The 20th of February 1972
Official U.K. Albums Chart results from Sunday the 20th to Saturday the 26th of February 1972
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 19th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 20th,
announced on Tuesday the 22nd,
and broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 1 on Sunday the 27th of February 1972.
Yes
Fragile
At No.47, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Albums Chart” on the day I was born, is Yes with “Fragile”.
Yes’ latest LP…
…had struck it’s highest position of No.7 in the chart, on its very first week of entry the year before, on the 28th of November 1971.
From there it would initially stay in the Top 50 for only 3 weeks, leaving before Christmas.
But by the beginning of this new year of 1972 it was back again, with what intended to be a lengthier time on the chart, and that’s where we find it here.
The new formations of this group had been threatening to align for some time,..
…but now, it seemed that everything may have converged perfectly.
Three albums in and, up until now, it felt like the group held as much attraction in its core, as there was gravity on Pluto.
This current line-up had come together from a few directions around the British Isles, and at different stages. And I’ll begin the journey at the large suburb of Wembley, in the London Borough of Brent, with then-17 year-old bass guitarist Chris Squire.
Back in 1964,..
…Chris had helped form an R&B outfit called ‘The Selfs’, who entered a competition, linked to the popular music TV show ‘Ready Steady Go!’, which was imaginatively called ‘Ready Steady Win!’, and although they didn’t get first prize, they did manage to get a recording session, pressing an acetate disc with a song they’d composed called “Love You”.
Eventually,..
…them ‘Selfs’ would get swallowed up by another outfit, who had previously gone by the name of ‘High Court’, but had now named themselves ‘The Syn’, which is where Chris first met up with guitarist Peter Banks.
As part of ‘The Syn’, they began to shift away from traditional R&B to follow early psychedelic paths, releasing their first single in this new form called “Created By Clive”.
The band became one of the support acts on a night at the Marquee club, which would go down into rock legend,..
…when the upper echelons of the music world would first witness the inferno of ‘The Jimi Hendrix Experience’ in their introductory performance.
The Syn’s support slot would also secure them a residency there for a considerable time, opening for other like-minded acts, building up to eventually have their own weekly headline slot, where they began composing and rehearsing more adventurous mini-rock-extravaganzas, such as this work in progress entitled “The Gangster Opera”.
However, internal band logistics started to become problematic,..
especially with the difficulty in attempting to secure a permanent drummer, and eventually the band splintered, with Chris, and then Peter both welcomed into another up-and-coming psychedelic trio, fancifully named ‘Mabel Greer’s Toyshop’. The name, apparently inspired by the anthropomorphic mind of Lewis Carroll, a hundred years before.
With a previous member of this new outfit deciding to become an artist full time, it provided the opportunity for Chris to join, and subsequently for Peter to be invited, and thus enlarge the band into a quartet.
The foundational members of the group were also thankful, especially for Chris’s involvement, who unlocked the door to more venue opportunities, given his previous involvement with the ‘Marquee’ and the ‘UFO’, which consequently became ‘Middle Earth’, after the former was forced to permanently close it’s doors after one police raid too many. And it was here they met with exploratory DJ John Peel, who held court on Saturday nights there.
John had been championing more contemporary artists,..
…since he’d broadcast in the small hours, at pirate radio station ‘Radio London’, where his self-produced show ‘The Perfumed Garden’, which avoided the mainstream pop music and instead featured more avanteguarde musical offerings, interspersed with poetry readings, had attracted a huge following prior to the pirates being forced off the air.
Now that he’d secured a place at the more regimental and corporate BBC Radio 1, he endured (in an attempt to keep his cutting-edge type of radio show just as relevant), to introduce acts he felt would otherwise be not as noticed, by organising sessions for them to play on his new show; the re-instated, and re-invigorated ‘Top Gear’, where they would get the chance to be heard across the nation.
This he managed to do with ‘Mabel Greer’s Toyshop’, after he was introduced to them at ‘Middle Earth’. Setting up a radio recording session to be broadcast at a later date, which included the track ‘Beyond and Before’.
It was also around this time,..
…that the group recorded some demo’s for the MCA label, which included the track ‘Electric Funeral’.
Heading into the middle of 1968,..
