Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe

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Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe
General information
Genre (s) Progressive rock , art rock
founding 1989
resolution 1990
Last occupation
singing
 Jon Anderson
guitar
 Steve Howe
Keyboards
 Rick Wakeman
Drums
 Bill Bruford
former members
bass
 Tony Levin

Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe (also ABWH for short ) was a British progressive / art rock band. It was founded in 1989 by four former members of the band Yes , who were not allowed to use this name for legal reasons, as Chris Squire owned the naming rights. A band called Yes, consisting of Squire, Trevor Rabin , Alan White and Tony Kaye also coexisted. In the fall of 1990, in the middle of work on their second album, Jon Anderson merged the band with Yes to form a single, eight-piece band.

background

At the end of the Big Generator tour in April 1988, the band members of Yes broke up. While the other musicians were recovering from the rigors of the tour or tackling solo projects, Jon Anderson left the band for the second time since 1980 (see Paris Sessions ). He was frustrated because his position in the band had been reduced to the role of singer and he was not involved in the creation of the songs on Big Generator . Anderson was used to leading the band, a role he had undisputedly until 1980.

He then got in touch with his former Yes colleagues Bill Bruford (until 1972 with Yes), Steve Howe (until 1980 with Yes) and Rick Wakeman (until 1980 with Yes) to suggest a concept for a band under his leadership he wanted to call Yes . Bruford was the first to meet Anderson. Impressed by his electronic drum sound, he presented his plan to him, and Bruford, initially believing he should take part on Anderson's solo project, agreed, since Anderson, and later Howe, had already largely put together the musical ideas for a first album: Due Because of his experiences with the musicians arguing and arguing about every single note, he did not want to be involved in the creation of the music. Also the fact that he didn't have to work again with what he saw as the all too lazy Chris Squire (this possibility had been discussed temporarily, but was vehemently rejected by Bruford), but with Tony Levin an excellent bass player was available with whom he was able to work got along far better and who he also knew from King Crimson , contributed to his decision.

In addition to Anderson, Steve Howe brought material for the new band's debut album. He had previously left GTR after a second album by this band had ended up in the drawer, and was thus able to carry his ideas into the new group.

The band signed a record deal with the Arista Records label and then spent five weeks in Paris to learn the new material. Then the musicians flew to the Caribbean island of Montserrat to record it in the AIR studios of Beatles producer George Martin . The plan to call themselves Yes , however, had to be dropped: Chris Squire, who holds the rights to the name Yes , and Yes' record company Atlantic Records filed a lawsuit against the US District Court for the Central District of California on May 31, 1989 invited four ABWH musicians to prevent them from using the name Yes publicly in any way. Above all, Anderson should be prohibited from mentioning his previous membership in Yes. The planned tour was announced under the title An Evening of Yes Music Plus ... and European promoters had the name Yes printed in large letters on their posters. Yes (the band around Squire) argued that there could be confusion among the public about who is really Yes and who is not. ABWH argued against it: If you put Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe on stage, what should you call the band?

The background to this legal dispute was a contract that all current and former members of Yes had concluded on May 22, 1984. This stated that only the Yes musicians who remained at the time had the right to use their name and band logo, and that a member who had dropped out could no longer mention his membership after a certain period of time (e.g. about the advertising effect that this certainly has to this day, to exploit). With this in mind, Yes viewed the use of their name in the ABWH slogan An Evening of Yes Music Plus ... as a breach of contract.

Finally, an extrajudicial compromise was negotiated: the new band was called Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe , however, the tour An Evening of Yes Music Plus ... . The classic Yes logo, which the fantasy artist Roger Dean designed in the 1970s, was not allowed to be used.

In June 1989 appeared the debut of the band under the title Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe . A collection of music videos has also been released along with a short documentary called In the Big Dream . In the accompanying interviews, the court-settled dispute was continued on an artistic level: Yes is a band whose pieces represent compromises with the demands of the music industry, ABWH, on the other hand, has returned to the old Yes ethos, and put art over commerce. The two covers were designed accordingly by Roger Dean, who equipped many of the classic Yes albums in the 1970s. This was supposed to convey the message to the public that Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe were the "only true Yess" - Yes themselves had turned to more modern graphic artists in the 1980s (see 90125 , 9012Live: The Solos and Big Generator ).

