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Together with Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Genesis’ Foxtrot, Yes’ 1972 masterpiece Close to the Edge is probably the most fully realized album in progressive rock. It captures the band during an incredible (if fleeting) creative peak, and perfectly sums up the prog ethos; its lofty ideals and natural attraction towards the whimsical and cinematic. At its best, Seventies prog aspired to develop a universal musical language that drew equally from classical and the blues, folk and jazz, psychedelia and Eastern mysticism.

Just like The Beatles before them,...

Sal Maida, the nimble New York-born bassist who played with bands including Roxy Music, Sparks and Milk ’N’ Cookies, has died. He was 76.

Maida died Saturday in New York of complications resulting from a fall in December, his wife, singer-songwriter Lisa Burns-Maida, announced.

The 6-foot-6 Maida also performed with Ronnie Spector, The Runaways, Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven, Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las, Annie Golden of The Shirts and Velveteen during his career.

Born in New York on July 29, 1948, Salvatore Maida was raised in the Manhattan neighborhood of Little Italy, where he “heard a multitude of sounds emanating from the jukebox below my window, from Sinatra to the Stones, Motown, Ray Charles, The Beatles and Dinah Washington,” he once wrote.

A devoted Anglophile, he traveled to London after graduating from Fordham University with a bachelor’s degree in economics and was working in a record store when he met Roxy Music drummer Paul Thompson.

Rolling Stone interview series Unknown Legends features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and veteran musicians who have toured and recorded alongside icons for years, if not decades. All are renowned in the business, but some are less well known to the general public. Here, these artists tell their complete stories, giving an up-close look at life on music’s A list. This edition features backup bassist Billy Sherwood.

If you saw Yes on the 1994 Talk tour and then again anytime during the past seven years, you were essentially seeing two different bands.

Jon Anderson started Yes in 1968 with bassist Chris Squire, and the prog rock band was at the center of his life for the next four decades through numerous permutations. But when illness forced him off the road after the group’s 2004 tour, Yes decided to hire a replacement vocalist and carry on without him. Anderson has been healthy and active for well over a decade, but the band — which now features Seventies guitarist Steve Howe, Drama-era keyboardist Geoff Downes, and hired guns — refuses to take him back.

That hasn’t...

Yes drummer Alan White, who joined the progressive rock band in 1972 and stayed with them for the next 50 years, has died at 72 after a brief illness.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is most famous for his work in Yes, but also performed with John Lennon in the Plastic Ono Band — He’s featured on both “Instant Karma” and “Imagine” — and with George Harrison on All Things Must Pass.

“Throughout his life and six-decade career, Alan was many things to many people,” his family wrote in a statement confirming his death.

Alan White, the longtime drummer for the British progressive-rock band Yes and also played with John Lennon and George Harrison, died today at his home in Seattle following a brief illness, his family has announced. He was 72.

“Throughout his life and six-decade career,” White’s family posted on Facebook, “Alan was many things to many people: a certified rock star to fans around the world, band mate to a select few, and gentleman and friend to all who met him.”

Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery

Although best known for his drumming with Yes — a band he joined in 1972 and with whom he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 — White also played with the John Lennon & Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band in 1969, performing on the smash Lennon singles “Imagine” and “Instant Karma (We All Shine On).” He performed with Lennon, Ono and Eric Clapton...

Yes have revealed plans to release their 22nd studio album, The Quest, on October 1st. It’s their first collection of original songs since 2014’s Heaven and Earth.

“It is simply an honor for me to have the opportunity to bring together the band members in the development of a well-refined set of songs that capture the band’s true potential,” guitarist Steve Howe said in a statement. “Much of the music was written in late 2019 with the rest in 2020. We commissioned several orchestrations to augment and enhance the overall...

Yes fans have spent the past 15 years hoping that the surviving members of the group will put aside their differences for a reunion tour, but guitarist Steve Howe tells Rolling Stone that that is a very unlikely proposition.

“I don’t think [the fans] should stay up late nights worrying about that,” he says. “There’s just too much space out there between people. To be in a band together or even to do another tour like Union is completely unthinkable.”