…Chris was introduced to a guy called Jon Anderson, who was currently working behind the bar in a Soho drinking club called ‘La Chasse’, and found they had a harmonious connection, both in musical tastes and also vocally.
Jon, who grew up in the town of Accrington,..
…which was situated in the borough of Lancashire, had begun his music career back in 1962, when he’d allied with a group his brother was also a part of, called ‘The Warriors’, who released a couple of singles in the mid-1960’s. One of them named ‘Don’t Make Me Blue’.
However, by 1967, the Warriors had split while touring Germany,..
…and eventually Jon headed towards London, where he found lodgings arranged by the manager of ‘La Chasse’ which he paid for by helping to look after the drinking establishment.
It was here, where he’d manage to arrange to record some demo’s through EMI, which they eventually released a selection of, giving Jon the pseudonym of ‘Hans Christian’.
From there, after another offer to join some other band fell flat, it would eventually lead up to his meeting with Chris.
Jon and Chris, wasting no time,..
…immediately began writing songs together, with Chris subsequently inviting Jon to get together with the rest of the band for some live gigs.
And it also wasn’t long into that summer, that ‘Mabel’s drummer decided to leave for another group, which the band quickly covered, with a guy they’d known for some time. Bill Bruford.
Bill, eager to join anyone that would take him,,.
…had initially managed to try out the drum stool for blues outfit Savoy Brown, who found him a little too colourful in his playing style for their liking.
He even traveled all the way to Rome, Italy, after answering an ad in a music shop, for a band who’d secured a residency at a place called the ‘Piper Club’, only to discover when he got all the way there, that they could hardly play.
Disillusioned, and with no money left, due to the reliance of the now none existent gig’s earnings to get back home, he somehow managed to hitchhike all the way north through Europe with all his kit, and arrive back to England.
Safely back home, he decided to place his own advertisment in ‘Melody Maker’, which Jon picked up and, after the band had witnessed his impressive audition, invited him to join the band immediately for their performance that evening.
After a few more adjustments in the group,..
…which had seen Peter leave and then return, after the replacement guitarist left, and the addition of keyboard player Tony Kaye by the end of the Summer, the band decided to ditch the extravagent, but cumbersome name, and instead agreed on Peter’s much more agreeable suggestion of simply ‘Yes’.
A new name, and a new positive outlook to go with it,..
…although the group weren’t quite out of the woods yet.
Barely a month into their new name, and Bill decided that he’d try and further his education instead, and attempted to enroll for economics and sociology at Leeds University.
However, Bill’s prospects for enrollment ended up as dismal as the long trudge back from Italy with a drum kit on his back had been.
This was fortunate for the group, who had been struggling with finding a half-decent replacement for him, and now, welcoming Bill back into the fold, they won over an audience at the Speakeasy club which included renowned record executive Ahmet Ertegun, which secured them a recording contract with Atlantic.
Realising they weren’t the only band on the block…
…willing to push music into new unknown territory, they therefore hid away together for some intense rehearsing, that eventually led to some hastened-up studio time to record their first album, which included a track that Chris and Jon had been quietly working on since they’d first met.
The second album became a bit of a juggling act,..
…along with an increasingly busier tour schedule, that included the added bonus of securing a support slot for ‘Cream’s farewell live show at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall. A legendary historic rock music event which included one of Bill’s all-time favourite drummers, Ginger Baker.
When it came time to go back into the studio, the feeling was to try and become more boundary-breaking than before, both musically and lyrically. With Jon beginning to write more elaborate lines than an average three minute love song.
The expanse of the compositions were also grown, to try and get a bigger sound; firstly by experimenting with a mellotron, and when that didn’t work, going for an actual orchestra. Something that not all the members of the group were particularly happy with. Especially Peter, who openly knocked the idea, saying it had already been done (which it had to an extent), such as by the likes of heavy rock band ‘Deep Purple’.
With both these incentives, the length of the tracks themselves threatened to become lengthier, to accommodate their bolder approaches.
Peter was also unhappy with the choice of producer, who seemed not nearly experienced enough, and not as in tune with the group’s collaborative mindset for the sound they were attempting to achieve. And although the latter critique was also concurred by Chris, Peter’s overall relentlessly burgeoning negativity began to cause ill-feeling amongst the other members.
