Was Rick Wakeman the most important member who left YES?

[roundabout]

Well I was front row at the capital theatre Clearwater front row.He played a few cuts from Yes ,Bowie his solo albums and the beatles,, In one word it was "Amazing"....This man is still kicking ass !!.Not including losing Chris And Alan which you can]t include I'm still debating in my mind what was a bigger blow to YES music losing Jon or Rick or both?Well after the show seeing Rick playing like it was 1978 I personally came to this conclusion.I love Jon and his voice he is the voice of YES,But replacement singers like benoit and JD do a fair job mimicking the great Jon Anderson...On the other hand the Keyboards is a major component in the vast majority of classic Yessongs.I've been to over 100 Yes related and Yes members shows and the only keyboardist that can give justice to Rick's parts is Igor and Igor only...I'm sorryTony you can play the hammond as good as anyone but you only do a fair job on Rick's parts,So what I'm getting at since I guess it's been since 2008 i've seen Jeff Downes trying to play Rick's parts only to play them in a brutal unrecognizable fashan only to ruin my concerts experiences.........What is everyone's opinion who was the biggest lose for YES losing Jon or Rick or both?

[Yesed]

Definitely could be considered the most important addition to Yes, along with Steve Howe. The Yes album was a prog hit and breakthrough imo. But Fragile with the addition of Wakeman, took them to full potential. Same could be said in reverse to some degree and various perspectives, of the loss of such talent.

[pianozach]

As much as Rick was an extremely important component of Yes, I'd have to say that Jon Anderson would be the most "important" member who left Yes.

He left after Tormato, and again prior to Fly From Here (yes, that's debatable, but the rest of the band couldn't get him interested in touring, so . . . )

[Homemade Parachute]

Which time?

[Davy]

By most accounts, Rick was essential in arranging Fragile and CTTE, and a huge part of their sound, but the others quickly caught up musically and by 1980 he was obsolete.

I dunno, it probably depends on how much you like the albums after Tormato. Geoff and Trevor R played much more appropriately on Drama and 90125 than Rick on GFTO or Tormato, IMO.

[Stewe]

Depends on time...Imo, Wakeman was best fit on Fragile and CTTE. But equally, after Tales, Yes could not go better than taking Moraz in. Relayer is unparalleled (although I would be interested how they would sound with Vangelis). After second Wakeman's departure, I think Downes on Drama was far more refreshing than Wakeman on Tormato.

Most important departure for me was Rabin's. I wish Yes produced more albums as Talk, which reached heights of 70s classics. After Talk, the band called Yes, which was able producing phenomenal albums, was gone. Despite some good moments such as The Ladder. Which even didn't involve Wakeman... Wakeman at least produced a great album during that time, Out There, to remedy himself.

[yamishogun]

Most important departure for me was Rabin's. I wish Yes produced more albums as Talk, which reached heights of 70s classics. After Talk, the band called Yes, which was able producing phenomenal albums, was gone. Despite some good moments such as The Ladder.

I thought the same when ABWH came out, which I liked: I assumed and hoped Howe wouldn't return to Yes and assumed that YesWest would keep going with Rabin. And now we wait for the second Howe release within two years...

[madbear]

I think Bill Bruford was a heavy loss. I'm not big on drummers but his work is amazing.

[RelayerI]

I'm a big fan of Rick and think they've struggled to replace him. Moraz was amazing on his own contributions, but didn't "do Rick" that well. Tony's great but no Rick either, and Geoff can't do it.

Only Igor 100% nailed it with Oliver and Brislin coming damned close. Imho anyway.

[Enlighten]

I’m going to go left field here. Rick was wonderful in Yes in the seventies and was instrumental in bringing them to their zenith during their main sequence. They did fine without him too. Relayer and Drama are testaments to that. Jon, of course, was also fundamental in Yes reaching their highest peaks during those ten true summers. And once again, Drama proved that Yes could be different, be phenomenal, be heavier and still be Yes without Jon (and Rick). The eighties changed everything, Jon was relegated to the back seat and essentially muzzled in certain ways. By the time ABWH came along, something was missing. You had four primary architects of Yes all together again but that ebullient Yes magic wasn’t quite there. In the nineties Jon just continued to get softer and in my opinion, weaker in his musical ideas. Rick was still Rick but I don’t think he brought any new tricks or grand musical offering to the Keys material.

