(With apologies to Patrick Moraz: why this book has a photo of the
Relayer lineup on the cover rather than the Classic lineup is one of my problems with it.)
It's been eight years since a biography of Yes has been published (as the updated version of Chris Welch's
Close To The Edge: The Story of Yes was issued in 2008) and perhaps prompted by the passing of Chris Squire someone felt it was high time for another one, thus we have Martin Popoff's unauthorized bio
Time And A Word: The Yes Story, released in paperback today in the US although the ebook edition has been available since February.
Popoff's book is rather at a disadvantage because
Close To The Edge is as authorized as one can get, with Welch considered an expert on the subject, as well as a organizational insider and journalist who has interviewed the many members of Yes on various occasions throughout their history. So
CTTE (the book) stands as much of a definitive biography as is possible. But in terms of its' inclusiveness
Time And A Word expands to encompass the recent history of Yes, going beyond
CTTE (the book) which stops around 2007. Popoff's book has a different structure, combining a timeline format with narrative passages, primary and secondary interview quotes, and archival images. The book ends with Chris Squire's demise last year, which is understandable, and yet I think it would have been fitting to at least acknowledge Billy Sherwood's reinstatement as a member and hand-picked bearer of Chris' musical legacy.
I understand it is
de rigueur to title books about rock n'roll after songs or albums, but I'm a bit miffed that the wrong one keeps getting picked for a Yes book. What does a Yes biography
need to be titled? It's obvious -
Fragile - which describes the state of the band at various points in its' 48-year history. But it's not meant as a pejorative because despite the various lineup changes it has managed to survive and to thrive in different eras. I'm not sure at this point if a new book
is needed, given the extensive chronicling which already exists in various books and websites as well as several documentaries. No one biography is ever going to get to "the truth" of things any more than a few candid interviews given by some of the principles and associates over the years. But as the best of those books, such as
Yesstories, have been long out of print, and the comprehensive interview book
Dialogue has yet to be published, those fans who have never read a history of Yes can consider
TAAW (the book) a barely passable stop-gap in the interim.
I do appreciate the timeline format as it lends a sense of historical perspective to the proceedings, Popoff notes events which are outside the immediate history of the band but indicative of the cultural milieu in which Yes was working at any given time. There are a few botched details regarding the second Trevor Charles, such as incorrect years of release for some albums, and I don't particularly care for the way Popoff covers Trevor's solo work. For example, he reviews
Trevor Rabin but not
Face To Face or
Wolf.
Can't Look Away is given scant mention and no critical commentary. The interview quotes included from Trevor are all secondary sources.
I have long resigned myself to the realization that any history of Yes is going to focus far more on the Classic lineup than any other period, but I must say - barring the various inaccuracies contained therein - Chris Welch did a fairly admirable job of portraying Trevor in his own right as well as his overall role within Yes in
CTTE (the book). I count myself as a fan of the Classic lineup (I was a Yes fan long before I was a YesWest fan, after all) so it's not particularly an issue for me in a general sense, but I
do pay close attention to the way in which YesWest is portrayed in
any composed historical narrative.
Given that Popoff has written over a dozen rock n'roll books this one has a definite assembly-line feel to it, despite the inclusion of his own commentary on various albums. Though I can appreciate he was attempting to be humorous in some spots, his critical assessments come off as a bit lazy to me. For example, in his review of
90125, Popoff states:
With Jon Anderson saucily and belatedly back in the fold, things surprisingly spring ahead, the man's hippie-regressing flightiness no match for the jaunty pop juggernautiness of South African jack-of-all-trades Trevor Rabin, who single-handedly transforms Yes in his image, basically writing and comandeering the whole thing.
Popoff's penchant for neologisms aside, this statement is extremely reductionist
and categorically false. Although it's true that a great many of Trevor's demos were developed further for Cinema, and despite what many have said over the years regarding the pedigree of
90125 (including Trevor himself), only half of the actual album - OoaLH, Hold On, Changes, City Of Love - consists of songs which Trevor brought into the project. The rest of the album is material which was developed by the principles once they had decided they were going to be a band (including his specific contribution to "Hearts," composed before joining up with Chris and Alan). And "Owner," as we know, wasn't even meant for Cinema to record in the first place. So the characterization of "
90125 is the solo album Trevor never got to make" is not correct at all. It would be nice if
somebody - say, a rock journalist - actually got these kinds of details right at the outset, but I suspect that's just asking too much. The primary negative characteristic of this book is that it is too superficial a narrative for such a landmark and legendary band.