Unfortunately for him, things came to a head at the end of the sessions and, not long after they’d finished the album, Peter had had enough, and the band were on the lookout for his replacement, which would arrive in the form of Steve Howe.
Steve hailed from Holloway, in the London Borough of Islington.
At 17, he’d joined a group called the ‘Syndicats’, who released their first single. A cover of Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” in 1964; but more significantly, it featured Steve’s first co-writing credit on its B-Side, which was named “True To Me”.
A year later,..
…Steve had jumped over to a group called ‘The In Crowd’ who, being a more soulful outfit, had a minor hit with Otis Redding’s “That’s How Strong My Love Is”.
Shortly after,..
…and sensing the changing tide in the musical landscape in 1967, the group headed into more psychedelic territory, by changing their name to ‘Tomorrow’ and releasing a couple of singles, with the second of those giving Steve another co-writing credit on the song “Revolution”.
When not starring in pie fights, in swinging sixties fashionable films,..
…he leapt at the chance to collaborate with the French / German record producer Mark Wirtz who at the time was working on a concept album called ‘A Teenage Opera’ at EMI studios, and offering a ton of session work in the process.
This gave Steve a chance to record his first fully owned composition. A track provisionally titled “Mothballs”, but which eventually changed to “So Bad”.
He also contributed guitar to Mark’s ambitious project,..
…which the producer had also roped in Steve’s band mate from ‘Tomorrow’, singer Keith West, who gave his songwriting and vocal duties, along with Steve’s plucking to the album’s ‘Excerpt’, which would go sailing up the UK Singles Chart to No.2 in 1967’s summer of love.
This unexpected hit proved too big a body blow for ‘Tomorrow’,..
…who their audience now requested them to play the tune, even though the other members of the band didn’t contribute in any way, leading to the dissolution of the group.
At a loose end, he participated in another of Keith’s projects amongst other collaborations, and then ended up joining a group called Bodast, which seemed a promising venture, until the record label went bust, just as they were about to release an album.
As the death knell sounded for the group’s ambitions, some of Steve’s input would therefore get shelved for the time being, including a piece called “Nether Street”, which would eventually find a home in the future, under it’s new name of “Würm”.
The lookout for new potential groups,..
…became more problematic, even though he tried out for some of the best up-and-coming acts at that time, nothing seemed to really fit. That is until the opportunity to join ‘Yes’ arrived, and after a few try out shows, he joined the band on their expedition down to Devon, where they intended to write and rehearse their 3rd album.
The band eventually rooted themselves into the out-of-the-way Langley Farm,..
situated in the small quiet village of Romansleigh, North Devon, after their first choice restricted them to not play after dark.
Once settled, they began rehearsal work on their third album, which took them through into the late summer of 1970; eventually heading back towards London to record in the autumn.
Although there were some serious outside pressures to make this album a success, such as the prospect that their record label may drop them if it didn’t sell well enough, and (in what would become a terrible misjudged decision), their manager jumping ship at this critical stage, they managed to focus enough instead on the project, especially now that, with Steve on board, they also had another creative writer amongst them.
With recording completed, they now headed back on the touring road prior to it’s release; although a huge head-on collision, while they were on their way back to London after a gig in Plymouth, nearly put paid to the group ever performing again.
With time running out for the album’s planned release, the recovering shell-shocked patients were quickly relocated to the assigned photographer’s home to try and get a picture, which would ultimately become the front cover of the new LP. Hence why they don’t look best pleased, and poor Tony’s painfully fractured foot is encased in plaster.
For this album musically, they had intended to break different boundaries, and implement the use of groundbreaking synthesizers into the tracks. However, Tony refused to yield to their requests. Instead, relying on the trusted equipment he was used to.
The other change was the music itself beginning to expand significantly, with this album only managing to fit six pieces in total.
The biggest boost though was the reception it was given, sending the album straight into the Top 10 and securing their relationship with their label.
Most of this came down to the gelling of Steve’s playing with Chris and Tony’s work. And it looked like the planets were aligning nicely for the group as a whole.
Flying on the coattails of the success of ‘The Yes Album’,..
…the band headed off, firstly for a European tour, and then carried on to America and Canada.
