Chris Welch - Close to the Edge: The Story of YES

During the many months spent doing interviews, researching and writing Close To The Edge I was given generous help and assistance by a large number of Yes people, including members of the band both past and present, friends and associates. Particular thanks are due to Jim Halley, the bands tireless co-ordinator and personal assistant to Steve Howe, who spent many hours on the telephone helping to locate scattered interviewees around the globe, from Switzerland to Kauai, from Seattle to Boston and from Florida to Los Angeles. He also provided encouragement with what proved an increasingly massive task and offered many examples of Yes memorabilia as well as insight into the life of a touring band.

Special thanks go to Peter Banks for his stories of the formative years, told with his customary humour and perspicacity. Jack Barrie, once the manager of the Marquee and La Chasse clubs, was happy to talk about his crucial role in bringing Chris and Jon together and the support he gave when Yes was just an idea. Roy Flynn spoke for the first time about his role as the bands first manager and once again proved to be a generous host. Bill Bruford gave freely of his time to reminisce about the good and the bad times of the band he still loves. Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, Billy Sherwood and their newest member Igor Khoroshev all spent many hours helping me understand the important changes in the bands career and the meaning and progression of their music. Steve in particular was most helpful, as he has been since his earliest days in the band, and Chris gave me perhaps our best interview since we flew to Berlin on a Comet! Patrick Moraz enthusiastically described his tenure with the band during the important Relayer era. Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes spoke incisively about their dramatic intervention during the early Eighties. Trevor Rabin was most helpful in assessing his crucial contribution when Yes enjoyed some of their greatest hits. Many thanks also to Rick Wakeman who spent an afternoon sharing Yes stories while he was in the throes of putting together Return To The Centre Of The Earth. Thanks also to Adam Wakeman for tales of his close encounter with dads old band, and to Candy Atcheson, Ricks assistant.

Appreciation is also due to all the Yes associates and friends who proved so helpful, notably Brian Lane, Phil Carson, Roger Dean, Michael Tait, Roy Clair, Tony Dimitriades, and Lewis Kovak of Left Bank management; also Sally Gavaghan at Atlantic Records. Much appreciation goes to Clifford Loeslin, long time fan and expert on all matters Yes who boosted the discography to encyclopaedic proportions. Tanya Coad, co-founder of Relayer, the worlds first Yes fanzine, kindly gave permission to quote from her proposed book on Jon Anderson while singer/researcher Dan Duggan became a Yes fan after spending hours trawling the archives. Thanks also to David Watkinson of Yesterdays Collectables (e-mail: david@yes.k2net.co.uk) for his help with the discography, and to Reinhard and Renate Sauer and their son Arne for their assistance while I was staying in Reinbek in Germany.

Special thanks go to Chris Charlesworth and Andrew King at Omnibus Press for their help and patience with a project they initially conceived as a single that grew into a concept album if you see what I mean. Well, thats progressive rock for you!

Finally the author would like to offer special thanks to Jon Anderson for his encouragement, good vibes and much valued friendship over so many years and to thank all the members of Yes for so much wonderful music and so many wondrous stories.

Chris Welch, West Wickham, Kent, England 2007

I dont believe it hes eating a curry! Jon Andersons 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 Ricks supper. And hes tucking in. Is this a simple prank, or a calculated act of defiance?

Of course, it could be dismissed as a carnivores 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 leaders 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.