A great insight into the back-story of Yes-man Howe. There is not much doubt that he would always have been a musician. If he hadn`t succeeded with Yes, he would have played for whoever paid the bills as long as he could live and breathe music. A really talented man that luckily for us found his home in Yes.
Read on!
Yesman Steve Howe: A self-assessment
By Pamela Holman
SINCE THE DAY Yes named the guitarist who was to replace Peter Banks in mid-1970, Steve Howe has remained much of an enigma.
In an attempt to probe his mental shadows I recently met Howe at his Hampstead home and we talked against a domestic scene in which his two-and-a-half year old son Dylan had just been put to bed and his wife, Jan, pottered around the kitchen preparing coffee.
Relaxed in his natural surroundings, he sat back and let his mind wander back 11 years. And once the reminiscences began it almost became as if he was subconsciously talking to himself, oblivious of either his wife or myself.
“It was the days of Bill Haley and the 78 record,” he told me. “I was 10 and living at home in Holloway, North London. Like all kids I’d turn the record player up, and this music would make me jump about the lounge. I never dreamed it could affect my life as much as it has done.
Listened to records
“I started to listen to the guitars on records, and I got a kind of fantasy about it. I’d imagine myself on stage. And I had a burning desire — which got stronger and stronger — to want to play guitar.
“So when I was 12, my parents decided to buy me a guitar for Christmas. I picked out a £15 cello and I constantly strummed away at that for about a year and a half.
“Round that time Bill Haley’s guitarist was called Frany Beecher. He’s dead now, but he was a fine musician. He was the first guitarist I really liked. He had a very traditional style and yet he was playing rock ‘n’ roll.
“I’d heard a few record by Big Bill Broonzy, who was a famous blues guitarist when I was about 13.
“While I was still playing by myself at home my influences gradually built up from Frany Beecher to the Shadows. Duane Eddy must be the next one in there.
“When I first heard Eddy I got really excited — you know, ‘Rebel Rouser’ and ‘The Avenger’. He had a very individual style, very simple, but simplicity is the key to a lot of things.
“Unknowing to me, my older brother Phil was unconsciously leading my musical direction. Through his influence I moved from rock ‘n’ roll to jazz, although I never got caught up in traditional jazz. At that time Charlie Byrd was going strong and Stan Getz was doing the bossanova.
Couldn’t play like that
“Phil thought Duane Eddy was boring, and told me to listen to Barney Kessel, but when I did I was sure I wouldn’t be able to play like that. It was really out of my range.
“But I had always kept ahead of my technique, and I started buying a lot of jazz records. I could only listen to jazz on the guitar, I was really into the guitar by this time — it got to the stage that I would buy anything if it had guitar on it.”
Steve then realised, he told me, that there were other kids at school who also played the guitar. They started to talk and he found he could play all the tunes they knew.
“These boys asked me along to the Eden Grove Youth Centre to play with them. We’d had no real rehearsal; this was my first stage experience, and it almost put me off because it was chaos. We were playing things like ‘The Frightened City’ — I was playing the numbers right — they were playing them wrong.
“They asked me if I would join them, but I said no because at that time I didn’t want to play in a group.
“Soon I got into a different circle of friends, and I met a few people who would play quite well. We started playing in a place called the Prison Club, which was next door to Pentonville Prison. In fact, the people that used to pop in were mostly the prisoners — trusties — themselves. They had some deal going where they cleaned up afterwards and served the drinks.
“When the group split up (we had no name) I stayed with this guy called Kevin Driscoll, who was very enthusiastic, and he rushed around and got a couple of other musicians together. This time we were more organised. His mum had been in show business herself and became our manager, and managed to get us a residency at a pub called the Swan.
“By this time, I’d bought a new guitar and had an amp and an echo unit! We were playing down there, doing all the pop songs. We called ourselves the Syndicats… and we did a lot of jazz in our act.
“I was mad about Chet Atkins at that time. He was a bit like Duane Eddie, but had the finger-picking idea. He came from Nashville.