Yes had an opportunity in 2000-2001 to start to have a vision that looked towards the future and building a new Yes ship that could maintain its stated ideals of being innovators and musical savants. Gifted, creative new blood was needed. They had it in Tom Brislin. TB could have been the cornerstone of creating a new Yes for the new century. He is a keyboard wizard who can also write music. He is also a team player with an ego that is in check. Brislin plays all the Yes material and plays it better than the people who created it (just my opinion). They should never have let him go. Yes, of course, went the typical route. They brought back the guy with the most name recognition to try to capitalize on the “classic lineup”. But like he always did, Rick left. and Yes continued to become a mere shadow of its former self.

[Yorkshire Square]

Only if you multiply how important he was by the number of times he left...

[michelle johnston]

I’m going to go left field here. Rick was wonderful in Yes in the seventies and was instrumental in bringing them to their zenith during their main sequence. They did fine without him too. Relayer and Drama are testaments to that. Jon, of course, was also fundamental in Yes reaching their highest peaks during those ten true summers. And once again, Drama proved that Yes could be different, be phenomenal, be heavier and still be Yes without Jon (and Rick). The eighties changed everything, Jon was relegated to the back seat and essentially muzzled in certain ways. By the time ABWH came along, something was missing. You had four primary architects of Yes all together again but that ebullient Yes magic wasn’t quite there. In the nineties Jon just continued to get softer and in my opinion, weaker in his musical ideas. Rick was still Rick but I don’t think he brought any new tricks or grand musical offering to the Keys material.

Yes had an opportunity in 2000-2001 to start to have a vision that looked towards the future and building a new Yes ship that could maintain its stated ideals of being innovators and musical savants. Gifted, creative new blood was needed. They had it in Tom Brislin. TB could have been the cornerstone of creating a new Yes for the new century. He is a keyboard wizard who can also write music. He is also a team player with an ego that is in check. Brislin plays all the Yes material and plays it better than the people who created it (just my opinion). They should never have let him go. Yes, of course, went the typical route. They brought back the guy with the most name recognition to try to capitalize on the “classic lineup”. But like he always did, Rick left. and Yes continued to become a mere shadow of its former self.

it's terribly important to remember that Rick was a session musician, and a very good one, when he joined Yes. He needed a very very firm foundation on which to offer his extensions and expansions. That is what he was used to. That is why his best work is on Fragile and Close To The Edge.

When he rejoined in the winter of 1976, he said it was because the songs were really really good he had something to work on. In contrast two years earlier he saw the Mahavishnu inspired material being prepared for the follow up to Tales ,which he hated because of the lack of architectural structure and waffle, and knowing he hasn't got a Jazz bone in his body left.

I never understood why he thinks he is compatible with Trevor, there is nothing in his baroque soloing that is remotely close to Trevors musical style even Trevors more expansive world feel is better suited to Trevor playing the keys himself. The intro Rick played to Hold On on the ARW tour was positively silly and sounded like sixties kitsch. But I think I now understood what attracted him to Trevor musically and why Bill admired him. Trevor has a highly developed sense of what he wants and that is something that going back to those session days makes him feel comfortable. Rick likes to work with certainty in the classical pop, prog rock field.

His contribution since he left in 1979 or 1980, depending on who you ask, has been frankly irrelevant and thats 43 years ago.

Listening to Oliver play a rhapsodic version of Wondrous Stories on the Gordon Giltrap tour I am entirely satisfied that he can play any of his fathers works to day and with more accuracy and commitment and I use that example because today live Rick's best work is on the Piano, his synthesiser work at for example at the Henry Concert a few years back was beyond lazy simply squirting routine arpeggios into things.

[bondegezou]

By most accounts, Rick was essential in arranging Fragile and CTTE

... arranging music written by Anderson, Squire and Howe, which is why he was never as important a member of the band as Anderson, Squire or Howe.

[cjreyes]

No.

[Ash Armstrong]

Oh, I don't know, and I can't be bothered to care. What was, was, and it's gone.