In 1972, Yes released the most ambitious album of their then career. Close To The Edge found them reaching peak creativity with a long-form record that was influenced, in part, by Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, but it also saw Bill Bruford wave goodbye (at least for a couple of decades) to the band that had launched his career. Fifty years on, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Jon Anderson and Bill Bruford look back on the band’s inspired fifth album and the spiritual journey it took them on.

Words: Sid Smith

Do not adjust your set! Alan White joins his soon-to-be bandmates at the mixing desk during the making of CloseTo The Edge.

Image: Martyn J Adelman

“Every single one of us were into it and knew what we were all trying to achieve.”

Rick Wakeman

Whenever he’s going out in the car, it’s Rick Wakeman’s habit to grab a handful of CDs so he’s got something to listen to while he drives. Not knowing which albums happen to be in the pile he’s snatched up adds a nice element of surprise on the journey, kind of like shuffle play, but with the addition of the internal combustion engine. On a recent jaunt, Wakeman found himself listening to Close To The Edge. “I hadn’t heard it for a long time and as I was listening, I actually pulled the car over on the A14 and I sat there, and I actually said out loud, pardon the language, ‘How the fuck did we do that?’ Because when I listen to it, with the technology we had at that time there is no way we should have been able to do that album. Absolutely no way.” As Wakeman talks about the album he was a part of 50 years ago, he sounds genuinely moved. “We had ideas of what we wanted to do and then we had to sit down and figure out how to do it and record it. That was the genius of that album and I put it down as the very last Yes album where we were completely ahead of technology. For me, what makes Close To The Edge the finest Yes album is [that] it’s where every single one of us were into it and knew what we were all trying to achieve.”

There are some musicians who will quietly tell you that they really can’t remember much about some of the albums they’ve made. There are lots of reasons for that of course. Too much rock’n’roll lifestyle back in the day will seriously curtail the grey matter’s ability to dial up events, and to be fair, the people who were all in their 20s and are now in their 70s probably weren’t taking notes at the time on the off chance that someone would be asking them questions about what they were doing 50 years ago. Yet for Rick Wakeman, who admits he was no stranger to many indulgences as a young man, the events of those times at Advision Studios remain surprisingly fresh in his mind.

“I can tell you exactly what a typical day during the making of Close To The Edge looked like. I used to come in and park outside the studio at about 10am There was a little snack shop café on the corner of Gosfield Street and I’d go in and get a bite to eat. When I went into the studio they were making coffee and Steve [Howe] was there – he would spend a considerable amount of time tuning his guitars and getting ready for whatever he wanted to do. Then Bill [Bruford] would turn up saying that there was no point in turning up beforehand as Chris [Squire] wouldn’t be there, which of course he wasn’t. Jon [Anderson] would arrive and he and I, or Steve and him, might go into a room and talk about what we were going to go through that day. Eventually, early afternoon, Chris would show up after having just rolled out of bed. It was a nightmare but you had to live with it. Bless him, to his dying day his time-keeping was crap. Chris would then sort of play around with his bass and then if we were lucky, by mid-afternoon, we might actually play something.”

Steve Howe, Jon Anderson and Bill Bruford at the Rainbow Theatre, London on January 14, 1972.

MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES

“Jon and I were really in awe of Mahavishnu Orchestra and we thought we’d hurtle in with something like that and just surprise everybody with high tempo and lots of movement.”

Steve Howe

In 1971, the year before they recorded Close To The Edge, Yes had undergone two important changes in personnel. This was not about finding mere substitutes to continue along a particular path. Injecting new talent as a matter of policy would always triumph over sentiment. In those early years it was indicative of a ruthless pragmatism that at its best sought to ensure Yes’ reach would always exceed their grasp, striving to always transform and improve rather than settle for the ordinary or average. By actively embracing change and taking the difficult decision to part company with original members Peter Banks and Tony Kaye, Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, and Bill Bruford were making a deep commitment to what Yes might become rather than what it was. The influx of adrenaline and creative energies accompanying such decisions didn’t just raise their individual game as players but formed the impetus that would put the band in a position where it would not only survive but evolve, grow and hopefully prosper.

Steve Howe’s impact on the band on The Yes Album was nothing less than seismic, shaking their sound from top to bottom with a galloping virtuosity that bordered on the rapacious, greedily swallowing any and all challenges with relish as they rushed toward him. His debut was the very definition of hitting the ground running. Wakeman’s arrival shortly afterwards was every bit as significant. That he could replicate his talented predecessor’s work was a given. However, his real value was in his ability to remodel the base metal that accrued in the Yes rehearsal room and writing sessions; there were numerous riffs, runs and sequences that all needed to be honed and threaded together. His formal musical background allied to his experience as an in-demand session player, where efficiency and speed went hand in hand, meant he quickly understood why one thing worked over another without the need to laboriously engage in a process of elimination.