The album, much closer to the Yes sound of the seventies, and roughly comparable to Yes' Going for the One , sold around 750,000 copies. Then the four musicians started with the support of Tony Levin (or Jeff Berlin ), electric bass , Julian Colbeck, keyboards , and Milton McDonald, guitar and vocals, on a successful world tour, which took place from July 29, 1989 to July 23, 1989. March 1990 lasted and included 74 concerts. One of these concerts is on the CD / DVD An Evening of Yes Music Plus ... documented.

After the end of their world tour, Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe collected new material for a second album under the working title Dialogue , the release of which was targeted for October 1990. Anderson recorded his contributions in the south of France, presumably with the help of the ABWH Roadies , while Howe, Bruford and Levin worked on their own material in London. Personal animosities, especially between Anderson and Howe and Wakeman and Howe, made a collaboration difficult, the sessions became too expensive and the record company Arista Records began to influence the songs. Ever since Larry Magid, who had been involved in promoting a Yes tour in 1971, suggested to Jon Anderson during the ABWH tour to fund an 84-gig tour, if he was able to do ABWH and Yes To bring together, Anderson had planned a reunion of the two bands. As those plans took shape, most of the Dialogue songs were abandoned (Anderson released his material in 2007 under the title Watching the Flags That Fly , and dialogues by Steve Howe can be found on some of his solo albums). Anderson first contacted Trevor Rabin from Yes with the request to contribute some guitar parts, and later even entire songs, to Dialogue . Rabin accepted, and Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe, and Arista liked the songs. Encouraged by Anderson, the managements of both groups, and above all Arista, pushed all eight Yes veterans together under a single name, as such a large project promised great profits for all involved. The two warring camps reluctantly pieced together an album called Union (1991) under the common name Yes (this is especially true of Howe and Bruford ) and eight went on tour. This meant, to the regret of Bruford and Howe in particular, the end of ABWH (details on the reunification of Yes under Dialogue and Union ).

Chris Squire and the other Yes West musicians did not recognize ABWH as a Yes project for a long time. This only changed about 15 years later. The Yes compilation box In A Word: Yes (2002) also includes two songs by Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe .

occupation

With

Discography

Albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE CH CH UK UK US US
1989 Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe DE21 (17 weeks)
DE 		CH24 (3 weeks)
CH 		UK14th
silver
silver

(6 weeks)UK 		US30th
gold
gold

(16 weeks)US
First published: June 20, 1989
Producers: Chris Kimsey , Jon Anderson

More albums

Singles

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE CH CH UK UK US US
1989 Brother of Mine
Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe 		- - UK63 (3 weeks)
UK 		-
First published: June 12, 1989
Authors: Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe
Order of the Universe
Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe 		- - UK93 (1 week)
UK 		-
First published: October 16, 1989
Authors: Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe

More singles

  • 1989: Quartet (I'm Alive)

Video albums

Dialogue demo by Jon Anderson

  • Watching the Flags That Fly

Concert tour

Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe Tour

  • July 29, 1989 - March 23, 1990 (74 shows) (Recorded on An Evening of Yes Music Plus ... )

Secondary literature (selection)

  • Morse, Tim: Yesstories. Yes in their own words. New York 1996. ISBN 0-312-14453-9 .
  • Mosbø, Thomas J .: Yes - but what does it mean? Exploring the music of Yes. Milton WI 1994 (without ISBN).
  • Martin, Bill: Music of Yes. Structure and vision in progressive rock. 2nd ed., Chicago / La Salle 1997. ISBN 0-8126-9333-7 .
  • Welch, Chris: Close to the Edge. The story of Yes. London / NY / Sydney 1999. ISBN 0-7119-6930-2 .
  • Watkinson, David: Perpetual change - 30 years of Yes. London 2001. ISBN 0-85965-297-1 .

swell

  1. ↑ a b Chart sources: Singles Albums UK Billboard 200
  2. ↑ Music Sales Awards: US UK

Web links