However, as the tours progressed, so friction became an issue between the new guitarist and the set-in-his-ways keyboardist, who was digging his heels in regarding the relentless pushing of the band’s preference to experiment with other keyboards.
By the end of the tour, things became untenable.
For a band whose nature was to expand in every musical direction, it felt to the others like Tony was stalling the progressive development of the band. And by the last flight back home, Chris and Steve approached Jon with a reality check and a chance to grab a new opportunity, as Jon recalled in a retrospective interview, looking back at the musical shuffling of the first few line-ups within the band with Greg Brodsky for ‘Best Classic Bands’…
“During the course of those first couple of albums there was this sort of imbalance within the band. You spot it, you feel it. You hope it’s gonna evolve. You talk about it and stuff. And then when you know it’s not gonna work, you’ve got to change one of the guys.
It’s never easy, because you thought you were just gonna get on with it.
If something’s not working, it’s very simple, I think, as to why things aren’t working. It’s a logical thing so you change and you find somebody else. And that lifts you up.
Instead of just being a band, you’re spending a lot of time thinking and worrying. Are you going to be able to survive? Because it’s not flowing as one. And you bring in the guitarist, Steve Howe, and all of a sudden we’re locked in [makes swoosh sound] and I’ve got somebody else to sing with and we’ve got a guy who can actually play [classical guitar like famed Spanish musician] Rodrigo. This guy can play jazz and rock and everything.
So the door opens there and you go through a period of time again and all of a sudden The Yes Album happens and then you’re going on big tours and, again, you notice there’s an imbalance again throughout the tour because one of the guys isn’t quite up to scratch. And it’s just the way it is.
So, at the end of that tour, I remember I was on the plane coming home and Steve and Chris came over and said, “Look, Tony Kaye… great guy.” But, you know, we’d just seen Rick Wakeman about a month earlier. And I said, “There’s that Rick Wakeman guy,” and we’ve got to get on with life and move on, you know, rather than keep going on, set in the same circle. And that’s what happens with a band.”
Hailing from the Western Greater London Suburb of Perivale,..
…Rick grew up to the sound of his close relatives playing the piano which (along with a visit to witness a live rendition of Sergei Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’) inspired him to begin tinkling the ivory’s himself.
However, unlike Tony in the band, Rick welcomed, and was fascinated by, any instrument which had a set of keys, from the harpsichord all the way up to a cathedral pipe organ, and anything a new technological innovation would allow.
He quickly gained a reputation in the session musician circles, as the go-to man for any keyboard work required for a song or piece of music.
Some of course, have since gone into legend, with many mythical a tale being colourfully (and sometimes not entirely truthfully) being reminisced by the meastro himself on his many popular tours.
One of his first foray’s into the session world happened when he provided piano for ‘Junior’s Eyes’ debut single B-Side “Black Snake”.
It wouldn’t be long though,..
…before he’d begin performing on certain tracks which would pass into historical folk lore later on in life, but at the time, were just another quick way of earning a few quid.
One such track would be supplying keyboard accompaniment for a hard working, but still virtually unknown performer, who was taking advantage of the upcoming moon landings, which were building up to a hyper intensity of the western world’s population at the end of the sixties, with a song whose title was a play on Stanley Kubrick’s mind blowing latest feature film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.
The first band the Rick officially joined,..
…was ‘The Strawbs’, where his outstanding performance had been captured at their biggest concert so far, at the recently opened Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank in London.
An off -the-cuff interlude, for when the rest of the band would experience technical difficulties, would be included on their live album ‘Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios’.
His other band which he ‘joined’ around this time,..
…was called ‘Dib Cochran and the Earwigs’ (‘Dib’ being David Bowie’s mate Marc Bolan, who was having a play with his record company at the time).
I’ll let Rick explain the rest of this one…
Teaming up with David Bowie once again,..
…he would participate in a selection of songs which he would glow about throughout his career, and reminisce to Jeff Perlah for ‘Newsweek’ many years later
“David was incredibly influential to me. I learned more about how to work in a studio from David than anybody. He was tremendous in that respect. He was a very generous musician as a songwriter and singer. When I was in his house, he played for me, on an old, battered 12-string guitar, all the tracks that he was going to put on Honky Dory. I remember him playing “Life on Mars” to me. I sat at the piano at his house, a beautiful grand piano, and he said, “Look, think of this as a piano piece, and we’ll work around what you do,” and that’s basically what I did.
