Chris Squire

Chris Squire (March 4, 1948 — June 27, 2015) was an English bassist who emerged in The Syn, a psychedelic pop band that presaged Yes. Between 1969 and 2014, Squire appeared on twenty-one Yes studio albums. During their 1975 pause for solo activity, he released Fish Out of Water on Atlantic.

Background

Christopher Russell Edward Squire was born March 4, 1948, in Kingsbury, northwest London. His father Peter drove a cab and built the family hi-fi system from electronic components. Peter played records by Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald at home, while Joanne Squire worked as a secretary for an estate agent.

At age six, Squire and neighborhood friend Andrew Pryce Jackman joined the boys choir at St Andrew’s Church in Kingsbury. Jackman lived six houses from Squire; his father played clarinet and oboe with the London Symphony Orchestra. Choirmaster Barry Rose arrived at St Andrew’s in 1958 and trained Squire as a treble in English choral music. Around age 12, Rose took Squire and five other Kingsbury choristers to Guildford to help establish the new cathedral choir. St Andrew’s also substituted for the St Paul’s Cathedral choir on summer holidays.

Squire attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School and sang in the school choir. In 1961, the school moved from Hampstead to Elstree. Due to his involvement in ensemble harmony, popular music remained secondary through his early teens. At age 15 in 1963, Squire heard the Beatles and shifted his attention toward beat groups. School friend John Wheatley, a guitarist, suggested bass because of Squire’s height and large hands. Squire obtained a Futurama bass from Macari’s Musical Exchange in Wembley and learned the instrument at home in Kingsbury.

The Selfs and early bass influences

In 1964, Squire and Wheatley formed the Selfs, a northwest London R&B group singer Chris Slate, drummer Martyn Adelman, and Squire’s longtime friend Andrew Jackman, now a keyboardist. The Selfs played youth clubs and church halls around Kingsbury and Wembley, including Friday dances at St Andrew’s Church Hall. The band also cut an acetate with Jackman’s “Love You” and a version of the Who cover “I Can’t Explain.”

Squire left school in 1964 and took a job at Boosey & Hawkes in Regent Street. He used an employee discount to replace his Futurama with an early British-import Rickenbacker RM1999. Pete Quaife of the Kinks and John Entwistle of the Who acquired two other early models from the same import batch. 

Squire frequented the Marquee Club through his mid-teens and watched the Graham Bond Organisation with bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker. The Who became his favorite band, and Squire followed the group around London as they rose to fame. He focused closely on Entwistle, whose bright, piano-like bass tone supplied the main model for Squire’s developing sound. Squire also studied Paul McCartney, especially McCartney’s ability to sing while playing bass, and learned the walking bass line on “All My Loving.” Bill Wyman impressed Squire with the bass part on the Rolling Stones’ “I Wanna Be Your Man,” while Bruce supplied another model through GBO and his subsequent Manfred Mann stint.

The Syn

In late 1965, the Selfs merged with singer Steve Nardelli and guitarist John Painter of High Court to form the Syn. Drummer Gunnar Jökull Hákonarson replaced Adelman in summer 1966, when the group took a three-week engagement at Valbonne near Cannes. That November, Painter  cleared out for Peter Banks, who played earlier with the Nighthawks and Devil’s Disciples, then succeeded Ray Fenwick in the Syndicats after Fenwick replaced founding guitarist Steve Howe.

The Syn became regulars at the Marquee Club as the London beat scene moved toward psychedelia. The group shared the club with Pink Floyd in December 1966 and the Jimi Hendrix Experience the following January. Nardelli and Jackman developed theatrical material around Flowerman and The Gangster Opera, with costumes and staged sections incorporated into the live set.

The group cut an acetate of the Paul Korda song “Merry-Go-Round,” then signed with Deram, which issued “Created by Clive” as the June 1967 debut Syn single (b/w “Grounded”). Hubert Pattison (aka Horatio Soul) wrote “Created by Clive,” also recorded on the same day by The Attack. The Syn followed in September with “Flowerman” (b/w “14 Hour Technicolour Dream”). The latter song referenced the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, an International Times benefit at Alexandra Palace on April 29. The Syn did not appear at the event and instead played engagements at the Weir Hotel and Marquee Club that day.

