Alan White, drummer for the progressive rock band Yes, has died at home at the age of 72 after a short illness. Announcing the news, the band said it was “surprised and stuck”.
White was one of the longest-serving members of the group, having joined in 1972, replacing Bill Bruford (who joined King Crimson).
Born in 1949 in Durham County, White began playing drums at the age of 12, and a year later joined his first band, the Downbeats, later the Blue Chips. Success leveled up with a spot on Billy Fury’s backing band, and after John Lennon saw a performance by another White band, prog rockers Griffin, he was recruited as a drummer for Plastic. Ono Band.
Taken in a limousine to an airport and with three days to learn about the band’s material, White played the concert that became a live album Live Peace in Toronto in 1969, and also played drums on Imagine’s album Lennon (plus a vibraphone to Jealous Guy), as well as George. Everything has to happen to Harrison. Another live work supported another drummer legend, Ginger Baker, in his extensive group Air Force.
Alan White, sitting in blue jeans, with Yes in 1974. Photo: Michael Putland / Getty Images
White was asked to join Yes in 1972, and again he only had three days to learn the repertoire of a US tour. “I was prepared for different weather signs and the way the band flowed, but I added more of a rock element than Bill. [Bruford] he did, “he later said.
The first studio album he played (and the band’s sixth overall), Tales from Topographic Oceans, was also the UK’s number 1 Yes album. The success continued: 1977’s Going For the One was another top of the charts, but the band began to fracture, with the keyboardist. Rick Wakeman and then-singer Jon Anderson left in the early 1980s. Despite the brief incorporation of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes (AKA the Buggles) into the group, Yes split in 1981.
White played with Yes bassist Chris Squire and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin in a group called XYZ, whose work has been smuggled but never formally released; Robert Plant was briefly discussed as lead singer.
White formed another new band, Cinema, with Squire, Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye and guitarist Trevor Rabin, whose shows drew Jon Anderson to the fold; they soon relaunched the name Yes. This began the group’s most commercially successful period in the United States, with the single Owner of a Lonely Heart reaching number 1 in 1983.
Anderson left again in 1988 and formed Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe with other former Yes members. “I didn’t necessarily feel betrayed, but at the same time it was something for us,” White later said. “But we just lowered our heads and kept making Yes music.”
The lineup continued to fluctuate in later years: Anderson and Howe rejoined in 1995, along with a brief stint for Wakeman, and there was another break from 2005 to 2008, but White remained the rhythmic heart of the group. all the time. “You want to keep the name Yes to maintain that high level of musicality and then push it forward,” he said in 2015.
He is an accredited composer of dozens of songs and has played on more than 40 of his albums. The health difficulties that began in 2016 reduced her role with the group, but she continued to play a part of each set live, with Jay Schellen playing most of the material.