From Jon's point of view, Tony was committing the cardinal sin of not bringing in new technology and not bringing in enough stuff. Jon wanted a small orchestra, so you put Rick together with Steve and you really do have a small orchestra overnight. I can see why Jon had to go there. It wasn't me that initiated it but it wasn't me also that said to Jon 'you can't do that'. We trusted Anderson's vision. Within the first week, Roundabout and Heart of the Sunrise, were largely in place.
Coming from a background of session work where brevity and economy were more often than not the order of the day, he initially regarded the band's approach to be inordinately detailed to the point of obsession.
But, as he later told In The Studio, "at the end of the day after all those hours put into the little bits, then you listen back to some of the tracks you realise that it is those little attentions to detail that make the pieces what they are". Advision's popularity meant it simply wasn't possible to block book the studio and record the album in a single stretch.
Instead, the band had to rely upon grabbing two or three-day sessions intermittently, working up to sixteen hours a day throughout the whole of August and the first week of September. During this time, the band deepened their ongoing relationship with Eddie Offord, who had the not inconsiderable task of threading much of the material together.
In hindsight, restricted access to Advision was perhaps something of a blessing in disguise. It allowed Wakeman to honour his pre-Yes session commitments, and enabled the rest of the band to continue prefabricating sections of material which could then be gradually assembled upon their return to Advision.
Chris spent hours working with Rick developing how that music would be performed. There were bits where Rick played with Chris and Bill and I dropped out in places, like in the middle of South Side of the Sky, I didn't need to play anything - so I didn't. Breaking away from the gently converging vocal harmonies, Howe's folkish interlude sets up space for a nimble Wakeman solo. While pleasant in itself, that they ultimately dropped the section, opting instead to maintain a more subdued mood, highlights the band's rigorous, sometimes exhaustive and exhausting approach.
This section wasn't the only thing excised or rejected during the recording of Fragile. As Steven Wilson worked on the original multi-track reels for this edition he unearthed the remnant of the previously unheard All Fighters Past, a work in progress. Apparently if the band weren't happy with what they had recorded and saw no reason to keep it, the engineer would simply rewind and record on the tape again, erasing whatever was there before.
Luckily for us this little fragment of tape at the end was left. Though there'd been discussions that the next record from Yes should be a double album with one studio disc and an accompanying live recording, the idea was shelved once they decided to present all new material reflecting the changes in the line-up.
However, as the days ticked by during August, it was apparent they weren't going to have enough songs to fill both sides of a single album, never mind a double LP. Notwithstanding the undeniable strengths of Roundabout and Heart of the Sunrise that were now in the can and with South Side of the Sky acting as a kind of fulcrum between the two bookends, even with Wakeman's galvanising presence, the meticulous but laborious means by way which Yes wrote, arranged and assembled their pieces simply couldn't generate the required tracks in the time they had left.
Roundabout was really good, Long Distance Runaround was also working well and Heart of the Sunrise was terrific," says Bruford. But, you see how little material we had? That's partly because Yes had to be together in a rehearsal room somewhere to make it all work and partly because we were always arguing laughs. So my 'brilliant' idea was to say: 'Look, everybody, you get to have Yes for a track. You direct it, you write it, you compose it, conduct it. Do whatever you want with the musicians.
That way we'll play what your version of Yes is'. Fragile is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Yes, released in November by Atlantic Records. After touring in support of their previous album, The Yes Album , the band entered rehearsals in London in preparation for their next studio album.
Early into the sessions, keyboardist Tony Kaye was fired over his lack of interest in learning more electronic keyboards. Four tracks are group performances; the remaining five are solo features written by each member. The cover is their first illustrated by Roger Dean, who would design many of their future logos, covers and stage sets. Fragile received a positive reception upon its release and was a commercial and critical success, reaching number 4 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart and number 7 on the UK Albums Chart.
It has been remastered several times since its release, some containing previously unreleased tracks. Tracklist: Roundabout — Cans And Brahms —
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