Peter Banks (left) with Yes, along with Tony Kaye, Chris Squire, Bill Bruford, and Jon Anderson.
Banks' role in the history of progressive rock came about when he worked with a bass player named Chris Squire, and that relationship developed into a group that called itself Yes. He was part of the group's eponymous debut album in 1969 that contained songs like "Yesterday and Today," a Yes classic in "Survival," and a cover of Lennon-McCartney's "Every Little Thing."
From there it was the 1970 album "Time and a Word," with original songs like "Astral Traveller" and the album's title track, along with two more covers -- Richie Havens' "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed" and Stephen Stills' "Everydays."
That second album was the beginning of the end for Banks' time with Yes, despite some memorable playing from him on the songs "Then" and "The Prophet." There was a parting of the ways stylistically speaking, and Banks was released which led to Steve Howe coming in on guitar -- even being pictured on the U.S. version of the album cover instead of Banks -- and the rest is Yes history.
From there, Banks formed the prog band Flash which would later include former Yes Keyboardist Tony Kaye. There was also a memorable solo album, "Two Sides of Peter Banks," which featured Jan Akkerman, John Wetton, and Phil Collins.
It may be that not everyone knows the name Peter Banks. But a part of his music will live on for a long time to come.
It's gonna be a night for partying, no doubt about that. It's not every day that you usher in a new year. We're not just talking nationwide here, we're talking a worldwide celebration.
Goodbye 2012! Hello 2013!
I'm content to bring in the new year in a relatively quiet way -- spent with family members at home eating chips and dip, maybe watching a movie or two, playing some games and listening to some music, tuning in to a rockin' New Year's Eve show on television as it gets closer to the stroke of midnight before giving my lovely wife the first kiss of a new year and hugging the kids.
That's how it'll be this year. But two of our kids are away from home this time, and our oldest is getting ready for a big life adventure of his own to start his year, living out a dream. It's going to be a very quiet, very simple New Year's celebration at home for us this year.
But I know exactly where there's going to be one whale of a party today. I know because I was at one just like it at this same time last year. It's not your typical New Year's Eve party. There's a birthday celebration that goes along with it. It's a birthday celebration for a musician, a "brother" of mine who has a whole lot of good musician friends to play with. It's filled with good food, good drinks, good friends, family, and plenty of good jamming.
My "brother" is a musician who appreciates a solid groove, whether it's soul or rock or blues or jazz or fusion or something even more progressive. It can be a groove that's funky, simple or more complex. But there's one thing that it has to be more than anything else: the groove has to be SOLID!
My "brother" and I have spent many hours listening to those grooves together, mostly in our younger years. That's how it was last year at this time too. While I was being lazy as I tried to kick a nasty cold, he was busy tooling around his house -- setting up microphone stands, mics, cables, guitar stands, guitars, a drum kit, amps, a laptop computer to record it all -- and the music we listened to back in our younger days was playing on the stereo while he was working away. It was music that brought smiles to our faces, even all these years later. Just like it used to be.
When his numerous other friends arrived for the party toward late afternoon and the live music started playing, it was good. It was very good. It lasted for hours, pretty much non-stop until the clock ticked midnight and 2012 arrived.
It was all about the groove. It will be that way again this time around, I'm sure.
There are a number of progressive rock bands I've followed closely for a long time yet there's a good chance I'll never get to see any of them perform live for whatever reason. King Crimson is one. Gentle Giant and Genesis with its classically progressive lineup are out because chances are they're among those groups that will never get back together again. There was also a time when I thought I'd never get to see Yes.
Thankfully, I was wrong on that count when they came to Utah in the late 1990s for their 30th anniversary tour. With all the Yes albums I've had in my collection, all the great Yes music that I've enjoyed, there was no way I was going to miss that show.
I was among the Yes fans who weren't overly thrilled with the studio album that came before the anniversary tour, "Open Your Eyes," seeing it as leaning a bit too heavily on vocal harmonies and not letting the instrumentation stretch out as much as I'd hoped it would. So in the back of my mind, I was hoping Yes would focus more on its catalog of mind-opening songs that came throughout its history.
I wasn't left disappointed. They seemed to turn the show into an absolute celebration of that 30-year history. It gave me a glimpse into what a Yes show must have been like many years earlier, when the players were taking the music world by storm as younger lads.
This was the music of Yes performed live as I'd always imagine it.
I may not have been a total and complete newcomer to progressive rock by the time I was formally introduced to it in the fall of 1978. There were hints at a personal taste for it coming from me going back to the more adventurous days of The Beatles, and then when they broke up I needed to find some other band to awaken more of my senses the same way an album like "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" did.
Then, when I started hearing the sounds coming from Electric Light Orchestra -- the same kind of strings I'd heard from a tune like "I Am the Walrus" -- I knew there was hope.
As I got deeper into the ELO catalog, I started to realize just how much of a pop direction ELO had turned toward while still hanging on to that more "progressive" string sound. When I picked up an ELO greatest hits album, there was one song in particular that I fell in love with. You could say that there was no "pop" about it. This was full-bore progressive. The Beatles didn't even do a song like "Kuiama."
More time went on, and I happened to hear a song on the radio by an American group that caught my ear as well. It, too, had a violin in it. What was it about those stringed instruments that got my attention? It was all so ... progressive. Rock music with a somewhat classical feel to it. The song was from Kansas, "Point of Know Return." That was my first purchase of a Kansas album. I now have just about every Kansas album ever released. I could almost start to say, "Beatles who?"
Then I went to college for a year, straight out of high school. I met a lot of different people from all over the U.S. -- from all over the world, for that matter. That was where my progressive rock appreciation really began, with bands like U.K., Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant ... the list is too long.
That was still just the beginning. A seed had been planted, and even well into adulthood -- with a family of my own -- I still kept searching for progressive music that would make my ears take notice. There are newer bands still out there, willing to "push the inside of the envelope" and stretch things out a bit musically ... bands like OSI, Liquid Tension Experiment, on and on.
