Roundabout

It was the year 1972 and I was listening to the radio in my mother's car as she was taking me to school. A song came on the radio unlike any other I had heard before. It lasted for 8 minutes, an unbelievably long time. I was afraid we would get to the school before the song ended. Fortunately, there were enough traffic lights between our house and the school that the trip lasted just long enough. But I was blown away. I knew I had to have that song.

So began my long appreciation for the music of the classic rock band Yes. I bought their albums one by one: Fragile, The Yes Album, Close to the Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans, Time and A Word, Yes, and finally Relayer. But there the magic stopped. This great band which had produced some of the most incredible music in the universe started to go its separate ways. The artists branched out on their own, released solo works, some better than others. I was devastated. And when Yes released new albums in the 1980s, they were as unlike the Yes of yesteryear as any wannabe classic rock band. For about four years, from 1971 to 1974, Yes was truly the most imaginative, innovative band in rock'n'roll. Sadly, the magic faded.