“Les Paul was a great favourite of mine, too. He was really pre-Chet Atkins, and he was the first guitarist to have the genius idea of multi-tracking guitars at different speeds. You’d buy a record, and all it would have would be a whole load of guitars. It was a sound that really opened up the guitar.”
Then, recalls Steve, the Beatles started happening.
“I liked them almost instantly. They were obviously people to respect. I’d run out and buy the sheet music of their songs because the chords were more interesting than the chords of general pop songs. They were definitely one of my predominant influences, and I’ve always wished I was one of the Beatles. Every time I heard their music I’d wish I’d thought of this or wish I’d been a part of that. They are a group I’ll always admire.”
Mad drummer
By that time the Syndicats had a ‘mad’ drummer called John Melton who was crazy about Chuck Berry, and who turned the rest of the group on to Berry’s music. Eventually they were playing about 14 of his songs each night, although the audiences didn’t really like it.
“We were in luck,” he said smiling. “Chuck Berry returned to fashion for the second time when Dave Berry recorded one of his songs and the Beatles started playing his music.
“Then we were introduced to Joe Meek, who was a successful producer who had recorded people like Heinz, the Tornadoes, the Outlaws and others, and we made two records with him. The first was released on my 17th birthday, called ‘Maybelline’ (a Chuck Berry number, of course), and the second was a Willie Dixon song, ‘Howlin’ For My Baby’.
“We were gradually nosing our way out of the Hemel Hempstead area, playing the occasional gig in places like Manchester. By then we were popular to a few kids who went to the clubs and locally, well, we were quite famous.
“I remember there was a group called the In Crowd which felt to be our rivals, but they were really a jump ahead of us.
“One day they telephoned me and asked if I would join them. They told me it was regular money, and were doing rather nice dates, getting about £70 a night. Up until this time I’d just been able to struggle along with the money I got from the Syndicats, because by this time I’d left school for about a year.
“I’d actually taken on this cleaning job — I was a char boy. I went round cleaning on odd mornings or afternoons whenever I wasn’t doing gigs.
“So there I was, in with the In Crowd. In the group there was Keith West, a guy called Boots on bass, Ken Lawrence on drums and little Junior Wood on rhythm guitar. Their music style had advanced to soul, and they were into Otis Redding in a guitar band kind of way.
“We were a little ahead of the general trend. We got into soul just before the rest of London jumped on the bandwagon, so we had a slight advantage.
“The bass player and drummer then left the group; one had got into serious trouble, and the other just drifted away.
Strong feeling
“Our replacement on drums was Twink, from the Fairies (now known as the Pink Fairies). The Fairies had more or less broken up, so Twink came along with us. So suddenly we had a four piece group, had quite a strong feeling about what we wanted to play, and we changed our name to Tomorrow.”
As the In Crowd, says Howe, they released two records for EMI. One was called “Stop, Wait A Minute”, and the other “Why Must They Criticise?”.
“One of our first gigs as Tomorrow was at the U.F.O. in Tottenham Court Road. We played there and, quite surprisingly, everybody jumped on us and told us we were great. We got a pay increase from our manager, so we were very pleased with ourselves. We’d gained that little bit of extra ground just by a bit of thought and organisation.
“We then cut a record called `My White Bicycle’, which I suppose was a mild hit. That was in 1967. So we immediately started work on our next single, because everybody thought ‘My White Bicycle’ should have been a smash.
“Actually we recorded that song soon after I met Mark Wirtz, who had wanted a guitarist to work with him on a piece of music called ‘The Teenage Opera’. I told him I was in a group and he was interested. So we started recording and the first thing he did for us was ‘My White Bicycle’.
“Meanwhile I was working with Mark on ‘The Teenage Opera’. Keith West then added lyrics and soon it was released and was a very successful record. But it disrupted the balance of the group because we immediately jumped on the bandwagon of going out for amounts like £250, which was big money at that time.”
But some audiences, he says, had expected the Keith West show — complete with little boys and girls — and all they could see was this horrible foursome.
