Billy Sherwood
William "Billy" Wyman Sherwood (born March 14, 1965 in Las Vegas , Nevada ) is an American musician, record producer and sound engineer. He was best known as a member of the English progressive rock band Yes . Billy Sherwood plays drums , percussion , keyboards , bass guitar , various a and e guitars and other stringed instruments such as steel guitar , mandolin and banjo .
Career
Family background
Sherwood comes from a very musical family. His father Bobby was a big band leader , his mother Phyllis is a singer and drummer, and his brother Michael Sherwood , a keyboardist and singer, was a member of a number of rock bands. His godfather was the late American actor, entertainer and comedian Milton Berle .
At Lodgic
Billy Sherwood's music career began with Lodgic , his brother Michael's band, where Billy Sherwood played bass and sang. His brother played keyboards and also sang. Other members were Guy Allison (keyboards), guitarist Jimmy Haun (who would later be heard on the Yes album Union with Billy ) and Gary Starns (drums). The band started their career in Las Vegas , but in 1980 the musicians moved to Los Angeles . It was only six years later that Lodgic released their first album ( Nomadic Sands , 1986), which Billy Sherwood also mixed and produced himself.
World Trade
After Lodgic disintegrated in the late eighties, Billy Sherwood and Guy Allison formed a new band they called " World Trade ". Other members were guitarist Bruce Gowdy and drummer Mark T. Williams . The band secured a record deal and released their first album World Trade in 1989. Here, too, Sherwood acted as a sound engineer and producer, and he can also be heard on the album as a bassist and singer. The album features an Americanized version of the music from Yes ' 80s albums 90125 and Big Generator , which Sherwood had been a big fan of since childhood.
Collaboration with Chris Squire
In 1989, Yes ( Chris Squire , Trevor Rabin , Alan White and Tony Kaye ) approached Sherwood and Gowdy and invited them to band rehearsals. When the progressive rock band got together again in 1989 to record the follow-up album to Big Generator , they were faced with the problem of having to find a singer for their new project: Jon Anderson had left the band in frustration because Rabin had more and more had taken over the leadership of the group. In addition, the guitarist Trevor Rabin was not available at this time. When he later joined the band, he took over Gowdy's part.
A collaboration with Roger Hodgson (ex- Supertramp ) had proven problematic and Squire, who had become aware of Sherwood, had the idea of hiring him as Anderson's successor. The two wrote their first songs together, including The more we live - Let go , which should land on the next Yes album Union (1991). But when the merger of Yes with the rival band Andersons, Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe , it was no longer necessary to find a replacement for the singer. Still, Billy Sherwood and Jimmy Haun, his old comrade from the Lodgic days, can be heard as guest musicians on the Union album.
Squire and Sherwood stayed in touch. After the end of the Union tour, in August 1992, Squire gave some concerts in California with his new band " The Chris Squire Experiment ". The members of this hobby band also included Billy Sherwood (guitar, vocals, keyboards) and Jimmy Haun, as well as Toto keyboarder Steve Porcaro and Yes drummer Alan White . The "Experiment" played Union songs and some new pieces that Squire had collaborated with Sherwood. The set list for the August 25, 1992 concert in San Jose, California read: Open Your Eyes (later on the Yes album of the same name , 1997), The Lonesome Trail , You're the Reason , One World Going Round , Days of Wonder , Follow Our Dreams . Occasionally, the Yes classic Long Distance Runaround (from the album Fragile ) was played.
Solo and commissioned work
After the "Chris Squire Experiment" ended, Sherwood recorded an album called The Key with guitarist Marty Walsh , which was not released until 1997.
He also worked as a sound engineer and producer for Motörhead , Dangerous Toys , and Paul Rodgers (ex- Bad Company , currently at Queen ). As a guest musician he played on Toto's Kingdom of Desire .
Sherwood has been producing tribute albums since 1993, including Paul Rodgers ' Muddy Water Blues (1993), Crossfire - A Salute to Stevie Ray (1996), Dragon Attack - A Tribute to Queen (1997), Thunderbolt - A Tribute to AC / DC (1997), Pigs & Pyramids - An All Star Lineup Performing the Songs of Pink Floyd (2002), Todd Rundgren and His Friends (2002), Back Against the Wall (another Pink Floyd tribute, 2005), Return to the Dark Side of the Moon (a third Pink Floyd tribute, 2006) and Jeffology , in honor of Jeff Beck .
Sherwood is currently working on a Led Zeppelin tribute album.
