Produced by Wayne Hall, Jeffrey Crecelius and Preston Frazier
In a special, extra episode, I have the pleasure of talking to the man who helped Yes to transform their sound and approach in 1970, Steve Howe.
He told us about his time in Asia and how the band got back together in 2007 with its original line-up which is featured on the latest release, Asia, The Reunion Albums, 2007-2012.
We also had a chance to hear about the slightly different approach on Steve’s latest Homebrew collection, which is to be released in July 2021.
As always, it was a delight to speak to Steve, one of my all-time musical heroes.
Produced by Jeffrey Crecelius, Wayne Hall, Preston Frazier and Bill Govier
This week, Mark and I enjoyed listening to The Grand Scheme of Things by Steve Howe which he produced shortly after leaving the band following the end of the Union Tour in 1993. It’s a great collection but might be a little bit too long. Take a listen to our thoughts a little later on and add your own to the show notes for this week, lower down this page.
What did Steve do immediately after the end of the Union Tour?
Was he busy?
Did he just get straight on with Asia?
Listen to the episode and let us know what you think!
Join us as a Patron!
If you would like to support the Yes Music Podcast financially and also have access to exclusive activity and opportunities, there is a special page you can use to sign up and 2020 is the time to join us:
The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from the following two creative commons sources: thanvannispen and archive.org
Produced by Jeffrey Crecelius, Wayne Hall, Preston Frazier and Bill Govier
We return to our ever-popular what did they do next series this week and it’s time to work out what Steve Howe did after the end of the Union Tour. It’s an opportunity for Mark and me to discover more music we don’t know and a chance to compare 1993 solo work with Love Is which we spoke to Steve about last week.
What did Steve do immediately after the end of the Union Tour?
Was he busy?
Did he just get straight on with Asia?
Listen to the episode and let us know what you think!
Join us as a Patron!
If you would like to support the Yes Music Podcast financially and also have access to exclusive activity and opportunities, there is a special page you can use to sign up and 2020 is the time to join us:
The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from the following two creative commons sources: thanvannispen and archive.org
Produced by Jeffrey Crecelius, Wayne Hall, Preston Frazier and Bill Govier
After a few technical hitches, we managed to speak to legendary Yes guitarist, Steve Howe, about his brand new solo album, ‘Love Is’. It features his son and recent YMP interviewee, Dylan Howe, on drums and Steve’s fellow Yes member, Jon Davison, on backing vocals and bass guitar.
If you like Steve’s solo work, you’ll absolutely love this new album, which is packed full of his trademark multi-guitar work and contains half instrumental tracks and half songs. Steve is pleased with his lead vocals and we can see why!
Does Steve enjoy writing, producing, engineering and performing?
How does Steve choose from his incredible collection of guitars?
Are there any clues to future Yes happenings?
Portrait of English progressive rock musician Steve Howe, taken on February 3, 2020. (Photo by Will Ireland/Prog Magazine)
Here’s the Press Release:
Legendary Yes guitarist Steve Howe has announced he is to release Love Is on 31st July through BMG Records. Love Is is Howe’s first solo album since the all-instrumental Time in 2011 and has a balance of five instrumental tracks and five songs.
The album will be available as CD – gatefold digi-sleeve with 12 page booklet and LP – Black vinyl 180gm with gatefold sleeve, liner notes and lyrics.
Steve Howe sings lead vocals and plays electric, acoustic and steel guitars, keyboards, percussion and bass guitar on the instrumentals while Yes vocalist Jon Davison provides vocal harmonies and plays bass guitar on the vocal tracks. The album also features Dylan Howe on drums.
Many years in the making, Love Is brings together a consistently strong and polished listening experience, forging the very best from the writing and playing throughout the album. This may well be considered the real ‘stand out’ album of Howe’s solo career. The instrumentals keep a highly progressive rock guitar style to the fore, with songs that explore stories of lives lived and lives only just begun. Love Is A River is the central longer song with several textural shifts, featuring a theme played on 12 string and steel guitars.
