Steve Howe

Steve Howe (born April 8, 1947) is an English guitarist best known for his recurrent tenures in Yes and Asia.

His first recorded stints were in the mid-’60s R&B/beat groups The Syndicats and The In Crowd. The latter morphed into Tomorrow, a seminal psych act that issued two singles and a 1968 self-titled album. After a brief time in the post-psych band Bodast, Yes hired him in early 1970 to replace their original guitarist Peter Banks. Between 1971 and 1974, he issued five studio albums with Yes: The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge, Tales from Topographic Oceans, and Relayer.

During a two-year break in band activity where the members each issued solo albums, Howe released Beginnings on Atlantic. He also played on solo albums by Yes colleagues Rick Wakeman and Alan White. In 1977, Yes reconvened for three further albums, culminating with the 1980 release Drama. Meanwhile, he continued his solo career with The Steve Howe Album in 1979.

In 1982, Howe reemerged in the supergroup Asia, which issued a multi-platinum debut album and a popular follow-up, Alpha. After doing session work for Frankie Goes to Hollywood  and Propaganda, Howe formed GTR with ex-Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett. They issued a self-titled album in 1986 and recorded a second that was never released.

In 1989, Howe reunited with four-fifths of the 1971/72 Yes lineup for an album as Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe. Before a second album was finished, they joined with the other Yes faction for the 1991 eight-man Union tour.

Howe proliferated as a solo artist during the 1990s with multiple titles on Relativity and RPM. In 1996, he rejoined Yes for the live-and-studio Keys to Ascension discs and stayed for their subsequent iterations.

He was born Stephen James Howe, the youngest of four children in a middle-class family in Holloway in north London.

Discography:

• Beginnings (1975)
  
• The Steve Howe Album (1979)
  
• Guitar Player (1989)
  
• Turbulence (1991)
  
• The Grand Scheme of Things (1993)
  
• Not Necessarily Acoustic (1994)
  
• Voyagers (1995 • Steve Howe & Paul A. Sutin)
  
• Homebrew [archival] (1996)
  
• Quantum Guitar (1998)
  
• Portraits of Bob Dylan (1999)
  
• Pulling Strings (1999)
  
• Homebrew 2 (2000)
  
• Natural Timbre (2001)
  
• The 3 Ages of Magick (2001 • Oliver Wakeman with Steve Howe)
  
• Skyline (2002)
  
• Masterpiece Guitars (2003 • Steve Howe & Martin Taylor)
  
• Elements (2003 • Steve Howe’s Remedy)
  
• Homebrew 3 (2005)
  
• Spectrum (2005)
  
• The Haunted Melody (2008 • The Steve Howe Trio)
  
• Motif Volume 1 (2008)
  
• Homebrew 4 (2010)
  
• Travelling (2010 • Steve Howe Trio)
  
• Time (2011)
  
• Homebrew 5 (2013)
  
• Homebrew 6 (2016)
  
• Nexus (2017 • Virgil & Steve Howe)
  
• New Frontier (2019 • Steve Howe Trio)
  
• Love Is (2020)

Sources:

• Discogs: Steve Howe