Establishment of World Trade
In 1995 Sherwood reformed his old band World Trade. Jay Schellen replaced Williams on drums. Together they released the album Euphoria and Sherwood began working on a third album. But the band fell apart again, and he used the song material for his solo album The Big Peace , which was released in 1999, the same year as Michael Sherwood's solo album Tangletown , in which his brother Billy was also involved.
Member of Yes
Working with Squire was so pleasant that Yes hired Sherwood as a guest musician on Yes ' Talk Tour (June 18, 1994 - October 11, 1994 (76 shows)). In 1996 and 1997 Sherwood produced the studio tracks of the two Yes albums Keys to Ascension and Keys to Ascension 2 , before he became a permanent member of the band from 1997 to 2000: In the nineties, a first album by the duo Squire / Sherwood under the title Chemistry was announced but that never appeared. Around this time Yes wanted to go on tour, but their record company insisted that the band supply new material first. However, since there was hardly anything available, it was decided, similar to 90125 , to convert the Squire / Sherwood album Chemistry , which was just emerging at the time, into a Yes album. Squire, Sherwood and White then began to work on a presentable album as quickly as possible, singer Jon Anderson and guitarist Steve Howe only joined the project towards the end of the work. It was released in 1997 as a Yes album under the title Open Your Eyes . Sherwood played guitar and keyboards on the album (regular keyboardist Rick Wakeman had left the band shortly before). When keyboardist Igor Khoroshev was hired for the tour , Sherwood took over the rhythm guitar and the backing vocals. So he didn't play a big role on stage, which brought a lot of criticism to the band's concept of touring with six people.
Sherwood stayed with Yes until 2001, with him the band released the studio album The Ladder (1999) and the live album House of Yes - Live from House of Blues (2000).
On for the summer 2015 [date] in North America planned tour to replace the leukemia Chris Squire Sherwood.
Conspiracy
While Yes recorded their album The Ladder , Squire and Sherwood worked on their first album together, which was released in 2000 under the title Conspiracy . It is a compilation of pieces written for Yes in 1989, songs played by the "Chris Squire Experiment" and pieces written in advance of Open Your Eyes. Only after the release of the debut did a stable line-up around Squire, Sherwood, Jay Schellen (drums) and Sherwood's brother Michael (keyboard, vocals) come together, which was sometimes expanded by guest musicians. With this line-up of the band now called Conspiracy , Sherwood recorded the album The Unknown (2003) and a live DVD (2006).
While working on a third studio album, Chris Squire left the band. Billy Sherwood continues to lead Conspiracy alone; guest appearances by former Yes musicians Tony Kaye and Peter Banks and guitarist Gary Green (ex- Gentle Giant ) have been announced for a new album, which will probably also contain two tracks not used by World Trade . This new project is now under the working title Psy-Op . Billy Sherwood announced in an interview at the end of 2007 that there would be no further Conspiracy albums. The distance between England (Squire) and the USA (Sherwood) is too great to maintain long-term cooperation.
solo
In 2003 Sherwood's second solo album was released. It is one of the few "real" solo albums because Sherwood plays all the instruments alone (drums, percussion, keyboards, bass, a and e guitars, steel guitar , mandolin , banjo ).
Sherwood also wrote the theme song for the online anime series Kung Fu Jimmy Chow .
Circa:
In 2006, several (former) Yes musicians formed a new band under the name Circa: Billy Sherwood (bass, vocals), Alan White (drums, vocals) and Tony Kaye (Hammond, keyboards). Sherwood's Lodgic colleague Jimmy Haun (guitar, vocals) is also there. The debut album CIRCA: 2007 was released in August 2007 and a tour has been announced. In addition, Circa: announced as the headliner of the RoSfest on May 3rd, 2008 in Phoenixville , PA.
style
As a fan of Trevor Rabin and the Yes albums that were created during his membership ( 90125 , Big Generator , Union , Talk ), Sherwood's style, which is clearly evident on all of the albums in which he has played a part, is influenced by West Coast- AOR elements and Melodic Rock, which are combined with a few slightly progressive elements . As is often the case in Neo-Prog , the AOR portion predominates, even in Sherwood's longer pieces that go beyond the single format. His polyphonic and multi-layered vocal arrangements are particularly outstanding.
His melodic ideas in particular draw criticism: They are too arbitrary, the hooklines are missing for music that is so oriented towards the AOR . Another side, more oriented towards classical progressive rock, criticizes Sherwood's music as not being progressive enough (in the sense of the concept of style).
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sherwood, Billy |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sherwood, William Wyman |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American musician, record producer, and sound engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 14, 1965 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Las Vegas , Nevada , USA |