Threw pennies
“Our most memorable tour was of Ireland, when got pennies thrown at us because they couldn’t hear Keith singing,” said Steve laughing. “But Keith didn’t even care, and we didn’t care — it was the music and the feeling that was going on that mattered to us. In our act we had some freak called Susie Creamcheese, and she used to dance around. We almost had a ballet thing going sometimes, with two of the guys dancing with her when I’d play on my own.
“Our fame spread, and we were doing things like the Olympia Christmas on Earth show, and the Alexandra Palace Show with Pink Floyd and Arthur Brown.
“Then our manager started asking what bookings we were going to accept now that our money had dropped. But we didn’t want to play for only £70.
“Our master plan was to flood the market with lots of Tomorrow records. But the idea backfired, and at the beginning of 1968 the group split up through lack of work.
“We had terrible financial problems, and our equipment was getting sent back. I stayed with Keith West, and we did a few sessions together — Keith, Aynsley Dunbar, a bass player and myself. Keith did in fact release a record called `On A Saturday’ but it was mixed badly and got nowhere at all. And so our friendship ended.”
Improved by Dylan
By this time Howe’s style had improved through listening to guitarists like Bob Dylan, Albert Lee and Wes Montgomery, and he spent the next couple of months searching around for a nice group to join.
“One day I got a call from a couple of guys who told me they were forming a group, and they asked if LIKE TO HAVE A LOOK AT THEM. They had a retainer from the Deep Purple managers, John Coletta, and Tony Edwards, so everything seemed sunny financially. By then it was mid-1968.
“For the next one and a half years this was the beginning of the end for me, because I got too involved with these guys. It just wasn’t working.
“What we were trying to do, was to make a lovely album and go out on the strength of it, which is a very hard thing to do. The album’s either got to be very good — or you need an excellent publicity man. We didn’t have either.
“We became a group called Bodast. We were all crazy… four lost souls all having a nice time together. We had a house in West Finchley where we’d play to ourselves, but we never had enough work.
“When we had nearly finished the album, the MGM company in England decided to discontinue recording English groups. This was just the first of our many disasters.
“Then John Coletta said goodbye to us because he had heard some ridiculous story that we were taking heroin. So the regular money stopped as well.
“At that time I turned down some really good jobs. I joined the Nice when David O’List left — joined them for a day — but I phoned up Keith Emerson and said, ‘listen Keith, I’m not going to join you. I’m going to stay with these guys, because if I leave them they’ll be nowhere’.
“At the time this was more important to me although I dearly wanted to play with Keith Emerson. That was the only time in my life when I’ve ever let friendship interfere with my musical career.
“After the MGM letdown, we finished the album and were desperately trying to find another company to become interested. CBS liked it and told us that if we stayed together they’d release the record. We swore we’d stay together if they’d give us some money. But eventually they told us to forget it.
“The only bit of organisation we ever had then was a manager called Roy Guest, who was working for NEMS. He was organising the Pop proms at the Albert Hail, and we did a show there with the Who and Chuck Berry.
“But our drummer, he’d gone off to Ibiza, and when we returned from Paris, where we’d done a show with Chuck Berry, we found he’d sent all our equipment back. This was the second time for this to happen to me.”
They thought it was going to be a terrible winter, he adds, and then in walked this big American film producer.
Howe recalls the event with a wry smile on his face.
“This guy walked in with a fat cigar dangling from his mouth and he said: ‘Ah perfect, a struggling group’ (as he looked on the floor). ‘I’m going to film you, and you’re going to be the stars of a great film, and all you’ve got to do is to carry on as you are.
“This was the kind of style that fitted in fine with us; not too much effort — we were very lazy. Of course we insisted we had to have some money, and we did all these deals with him. After that he returned to America to sort everything out.
“What we’d really done was sign our lives away to him for three years, so we just sat there for two weeks waiting to hear something. Not a word came. And then there was still nothing by the third week, and by the fourth we were kicking the doors. By now I’d been with the group for one and a half years. It was all over for me.
“We’d wanted to go out and play, and when the time was right we had no equipment and were really stuck. For instance, when we played at the Speakeasy we’d be paid £20 for the gig, and we had to pay out £20 to hire equipment. That’s how ridiculous it was.”
