1970/71 - BBC Sessions EDITED

BBC Studios, London
1970-04-07 (For Everyone), 1970-10-20(America), 1971-04-12(Clap)

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America
June 05, 1971
Sportpalast, Berlin, Germany

There was some confusion here. The America I posted, believing to be from BBC, was actually from a show in Berlin, June1971. So I'm posting the actual America from BBC now.


(these are not the BBC Sessions (with Peter Banks) released on Beyond & Before: BBC Recordings 1969-1970)

Today I present three sessions from BBC, when Yes played one song in each.

For Everyone, with their original formation, is a longer arrangement than the one featured in Beyond and Before. It has 9 minutes, with a bass/organ solo of 3. The song was not released in a studio album, but part of it would become the Disillusion part of Starship Trooper (we can notice, in the difference of the arrangements, that this encarnation of Yes was very nice and powerful, but Yes with Howe would be much more original, which is shown in Disillusion, so different than everything they made).

America was perhaps played by Yes for the first time in this BBC session. It has a drums intro, and a very different and adventurous arrangement. Bill's drums are never what you'd expect them to be in this song! The original Simon and Garfunkel version included a verse that began "Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat" and ends "and the moon rose over an open field." Yes included that verse in this arrangement but excised it in 72.
Quoting a review from a show in November, 1970: "The climax of their show was a dramatic arrangement for Simon & Garfunkel's America that opened with a strange 1930's Berlin style intro played by Tony Kaye on organ and Steve leading into Jon's simple emotive vocals. Bill Bruford was a tower of strength throughout."

Clap is predictable as always, but has a great portion of Classical Gas in its middle. Steve said, back in 1970: "Clap is slightly influenced by Chet Atkins. It's a simple tune I used to play and expanded by putting in stop time breaks and bits from Mason Williams' 'Classical Gas' which I've always loved. Down in Devon the boys said they wanted to find a solo for me and this came up. I started playing it on a couple of gigs and it always goes down well. People don't know what to associate my guitar style with, blues or the underground. I want to do a solo album one day, but there is no hurry."
According to Mick D: "Theres a story behind... Yes wanted to do Starship Trooper but after five hours they had still not nailed it so with just a few minutes left howe recorded Clap so at least the session wasn't a complete waste" Later, in 1971, Starship Trooper would be broadcast at BBC, wchich said they were playing it live, but it's clearly the studio version! So don't be fooled: there's no BBC broadcast of Starship Trooper!

Sound quality: For Everyone is a radio broadcast, but BBC kept no record of it. This version was recorded from FM. America is the best version that can be found. Clap has a good guitar sound, but some constant noise behind.

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