The Syn also recorded an extended “Flowerman” demo and material from The Gangster Opera. Nardelli and Jackman wrote “Mister White’s White Flying Machine” for the stage repertoire, although the original lineup left no released version. (In 1969, Squire played and harmonized on a Jackman-arranged version by singer and television presenter Ayshea Brough, included on her 1970 Polydor release Ayshea.)

By late 1967, the Syn dissolved amid lineup instability. Squire joined Mabel Greer’s Toyshop, an unsigned pop-psych band with guitarist Clive Bayley and drumer Bob Gagger, a prior member of So Rare with Paul Kossoff. Banks briefly joined as a second guitarist, then departed for the Neat Change, which cut the July 1968 Decca toytown single “I Lied to Auntie May” (b/w “Sandman”). As the Neat Change considered a mod-to-suedhead transformation, Banks returned to Mabel Greer’s Toyshop.

1968–70: Formation of Yes

In May 1968, La Chasse manager Jack Barrie introduced Squire to Jon Anderson at the Soho drinking club. Anderson arrived from a four-year stint with The Warriors, an Accrington beat group with (later Badger) bassist David Foster. Most recently, Anderson rehearsed with Gun and cut two Parlophone singles under the name Hans Christian. Squire and Anderson shared an interest in the Association, Simon & Garfunkel, and multipart vocal harmony. The next day, Squire and Anderson completed “Sweetness,” their first co-written song.

Anderson briefly sang with Mabel Greer’s Toyshop while he and Squire planned a full-time group with Banks, who suggested the name Yes. Leicester keyboardist Tony Kaye joined from a succession of beat groups that included the Federals. Through an ad in Melody Maker, they met Bill Bruford, a jazz-oriented drummer fresh from a short-lived Savoy Brown stint. Squire and Anderson supplied the central partnership, with Squire’s trebly, dense bass runs and high harmony vocals alongside the Anderson lead.

Squire submitted “Beyond and Before,” a Clive Bayley co-write from Mabel Greer’s Toyshop, for the self-titled debut Yes album. He co-wrote “Looking Around” with Anderson; they collaborated with Bruford on “Harold Land.” Across the album, Squire used a pick and a treble-heavy Rickenbacker tone that placed the bass beside the guitar and organ as an independent line. His upper harmony also gave Anderson a second fixed vocal register across the arrangements.

Yes expanded the arrangements with a twenty-piece orchestra under Tony Cox on their 1970 release Time and a Word. Squire co-wrote “The Prophet” with Anderson and continued to place active bass figures beneath the orchestral parts. Banks opposed the orchestral direction and left the group as the album reached completion, which forced Squire and Anderson to reconsider the guitar position.

1970–72: Howe, Bruford, and the classic trilogy

Squire contacted Steve Howe in 1970 on a recommendation from Anderson. Howe had played, the earliest Syndicats guitarist, played mod-soul with the In Crowd, which morphed into Tomorrow and cut two 1967 pop-psych singles and a 1968 album. Most recently, he demoed material with the post-psych Bodast, where he developed a vocabulary that covered electric rock, jazz guitar, country picking, and acoustic fingerstyle. Yes took Howe to a farmhouse near South Molton in Devon and spent the summer building new material around the revised lineup.

Howe and Squire quickly established a complementary guitar-bass relationship. Howe used the rounder lower register of a Gibson ES-175 while Squire occupied more upper-midrange space with the Rickenbacker. The two musicians alternated between doubled figures and independent counterlines, with each player responding to accents from the other instrument. Bruford approached the same material from a jazz background and often placed accents around the bass line instead of fixing every measure to a conventional backbeat. Squire consequently carried more of the pulse while Bruford moved around the metre, a relationship Squire later identified as fundamental to early Yes.

