24 July : Time And A Word

50 years ago today, Yes released their second album, Time And A Word. Regular readers of this blog will know that I am happy to call myself a fan of Yes, but there is only a limited selection of their albums I listen to with any regularity. I actually can’t remember the last time I listened to this album.

I can say in all honesty that, were I coming to this album cold, I would add it to my list of highlights of 1970 for the arrangements, the musicianship, the dynamism and the originality–it doesn’t sound like anything else I’ve listened to for this project since January, in a good way (indeed, in some respects, some of Peter Banks’s guitar on Astral Traveller foreshadows directions Robert Fripp took with King Crimson).

As ever with Yes, nothing was simple; there were arguments throughout its creation and guitarist Peter Banks, who plays (very well) on the album, left just before it was released. The decision to remove Banks is one that I know, from talking to someone very closely connected to the band in this period, still rankled in 2018.

This is not the Yes who had that incredible run from The Yes Album through to Relayer; that band had Steve Howe on guitar, swapped Bill Bruford for Alan White on drums, and had both Patrick Moraz and Rick Wakeman on keys rather than Tony Kaye, but the seeds of that band are here: they’re in the arrangements, in Chris Squire’s driving bass and in Jon Anderson’s voice, which hasn’t quite stabilised in his alto range here. And it has songs that still crop up in Yes set lists all these years later, most recently (I think) Sweet Dreams on the 2018 UK and US 50th anniversary tours. And I really like what Banks and Kaye brought to the band.

I’m pleased I listened to this one again, and am wondering what took me so long to revisit it. There are, it is true, passages that haven’t stood to test of time; nonetheless, a copy might find its way to my shelves soon.

I listened on Spotify and as a YouTube playlist.