By now it was the end of 1969. Steve had a friend called Jim Morris, whom he’d met in the States, and Morris phoned him and asked if he would like to come on a tour playing guitar for Pat Arnold.
“It was an all-star tour with Delaney and Bonnie, Eric Clapton and many others. I was playing with Ashton, Gardner and Dyke.
“We got on the road and went to Germany, and Eric Clapton was very nice. He was really in charge of the tour. We returned to England and started touring here, and George Harrison came along and played guitar on about five or six dates.
“By the time the tour got to Sweden and Holland everything was really rocking. I didn’t like what I was playing, but I knew I could get to enjoy it if everybody else continued to be as happy as they were. The whole idea of playing on that tour was to have a good time. Some of the dates, like the one at the Albert Hall were a bit tricky. But Delaney and Bonnie were terrific.
Great character
“Delaney was a great character on stage; he could sing so strong, and really hammer out a rhythm on guitar. Eric was playing very well, and the only criticism people had was that there wasn’t enough of him.
“The main trouble was that, really, there were so many guitarists on the tour. There was Dave Mason, Clapton, Harrison and Delaney — four top rate guitarists. It was a shame, because I longed to play with them but there were only four amps on the stage.
“My only other regret was that I couldn’t play what I was capable of playing, or anything as good as the standard I’d hoped to keep. It was all a bit frustrating.
“The tour was about a month long, and at the end of it no one wanted to split up — we’d all kind of found a little home for a while.
“Once that was all over I went along to the Speakeasy and put myself about, so to speak, letting everyone know I was available for gigs. Then the telephone rang one Sunday evening and it was Chris Squire from Yes. We’d vaguely known each other from 1967 when Tomorrow was playing at U.F.O., and Chris was in a group called Syn.
“I went along to meet the group a couple of days later, and we seemed to get along, so we tried it out at a gig in Putney. And everything seemed to click.
“When I joined Yes I felt I’d met up with a group that was playing an individual kind of music, and that’s what I was looking for. This was possible because I’d tried it out with other groups; I’d even played with Atomic Rooster, and I almost joined Jethro Tull at one stage.
“Yes was for me a tremendous, experimental group. There was more of let’s play something different, and don’t play play — don’t even suggest it — because it just wasn’t new.
“I fitted in so well with Yes then because they had such a serious outlook. When we’re working on a new song we try our very best to work up a bit of music and not just a three-minute sound — it has to be a little more than that for us.
Freedom I wanted
“People still say ‘you must be pleased you joined Yes’. Well obviously I am, because it’s given me the amount of freedom I wanted.
“But we got to know each other not on a personal level, but strictly through our music. Rick Wakeman found it a little difficult at first, because we were not particular friendly. We treated him as we treat each other: musically we have great respect for each other, and personally we’re friends when it suits us. And that way a group can work together very smoothly.
“We had Tony Kaye playing organ, but we wanted keyboards, so we got Rick in. We wanted to use everything we could and put on a good show for people in order for us to keep up with the way we were thinking. Rick was the perfect choice because he’s an experienced keyboard player. Since he joined the group we’ve now got five keyboards in our act. And it’s got to be very exciting.”
One thing that Howe would like to do in the future would be to take time off to study the guitar, but he appreciates it’s something he`ll have to come to terms with because he doesn’t like reading music.
“I’ve tried to teach myself three times so far,” he said sheepishly. “At three different times I’ve been able to read music very slowly.
“The trouble is, there’d be a title at the top of the sheet music, but I can already play most tunes without needing the music written down. That puts a block on it straight away, because I can’t concentrate on the notes as I already know the tune.
“It’s so difficult when you get a classical piece of music that you might only know in melody, and then you have to somehow learn to play it properly. The only way to learn is to teach yourself to associate the notes with the dots on a piece of paper.
“This, for the life of me, I cannot do.”
If you have a large collection of the following magazines, don`t throw them out, but contact me as I would be very interested in these: Creem, Circus, Hit Parader and Metal Edge.
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My Things - Music history for those who are able to read. 