, one maybe reads about who did this or that - in PRIVATE - but by then the opinion is already set. No, the explanation is that Anderson knows how to play the PR game. The "I was fired from Yes, because I was unhealthy and unable to tour." Or "I would love to be in the band and would go back today, it would be magical." Or "you would have to ask Steve or Chris why they don't want me in the band." Obviously, I'm paraphrasing, but these are comments Anderson has made. Anderson leaves out the fact that he made demands to get a greater share of the money than the other band members. Demanded that he have even a bigger say of what would appear on an album. That he kept the band waiting to tour for 4 years. Not being honest about his health and allowing the band to commit to a tour and then have to cancel when it was found out only after Wakeman went to visit Anderson and saw he was very ill and would be unable to tour. Several band members have talked about how demanding and at times unbearable Anderson was in the studio. In some instances he went around band members back to get things done ( Union album in particular). Big Generator sessions saw Trevor Horn try to keep Anderson away from the writing process. According to Rabin, Squire and Anderson were not getting along and Squire was fine with Horn trying to keep Anderson at arms length in the studio. According to Kaye, Rabin had already written a fair bit of material prior to the Big Generator sessions, but Anderson wanted Rabin to go "crazy" and do Stravinsky like music, which the rest band was not interested in. History shows the recording of Big Generator was difficult. Anderson has stated that he always wanted to record a studio album with ARW. Indeed, files were passed between Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman, but eventually no studio album would come forward. Rabin and Wakeman cited time demands as the culprit, even though both men were known to work quickly in the studio. I think the real reason is Rabin and Wakeman did not want to deal with the headaches with working with Anderson in the studio. In public, Howe can come off at times as a curmudgeon, whereas Anderson seems to be quite pleasant. Anderson is great at PR and Howe will lose that battle no matter that there may be more to the story.

I'm not siding with Anderson (I mean, I would love to have him back in Yes, but the band should know who they want to spend all that time working with), but about him in Big Generator, I bet it should have come out better if his wish of them getting more Stravinski influence had materialized.

^ Wow, I'm getting a massive vibe coming out of that shot. Thanks, Charles!

^^ As for the controversial Stravinsky influence, I agree with Omar (Dellinger), it would have been benefic, probably, but I think it was Steve the partner Jon needed for such an effort, rather than Trevor, who was pushing things in a very different direction.