The Yes Album gave Squire a larger compositional role. All five members shared the credit for “Yours Is No Disgrace,” while Squire supplied “Disillusion,” the middle section of “Starship Trooper.” He wrote the “All Good People” section that follows “Your Move” and co-wrote “Perpetual Change” with Anderson. The latter arrangement places Squire and Bruford at the center of a middle passage built from simultaneous opposing metres. Howe answers the bass throughout the album with guitar figures that move between unison reinforcement and separate lines.

In mid-1971, Kaye cleared out for Rick Wakeman, a classically trained session keyboardist who cut two recent albums with the Strawbs and worked as a Bowie and Cat Stevens sessionist. Wakeman added Hammond organ, piano, Mellotron, harpsichord, and synthesizers to the existing guitar-bass counterpoint. The expanded instrumentation reached the studio on Fragile, comprised for four group pieces interspersed with solo numbers from each of the five members.

Squire co-wrote “South Side of the Sky” with Anderson and shared “Heart of the Sunrise” with Anderson and Bruford. He composed “The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus),” which builds from layered bass parts in different registers with echoing effects and remote, multi-tracked harmonies. The conjoined preceding track, “Long Distance Runaround,” moves from clipped Howe guitar figures into a mobile Squire bass line. Squire also doubled the principal bass line on “Roundabout” with a Gibson electric guitar owned by Howe; the song became an FM evergreen. “Heart of the Sunrise” opens with rapid bass movement against Bruford accents, then repeatedly changes density as Anderson enters the quieter vocal sections.

Close to the Edge gave Squire a formal co-writing credit only on “And You and I,” alongside Anderson, Howe, and Bruford. His instrumental role remained extensive across all three compositions. On the title suite, Squire moves between sliding bass accents, sustained pedal tones, and an ascending figure as the final section rebuilds the opening intensity. He also joins Anderson on the vocal counterpoint in “Total Mass Retain.” On side two, “And You and I” blends bass pedals beneath the steel-guitar and keyboard layers, while Squire contributes harmony lines through the recurring vocal theme. For “Siberian Khatru,” he works through alternating eight- and seven-beat groupings beneath the Howe guitar figures and Wakeman keyboards.

After the CttE sessions wrapped, Bruford departed for King Crimson. Squire and Anderson approached Alan White, a drummer with session and touring experience alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Joe Cocker. White learned the current Yes repertoire within three days and opened the next American tour with the group in Dallas.

1972–75: White, Tales, and Relayer

White changed the rhythmic relationship with Squire. Whereas Bruford placed accents around the bass figures, White tied kick and snare close to the bass pulse. The steadier drum foundation gave Squire more room for syncopated runs, upper-register figures, and counterlines. Extensive touring consolidated the Squire–White partnership into the long-term Yes rhythm section.

Anderson and Howe developed the central concept and compositions for Tales from Topographic Oceans, while Squire shaped the material through bass, vocals, and ensemble arrangement. He used a fretless Guild bass on “The Remembering” and later singled out that performance among his preferred recordings. “The Ancient” drove marimba arpeggios through angular bass runs, interlocking Squire and White amid cutting Howe guitar parts. Squire recedes as Howe unveils his acoustic “Leaves of Green” section.

“Ritual (Nous Sommes du Soleil)” foregrounds Squire, who drives the opening section with upper-register bass beneath Anderson’s vocal chants, then takes an extended bass passage near the middle section. Further on, White leads a percussive assault with Squire on timpani. 

Squire also accepted occasional sessions away from Yes. He played bass on “Catherine of Aragon” for the Rick Wakeman album The Six Wives of Henry VIII, alongside Howe and Bruford. In 1973, Squire and White appeared with Kaye and Steve Winwood behind jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris on “I Waited for You” and “Conversations of Everything and Nothing,” both included on the Atlantic album E.H. in the U.K.

Wakeman left Yes in 1974 as the group prepared another studio album. Yes considered several replacements and invited Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz to rehearse at the Squire home that August. Moraz led Mainhorse and cut a recent album with Refugee, a two-thirds Nice reunion with Lee Jackson and Brian Davison. His first rehearsal centered on material that developed into “Sound Chaser,” and Yes added him to the lineup.