Years later, I lived in Switzerland for four and half years, and David lived on the same mountain, a little bit further up; everybody lives up the mountain in Switzerland! We used to meet up a lot and talk about music. And he spoke about [the importance] of working with musicians that you feel can contribute to your music, not just people that will do what you tell them to do. He was incredible. He didn’t hold musicians back in any way.”
And more recently,..
…he’d already featured further on Marc Bolan’s musical journey; and in this same chart, when he appeared on Cat Steven’s latest single; both of which I have represented during this focused year’s singles run-down, highlighted here…
Leading up to his departure in the Strawbs,..
…he’d also earned himself £36 to assist in the recording of an easy listening album of cover versions with an orchestral accompaniment and vocalists. The whole album was under the name of the ‘John Schroeder orchestra’, with Rick’s name not appearing at all on the original pressing.
Back at ‘Yes’, as the build up to record the next album rolled around,..
…Tony was still part of the group.
Ideas were initially batted around, that they wanted to present the next project as a double LP set, with half of the album focusing on their recent live performances, and the other half showcasing new material. However, due to limited time constraints, it was decided to just concentrate on the new material. And that’s when the old issues began to surface again with Tony.
This time the band weren’t prepared to stay with the same limited keyboard set-up, so in the end, due to musical differences, Tony was asked to leave, and Rick was approached. And if they had waited any longer, things could have worked out a lot differently.
The very same day that Chris offered Rick keyboard duties in the band,..
…was also the day that David Bowie had offered him a place in the ‘Spiders From Mars’.
Fortunately for Chris, Rick agreed to try out with ‘Yes’ while they were rehearsing the new album, and in just that one day, both “Roundabout”, and also “Heart Of The Sunrise” were both realised, convincing Rick that this group were the best option.
Such a big thing was the arrival of Rick into the band, that during August it made the front page of Melody Maker.
The title of the album,..
…seems to have allegedly come from a couple of sources. One of them being more random than the other.
The random idea is it came from a picture of the equipment which had the word stamped across it.
The other, and my preferred source, is that it came from Bill, who along with their new recruit Rick, was all too aware of the in-fighting, and ‘fragile’ state the group were finding themselves in as a whole, since the departure of Tony.
The sound now becoming bigger, and the band now progressing to the next level…
…was also reflected in how the album was about to be presented as a whole physical package.
In what would become an integral part of, not just this whole project, but also future record sets, was the inspired work of conceptual artist Roger Dean, who came on board for the first time on this project, and portrayed the album visually by showcasing a fracturing mythical world.
The visual spectacle carried on within the gatefold of the album itself, where an illustrative booklet also awaited the recipient; giving the whole package the expansive feel that complimented the music within.
It certainly caught the record-buying public’s imagination, who rushed out to buy it, in its first week of release, sending it straight into the Top 10. And as more of the outside world discovered the new sound emerging, it would soon be reflected in its return to the U.K. Chart.
It’s 10 week run, through this latest showing,..
…would see the album return to orbit from the 2nd of January, and constantly dip in and out of the Top 20, getting as high as No.15, before falling back down again throughout that month, and move onwards into February.
The following week after this one for example, will see it bounce back up to No.18.
Once again, it will fall away from the Top 50 after the 11th of March, only to reappear again mid-chart at the beginning of April for a couple of weeks, before leaving once again in the middle of that month.
“Fragile”’s last entry on chart (as I write), will be a further one week at No.24 in mid-May 1972, before it leaves the U.K. chart for good.
But the album had done enough, and will eventually be considered as one of the group’s finest works.
For all the internal reverberations which had affected the group up to this point,..
…it seemed the fate of the band had worked itself up to this moment.
Since its inception, the rocks and debris which had been swirling around, attaching and detaching themselves; with some meteors deflecting off and changing the course of their orbit altogether, had for now, formed perfectly; and although the quakes and eruptions were still evident, it seemed a new satisfactory musical world had finally fully formed for them.
Side 1
Side 2
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