Yes formed in London in 1968, when singer Jon Anderson and bassist Chris Squire met at a Soho nightclub and discovered a shared passion for vocal harmony. Jon Anderson and Chris Squire first met at a bar in London in the summer of 1968, quickly became friends, and were huge fans of Simon and Garfunkel's harmonic musical styling, a sound that influenced their early songwriting. They enlisted the help of keyboardist Tony Kaye, guitarist Peter Banks, and drummer Bill Bruford to help them accomplish their goals, called their group Yes, and began recording and performing material that year. In their earliest days, Yes performed original songs and rearranged covers of rock, pop, blues and jazz songs, as evident on their first two albums. The band's breakthrough came as the lineup stabilized around its most celebrated configuration. Founded in 1968 by vocalist Anderson and bassist Squire, Yes went through several early personnel changes before stabilizing around Anderson, guitarist Howe, Squire, and keyboardist Wakeman, all of whom played on the group's fourth album, Fragile (1972). Featuring the hit "Roundabout," the album established Yes as one of progressive rock's leading bands, rivaled only by Genesis and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and also marked the beginning of Yes's relationship with artist Roger Dean, whose album covers and stage designs defined the group's visual style. Their sound, which featured Anderson's falsetto vocals and Howe's complex guitar supported by Squire's bass and Wakeman's multilayered keyboards, further developed with Close to the Edge (1972) and Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973). These albums, along with epics like Relayer, cemented Yes as pioneers of the progressive rock movement, known for sprawling compositions and virtuosic musicianship.
Yes's career arc has been defined by remarkable reinvention and an unusually fluid lineup, with twenty full-time musicians passing through the band over the decades. After dissolving in 1981, Yes reconvened two years later under the leadership of guitarist Trevor Rabin, and this incarnation, featuring Anderson, Squire, and White, enjoyed commercial success with 90125 (1983), a collection that included the hit single "Owner of a Lonely Heart," and Big Generator (1987). "Owner of a Lonely Heart" topped the Billboard charts, and its accompanying album, 90125, had two other big mainstream rock hits in "Leave It" and "It Can Happen." The band later expanded to an eight-piece when Yes was an eight-piece band from 1991 to 1992 after merging with Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe for Union (1991) and its tour. Across their catalog, Yes has sold over 30 million albums worldwide, including 13.5 million certified by the RIAA, and won a Grammy Award for "Cinema" in 1985 for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. The band suffered a profound loss when Squire died of leukemia in June of 2015, but the band carried on, as per his request. In recognition of their influence, in April of 2017, Yes was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, after several previous failed attempts, with the band performing two songs at the induction ceremony, one of which featured Rush's Geddy Lee sitting in on bass. Yes remains active into the 2020s, continuing to tour and record with a lineup carrying the band's legacy forward. Since June 2015, the band has consisted of guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, keyboardist Geoff Downes, singer Jon Davison, and bassist Billy Sherwood. The band marked its half-century with a milestone celebration, as a 50th anniversary tour was undertaken in 2018 and commemorated with the 2019 release 50 Live. They have continued releasing new music, including the 2021 album The Quest, and still headline the annual progressive rock cruise Cruise to the Edge, which Yes has been headlining yearly since 2013. Widely regarded as one of the most influential and enduring progressive rock bands in history, Yes's intricate musicianship, conceptual ambition, and ever-evolving lineup continue to shape the genre's legacy.
For this archive, Yes holds a special place among the artists Wayne Dennon captured through his lens. Wayne photographed the band across two shows in 2010, and the 34 images from those performances remain some of the most visited in the collection, drawing 25,903 views from archive visitors who continue to revisit the energy and spectacle of a Yes concert. As with so much of Wayne's work, these photographs stand as a lasting tribute to a band whose music has spanned generations, preserved here as part of his enduring legacy behind the camera.