In another section, Popoff states that the initial location for the recording of
Big Generator - Lark Studios, located at Castello di Carimate in the Lombardy region of Italy - was "chosen for tax purposes" which, again, is incorrect, and some simple research could have revealed the actual reason for the selection of this site. As Trevor explained in his interview with Mike Tiano:
I've even seen it in print that Chris said... [...]Chris says we went to Italy -"It was Trevor's idea to go to Italy to save money." It was never the intention to save money, although I don't want to waste money. The intention to go to Italy was to get the band together, because some of us were living here, but then Jon was living away, and Alan was in Seattle, I think. It just wasn't together, and I thought if we all go to Italy, like Carimate, this little town in this incredible old castle, and record in this castle. What an amazing thing.
And in further error, Popoff comments, regarding the song "Rhythm Of Love"
Trevor Rabin's suggestion to employ real brass on the track as well as his rude guitar work rankled the band's more traditional fans.
Most who have listened to
Big Generator - and may even be a fan of it - know the song which actually contains a brass section is "Almost Like Love." Has Popoff even heard this album?! But also Trevor has previously stated, in an interview with Tim Morse, that he "didn't like the idea of putting horns on it," noting Chris was behind that particular choice. Though it's true everyone has their own version of events, Popoff doesn't even cite the source which indicated that Trevor might be the culprit. But I'm certainly not inclined to take his word over Trevor's.
Moving on to 1989, there's this observation regarding ABWH:
The band was positioned as an alternate version of Yes, with Jon Anderson not happy with the commercial stadium rock version of the band as commandeered by Trevor Rabin and Geoff Downes.
Right there is where - if I had a physical copy of the book - it would have been thrown into the nearest garbage can. Anyone possessing even a basic knowledge of the band knows that Trevor
Rabin and Geoff Downes have never been in
any version of Yes at the same time. Even if he's trying to imply that Anderson did not approve of either the
Drama lineup
or YesWest, it's not the most facile way of expressing such a sentiment. This book doesn't appear to have been fact-checked
at all after initial drafts, which is surprising given how many sources were cited and consulted.
A general rule of thumb is that you utilize as many sources as possible in your research and attempt to find the place where they intersect and agree, or failing that, select the sources which appear to be definitive. That practice has
not been followed in this case and certain mistakes and misapprehensions continue to be fostered within this text. However, my primary issue with Popoff and this book is his obvious bias toward Classic Yes - which should not be a factor in how he chronicles the overall history of the band. He also lost me with his assertion that
Open Your Eyes - the 1997 release which includes Billy Sherwood - is a better album than
Talk. And I wholly disagree with that, for obvious reasons. That's not to say
Open Your Eyes is a bad album
a priori (although it contains a few clunkers in my opinion) - just one which didn't necessarily resonate with the fanbase overall (selling less than
Talk and currently remains out-of-print) - but to assert it's
more successful than
Talk in any measure, critical or otherwise, is simply ludicrous.
I also have a problem with the images chosen for the center spread - there is only one photo of Trevor (a performance shot from 1991), no photos of YesWest as an ensemble - there's something seemingly random about the images chosen as a whole, although perhaps it had to do with licensing issues. Granted, I understand using just one image of a member each given how many people have been in Yes, but I think there could have at least been one photo each of every lineup.
My suggestion is: if you really want to know about Yes and have never read
any of the books, you
should read
CTTE (I believe the physical edition is out-of-print but it is currently available as an ebook)
and then, possibly,
TAAW which would then give you a somewhat comprehensive overview on the complicated-as-their-music history of the band. But we Rabinites will have to continue to accept that Trevor's role in the Yesstory narrative is never as a central character even as most chroniclers - professional or otherwise - admit he
should be, having helped to guide the destiny of the band for over a decade.