He’s referencing the group’s 1990 Union LP and tour, where...

Festival Award Winning Doc Melody Makers The Bible of Rock ‘n Roll Featuring Eric Burdon (The Animals), Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Yes, Dave Cousins (The Strawbs), Judy Dyble (Fairport Convention), Nazareth (Pete Agnew & Dan McCafferty) and Steve Abbott (UK Decay) In tandem with the theatrical and home entertainment …

The post Icymi: Apple ibook of Rock Music doc Melody Makers Now Available appeared first on Hnn | Horrornews.net.

Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass, a recent book by the Rush frontman, is a history of the instrument that includes photos from his own collection. Lee will be promoting it with a book tour later this month that includes stops in Pittsburgh (December 8th), New York City (December 9th), and Halifax, Nova Scotia (December 14th). He spoke to us about his five favorite songs with distinctive bass parts.

The Who, “My Generation”

Seriously? A Pop song with bass solos? John “The Ox” Entwistle was arguably the greatest rock bassist of them all,...

When an earthquake decimated parts of Armenia and killing between 25,000 to 50,000 people in 1988, the world was in shock. The Ussr earmarked the equivalent of billions of dollars to help rebuild, the U.S. sent medical aid and search dogs, and people from all over Europe came to help. Perhaps the most surprising fundraising effort, though, came from a who’s who of rock and metal legends calling themselves Rock Aid Armenia. The supergroup, which featured Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Queen’s Brian May and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi,...

On his new album 1,000 Hands, former Yes frontman Jon Anderson worked with everyone from Chick Corea and Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson to Jean-Luc Ponty and Journey’s Jonathan Cain. But when it came time to create a video for the single “Makes Me Happy,” he reached much closer to home and recruited members of his immediate family.

“I am very excited for people to hear and see this crazy wonderful video, created by my daughter Deborah and my wife Janee on the spur of the moment one day at home,...

Nearly 30 years ago, Yes frontman Jon Anderson began work on a solo album with help from his bandmates Alan White and Chris Squire. He never got around to finishing it and eventually got sidetracked by Yes work, but recently went back into the studio to complete the album with help from producer Michael T. Franklin. Anderson originally called the project Uzlot, but now that it’s finally done, he’s calling it 1,000 Hands. It comes out March 31st.

“I’ve spent long periods of time making some records, but I...

“I have to get back to my day job sooner rather than later,” Geddy Lee says with an exhausted laugh. While Rush played what could be their farewell show in August 2015, the frontman has never been busier. He’s spent the past seven years collecting hundreds of vintage bass guitars — a hobby that evolved into an obsession, a globe-spanning treasure hunt and finally an unexpected side career.

The result is Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass, a coffee-table tome as epic as the first side of Hemispheres. Throughout 408 pages,...

The Buggles could have gone in a lot of different directions once their debut single “Video Killed the Radio Star” became a huge hit all over the world in late 1979. The synth duo (featuring Trevor Horn on lead vocals and Geoff Downes on keyboards) could have spent the next couple of years touring the world to to capitalize on their new fame. They could have headed right back into the studio and tried to craft an even poppier song. They could have even gone their separate ways under the assumption...

1963

Johnny Cash: Blood, Sweat and Tears (Columbia)

Some of Cash's '60s concept albums were burdened with much too talking between tracks; here the tribute to the American working man gets to mostly stand alone on its musical merits, and shines. Notably, it incluces the top version of the traditional "John Henry"” about the most legendarily heroic working man ever, and the version of "Casey Jones" here is classic as well. Politically and psychologically, Cash was the perfect man for this job.

1968

Byrds: Notorious Byrd Brothers (Columbia)

Sometimes transitional albums, confusing listeners expecting a group's earlier style, are underrated. Not so with this classic. It's true that it didn't sell as well as earlier Byrds LPs, nor did the single from the album chart very high, but for decades Notorious Byrd Brothers has been widely revered, and not just by fans; some critics have even anointed it as the band's best album.