Yesterdays
	Produced by Paul Clay, Tony Colton, Eddie Offord, Yes
	Released on February 27, 1975
	UK CHART POSITION #27 . . . US CHART POSITION #17
	Find it at GEMM
SD 19134 cover [high resolution photo]

T ake a little trip back, to Dear Father and Astral Traveller and a place called America too. Sure it’s product, designed to fill in the spaces while the band tested their wings: Olias of Sunhillow, Beginnings, Fish Out of Water, Ramshackled, The Story of I. Those works are worth hearing (some more than others), but if you haven’t heard their first two albums, Yesterdays beckons. The album brings the best bits from their first two albums to the fore: “Survival,” “Time And A Word,” etc. It also includes the nonalbum “Dear Father” and “America,” arguably the best tracks on here. The latter first appeared on a label compilation record called The Age of Atlantic (the snipe in the woods as it were) and is the only track on here to feature Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman. Otherwise it’s all about Banks and Kaye, who get a well-earned curtain call for their efforts (on vinyl anyway). The here’s-what-you-might-have-missed compilation isn’t anything new to the progressive woods of course. It’s been done to Renaissance (In The Beginning), Rush (Archives), Pink Floyd (A Nice Pair) and many others. But Yesterdays does it better by including some hard-to-find tracks and serving a genuine purpose in the band’s discography. Despite the fact that I personally enjoy “Beyond And Before” and “The Prophet,” I’ll let you off the hook if you own Yesterdays. Time And A Word is a brocaded bore; their first album interesting but unripened. Here was an opportunity to get acquainted with Yes before Howe and (later) Wakeman undertook the venture. It put a magical face on their first works by wrapping them into the Deanian fold, ushering them into the mythology proper.

SD 19134 back cover	SD 19134 picture sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. AMERICA    (Paul Simon)    10:31
2. LOOKING AROUND    (Jon Anderson/Chris Squire)    3:59
3. TIME AND A WORD    (Jon Anderson/David Foster)    4:31
4. SWEET DREAMS    (Jon Anderson/David Foster)    3:47
5. THEN    (Jon Anderson)    5:46
6. SURVIVAL    (Jon Anderson)    6:20
7. ASTRAL TRAVELLER    (Jon Anderson)    5:53
8. DEAR FATHER    (Jon Anderson/Chris Squire)    4:18

CREDITS

JON ANDERSON -- vocals
PETER BANKS -- guitar & vocals
BILL BRUFORD -- drums
TONY KAYE -- organ
CHRIS SQUIRE -- bass & vocals
Rick Wakeman -- keyboards (1)
Gerald Chevin -- engineer
Tony Cox -- orchestral arrangements
Eddie Offord -- engineer
Roger Dean -- cover design and illustration
Mike Allison -- layout
Mansell Litho -- plates

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