THE PROG INTERVIEW: JON ANDERSON
FEATURES / MARK BLAKE / 26 JUN 2015

The Prog Interview is just that: every month, we’re going to get inside the minds of some of the biggest names in music – and they don’t come much bigger than Jon Anderson.
The former Yes man reveals all about his upcoming album with Jean-Luc Ponty, tells us what he thinks of Yes today, and shares his thoughts on everything from Sibelius to strippers and spiritualism.

Tomorrow morning, and probably every morning when he’s not on tour, Jon Anderson will have breakfast in bed with his wife, Jane, at their house in the old Spanish mission town of San Luis Obispo, California. “And then we sit for a while and watch the birds, the deer and the rabbits outside the house,” he says.

Anderson’s sing-song voice is so familiar from those old Yes albums that when you ask where he lives in relation to Los Angeles, you half expect him to answer, ‘Close to the edge, down by the river…’ (In fact, it’s a three and-a‑half-hour drive north of LA.)

It’s not a bad life, then, for the 70-year-old, Lancashire-born singer-songwriter and exiled Yes vocalist. However, there have been some not-so-good days. In 2008, Anderson suffered acute respiratory failure, which required months of recuperation and cost him his place in Yes, who continue to tour and record without him.

Today he brushes off a question about his health (“It’s good – I’m good”), preferring to look forward to his latest project, a collaboration with ex-Mahavishnu Orchestra violinist Jean-Luc Ponty.

But over the course of the conversation, Anderson ends up looking forwards, backwards, sideways, upside and down. Dig a little deeper, though, and this spiritually minded astral traveller isn’t so far removed from the teenager who started his musical career as a singing milkman in Accrington.

First, though, there’s Progeny – a just-released 14-disc boxed set that contains seven Yes shows from 1972 – to dissect. Or perhaps not…

Chris is going through it. It’s a tough one. I pray for him every day – I’m sending out that love energy.

Have you made it through all of Progeny yet?

No [laughing], because I haven’t had my copy yet! There’s a lifetime’s worth of music there. I still remember that time vividly. Yes were on cloud nine and we stayed that way for about a decade.

If pushed, that 1972 line-up was the classic Yes line-up, wasn’t it?

That’s classic Yes. If I think back to those shows, the band was in harmony, musically and mentally.

Have you spoken to Chris Squire since he was diagnosed with leukaemia?

I emailed him after I heard he got sick. Chris is a musical brother, regardless of anything else that’s gone on. I wouldn’t be where I was if it wasn’t for him. I was with Yes for 35 years – that’s half a lifetime. You don’t just forget that. But Chris is going through it. It’s a tough one. I pray for him every day – I’m sending out that love energy.

What stage is the Anderson Ponty Band album at now?

We’ve just finished it, and the DVD, and they’ll be out in September. We’re hoping to tour the UK in October. It’ll be me with Jean-Luc and his band. They’re formidable musicians and they don’t mess around.

How did this collaboration with Jean-Luc come about?

I found a couple of Jean-Luc’s songs from the 70s on his website and sent him one of his tracks with me singing on it. I said, “If we worked together, this is what it would sound like.” He liked it and we carried on from there. We went to Aspen [Colorado] for two and a half weeks and did a show, which became the basis for the album.

What material will you be playing?

It’s a mix. We do some Yes songs – Roundabout, And You And I and Owner Of A Lonely Heart. The band wanted to play Owner… and it sounds very cool with a violin. They play the hell out of it.

Let’s go back. Do you remember the first gig you ever played?

It was with my brother Tony’s group, The Warriors, and it was in Padiham’s Working Men’s Club [in Burnley, Lancashire, circa 1963]. We came on after the bingo but just before the stripper. I was a young lad – 17, maybe – and it freaked me out when this woman walked past us naked. It was enough to put you off sex forever…

She wasn’t good-looking?

No, she was frightening!

One of your early jobs was as a milkman.

Yes. My brother drove the milk van and I used to hang on the side, and we’d sing Everly Brothers songs together as we did the round. We were always singing. That was a very happy time. It was the beginning of rock’n’roll, Buddy and Elvis and skiffle. That was the beginning of everything.

For the rest of the interview, please visit the PROG website!

Jon Anderson Press Photos. Images not for sale. (Tami Freed)

INTERVIEW: JON ANDERSON. CREATING NEW SPIRIT.
AUGUST 23, 2014 by TIM PRICE

On a cool English afternoon Tim Price, connected with the legendary Jon Anderson in a sunny California. We learn how a new project with violinist extraordinaire, Jean-Luc Ponty, became a Kickstarter campaign. We delve into the works of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, King Crimson and Yes and the historical content continues as two towns who helped to create history as founders of Association Football* in 1888 are discussed. We also hear about sport being the inspiration for a classic song. We may just have the answer to all those mysterious lyrics.

Jon, I am calling you at your home in LA from here in the Black Country, UK, heartlands and home of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (Wolves).

Never heard of them! Hah, I think they used to have a goalkeeper called Farm in the 50’s

Wolves were one of the 12 founding members of the English Soccer League, as were Accrington Stanley where you were born in 1944. On a similar note Robert Plant is Vice President of Wolves; do you envisage involvement in the same way at ‘Stanley’?

I am with them in spirit all the time and I’ve got my Accrington Stanley Football Shirt in the closet which I wear now and again!