“I called the album Love Is because it hints at the central idea that that love is important but also love of the universe and the ecology of the world is very important,” says Steve Howe. “Alexander Humboldt went around the world and recognised we are destroying the planet but that was 200 years ago! We are still destroying the planet and, I suppose, my songs show the yearning I have for the love of nature and how beauty, art and music all stem from nature. There is a theme about those things, love, beauty, ecology, nature and wonderful people.
“Love Is A River just seemed a very important track to me, a sort of quintessential track with lots of moods, lots of interesting things going on with steel guitars and acoustic guitars. Further tracks grew from time spent writing in my studio.
“See Me Through looks at the idea that we get through life by not driving ourselves that hard but attempting to achieve things with people who help you along the way and Imagination is dedicated to my granddaughter Zuni. It’s about how I see some of the things she’s experienced in her short seven years.”
“I invited Jon Davison to sing harmonies with me and add bass on the songs. If he was singing on the songs I thought why doesn’t he play bass as well and it turned out nice. He’s been with Yes for seven or eight years and he’s a great guy, great performer and a great interpreter of Yes songs.
“I’ve been singing for years, mainly in harmony but I’ve sung lead on lots of my own albums before and I feel that, as I’ve got older, I’ve got a grip on that and, hopefully, it’s improved over the years.”
The album includes many distinctive Steve Howe signatures among the instrumental tracks from the delicate beauty of Fulcrum, Beyond The Call and Pause For Thought to upbeat rock, The Headlands, and the jazz-tinged Sound Picture.
“The instrumentals are like a mood, a place I went to one day, thought this is nice and then I develop that to a point where it’s a finished track. There might be key ingredients that I thought about using musically that I like, that I’m drawn to, and then developing them into something.”
Love Is was written, engineered and produced by Steve Howe with further engineering and mixing by Curtis Schwartz. “I write in my own studio and then go to see Curtis in his studio,” Howe explains. “We expand the tracks and put them on Pro Tools and everything starts to be possible. At some point, probably around 2 years ago, Dylan came down to Curtis’s studio and we recorded the drums on some of the tracks. I could see a balance of five instrumental tracks and five songs and there was a feeling that it was an album, sitting there, looking at me.”
The track listing for Steve Howe’s Love Is album is:
1 Fulcrum (instrumental)
2 See Me Through
3 Beyond The Call (instrumental)
4 Love Is A River
5 Sound Picture (instrumental)
6 It Ain’t Easy
7 Pause For Thought (instrumental)
8 Imagination
9 The Headlands (instrumental)
10 On The Balcony
Listen to the episode and let us know what you think!
Join us as a Patron!
If you would like to support the Yes Music Podcast financially and also have access to exclusive activity and opportunities, there is a special page you can use to sign up and 2020 is the time to join us:
The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from the following two creative commons sources: thanvannispen and archive.org
This week, Mark and I enjoyed listening to The Bodast Tapes featuring Steve Howe in the second part of our examination of what Steve did after leaving Yes following the Drama tour. We also had the pleasure of speaking to Danny Markovitch who plays saxophone in the progressive/fusion band Marbin who are returning for the second time to the Cruise to the Edge next month. He explains what his band is all about and how they developed their music from their roots in Israel to the US.
If you are a YMP Producer or Patron you should already know what the top secret project is which we have kicked off in March. Everyone else will just have to wait and see – or become a Patron themselves of course – you are most welcome to join us.
What’s the actual Bodast music like?
Does Steve stick out?
Is it worth listening to?
Listen to the episode and let us know what you think!
If you would like to support the Yes Music Podcast financially and also have access to exclusive activity and opportunities, there is a special page you can use to sign up and 2020 is the time to join us:
The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from the following two creative commons sources: thanvannispen and archive.org
