The Owner Of A Lonely Heart album was my first musical item, on tape. Leave It is one of my favorites. Many memories listening to the record…
His story about meeting Jimi Hendrix was the best.
Gutted. In the early 70s I was a Who fan but that was my older bro’s band and I wanted my own. At the age of 12 I rifled through an entire record dept looking for “something”. I settled on Relayer (thanks mostly to Roger Dean’s art). Regardless of what one thinks of Yes, Relayer is a hell of an album! I became a Yes freak for a couple years before Eno and Ultravox showed me the light. I still have my Rickenbacker bass from 1976. If you’ve never heard Squire’s solo album Fish Out of Water you should. It’s one of the few Yes related things I still listen to on occassion. Thanks for “teaching me” how to play the bass, Chris!
Holy crap, yes. Relayer is a weird, funky, strange jazz-prog symphony about alien war or something, so it’s not exactly easy listening, but it might be the most rewarding album in Yes’ discography. And Fish Out of Water is a surprising masterpiece, possibly the best solo album by any of those guys.
Chris Squire was a pioneering melodic bassist, creating whole melody lines with his playing rather than just being the “thump thump” bottom to the band. His instrumental voice was really what created the Yes “sound”, and without him, they’re truly just a tribute band.
On a more pragmatic note, Chris Squire was the primary owner of the name “Yes” and the defacto band leader, so I’ll be interested to see if and how Yes soldiers on without him.
I know people like to beat on on the excesses of Prog Rock – for good reason often – but as a kid growing up in the 70’s with a at-the-time stoner older sister, Yes will always have a soft spot in my heart and a free pass on excesses.
RIP.
sad, sad, sad.
A true innovator.
Those were some good days for the bass. Squire, John Entwistle, Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius and Phil Lesch were all in or approaching their primes and more or less reinventing the role of the instrument.
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