All five members received writing credits across Relayer. Squire and White carry much of the sustained momentum through the battle section of “The Gates of Delirium,” where bass and drums hold the recurring figures beneath the changing Howe and Moraz lines. “Sound Chaser” opens with a rapid Squire bass figure and White drum accents, then moves through compressed ensemble passages around the Moraz synthesizer and Howe guitar solos. Squire also supports the broader vocal spaces of “To Be Over” with lower sustained figures and harmony vocals.

Yes toured Relayer through summer 1975 and then suspended joint studio work while the members pursued individual records. Management presented the solo-album plan to Atlantic, and the label approved projects from the five musicians. Squire used the break for Fish Out of Water.

Discography:

• Fish Out of Water (1975)
• “Run With the Fox” / “Return of the Fox” (1981 • Chris Squire & Alan White)
• Chris Squire’s Swiss Choir (2007)
• Squackett – A Life Within a Day (2012)

References:

• The Syn belonged directly to the developing London psychedelic circuit, but the evidence is stronger when stated through actual bookings and repertoire than through a blanket scene label. Their Marquee dates include Pink Floyd on December 29, 1966, and Hendrix on January 24, 1967; the Hendrix archive independently confirms the latter bill. (Garage Hangover)
• They did not play the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream. Their song commemorated the event. The gig chronology places the Syn at the Weir Hotel and Marquee on April 29, while the Alexandra Palace lineup contains Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, Tomorrow, the Move, the Pretty Things, and others. (Garage Hangover)
• The archive chronology is firm on the records: “Merry-Go-Round” dates from 1966; Deram issued DM 130 in June 1967 and DM 145 in September; the surviving Gangster Opera excerpt and alternate “Flowerman” date from mid-1967. (Cherry Red Records)
• Ayshea Brough is the woman on “Mister White’s White Flying Machine.” More precisely, the original Syn performed the Nardelli–Jackman composition but did not make the released recording. Brough cut it in 1969; Squire played bass and backing vocals, and the track appeared on Ayshea in December 1970. (Cherry Red Records)
• Mabel Greer’s Toyshop was not a direct Syn offshoot. Bayley, Hagger, and Rutledge already constituted the group. Hagger states that Rutledge left for art school, he then called Squire because the Syn had broken up, and Squire subsequently recommended Banks. So the accurate lineage is pre-existing MGT → Squire joins → Squire brings Banks, not Syn changes name to MGT. (The Audiophile Man)
• Chris Welch, Close to the Edge: The Story of Yes, for the Barrie introduction, “Sweetness,” formation chronology, Bruford recruitment, Howe transition, and White arrival. (dokumen.pub)
• Official Yes archive pages for the debut and Time and a Word, including the Squire co-writes “Looking Around,” “Harold Land,” “Sweetness,” and “The Prophet.” (Yesworld)
• Official Yes archive pages for The Yes Album, Fragile, and Close to the Edge, including the composition credits used above. (Yesworld)
• Squire and Howe recollections on the interaction among bass, guitar, and drums. Squire described Bruford as playing around the bass, while Howe described the guitar and bass parts as mutually responsive lines. (MusicRadar)
• Official Yes material for Tales from Topographic Oceans confirms White as the new studio drummer, the Anderson–Howe writing framework, the fretless bass on “The Remembering,” and the bass/percussion conception in “Ritual.” (YesWorld)
• Official Yes material for Relayer confirms the Moraz audition at the Squire home and five-member credits for all three compositions. Squire later discussed the opening bass work in “Sound Chaser.” (Yesworld)
• Session documentation confirms Squire on “Catherine of Aragon” and on the two Eddie Harris tracks recorded at Morgan Studios with White, Kaye, and Winwood. (MusicBrainz)
• Steve Howe described the 1975 solo-album arrangement as an idea taken to Atlantic by management, with the label agreeing to individual projects. His account does not describe a contractual clause requiring five solo albums. (rhino.com)