Unfortunately, Jon, Accrington are currently bottom of the English Football League right now and they even had their football boots nicked out of the dressing room after their last game, so it is a pretty bad state of affairs!

Well, it’s the story of my life!

Talking about sport, the song Going For The One which is solely an Anderson composition, didn’t the idea for the lyrics originally come from when you were watching the horse racing on Grandstand a BBC Sport TV show?

Yes Siree! It was about Horse Racing, Golf, all types of sport and how sport keeps us on edge, and going for it, you want your favourite team to win, every horse to win, every golfer to win, in their subconscious millions of people will watch one game in the hope that one team wins and the other team looses and all the collective energy that people put into watching sport, it is just so cool.

Going For The One, is probably one of Yes’s faster and most shrill tracks and difficult to do really, Steve Howe even said that, but I would imagine this is an ideal track for Jean-Luc Ponty to take on with his electric violin and your new band, what do you think?

I will definitely think about that one.

For the rest of the interview, please visit the Rockshot website!

http://www.siriusxm.com/deeptracks

Upcoming Jon Anderson interview with Earle Bailey of Deep Tracks on SiriusXM!

Earle and Jon Anderson from Yes talk about and play records from Yes and other Jon Anderson projects, including songs he recorded live at SiriusXM! From his thoughts on Yes’ past to his current career path, Jon and Earle explore the music and the history, each day at 3pm ET / noon PT on SiriusXM Deep Tracks (Monday – Friday May 19 – 23)

Jon Anderson still telling, writing his wondrous stories

Michael McLaughlin
The Aspen Times
March 14, 2014

It would be easy to understand if Jon Anderson decided he’s written enough music in his life, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

The former frontman for the progressive rock band Yes is back in Aspen tonight for his third solo show since 2011 at the Wheeler Opera House. Good luck trying to guess what the prolific songwriter with the alto-tenor voice will perform, as his catalog of recordings is immense — 20 albums recorded as the lead singer of Yes, 14 solo albums and dozens of collaborations with other musicians and bands.

“The songs I play live are the ones I want to,” Anderson said. “I know people enjoy hearing them, so we have a lot of fun.”

Now 69, Anderson isn’t resting on his laurels. He’s feeling good health-wise and is busier than ever writing music. Thanks to the Internet, Anderson is working with musicians from all over the world. Just this past week, he received new music from friends in Poland, Italy and New York.

There’s no talk of retiring but only of what’s up next musically. The Internet has opened another gate for Anderson to access musicians who normally would take weeks, if not months, to hook up with.

For the rest of the interview, please visit the Aspen Times website!

TALES FROM YESTERDAY… AND TODAY
an interview with JON ANDERSON

interview written and produced by Robert Silverstein for mwe3.com

Watching Jon Anderson perform his solo act on November 10th, 2013 was a sonic revelation. The concert venue that night was the famous art deco Colony Theatre on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. Just another steamy night in South Beach, the streets were swarming with a mix of exotic looking, Latin speaking people. In fact, standing in front of the Colony before the concert, I met several Anderson devotees, including media and industry types from South America. So revered is Anderson in those exotic corners of the world, but that’s nothing new. Another bizarre twist that night was the opening act—a pop singer named Fernando Perdomo (pictured right in top hat with Jon)—who delilvered a low key but respectable solo set. The Cuban connection is never far away in Miami Beach.

Flashback—40 years ago, Christmas 1973, Jon Anderson and YES had just released their all time compositional masterpiece Tales From Topographic Oceans. In the following interview with mwe3.com, it was meaningful to hear Jon remember that fabled Winter 1974 Tales tour and especially the historic Madison Square Garden YES concert of February 18, 1974. It was great to tell him what a masterpiece Tales was then…and that it’s still great today.

Much has been written about Jon Anderson leaving YES in 2008. “It’s an honor just to be alive” is something you’d expect Jon to say about that. I’m sure Chris, Alan and Steve miss those days too, but approaching 2014, at 70 years young, Anderson is clearly steering his own musical ship and he’s no less an icon for it.

YES fans still pining for Anderson’s one of a kind voice and vision, can relive some Jon greatness from his days of future passed with a batch of 2013 CD reissues on England’s esteemed Esoteric Records label. Two late 2013 Esoteric remasters include Anderson’s 1994 album Change We Must and Page Of Life, the 1991 and final album by Jon & Vangelis—each featuring new remastering and detailed booklets with photos and historic liner notes. Also on Esoteric Records worth rechecking is a 2011 reissue CD of Anderson’s underrated 1988 album,In The City Of Angels.

As we approach the 40th anniversary of the Tales winter tour of 1974, it’s a spiritual experience to watch Anderson doing what he loves to do in a live setting—retelling tales of yesterday and keeping alive the musical vision of one of rock’s greatest pioneering artists.

{Jon Anderson spoke to mwe3.com on November 7, 2013 about coming to Miami Beach, the state of YES, recent collaborators and much more.}

mwe3: Jon, it’s great to speak to you again. It’s been a really crazy 5 years! Wow, who knew. What do you make of the global economy and all the problems of the world these days?

JON ANDERSON: That’s a big question. Nothing changes, the world is always a constant adventure for everybody. It’s just one of those things. People expect it to be perfect but we don’t live in a perfect world. Eventually we will. But for now there’s a lot of corruption and that entails a lot of the serious malfunction of the human experience. That’s life! We’re growing slowly to understand stuff…and it just takes time.

For the rest of the interview, please visit the MWE3.com website!