Yes
A Visual Biography
(Wymer Publishing)

Good old prodigious music scribe Martin Popoff is at it again. His new book, Yes: A Visual Biography is yet another superb rock-picture bio, repurposed from a book the Canadian jurno wrote about the progressive band way back when, with lots of pictures and a time-line chronological history that gives us the beginning of Yes all the way to their Drama album and tour. If you ever had any questions of what all the many men who made up Yes got into, here you will find answers. And maybe even in to stuff you might not have wanted to know!

Popoff also adds in other events that mark the history of progressive music, expounds on the various members of Yes solo works, and includes snippets of interviews, many taken at the time, to round out the story of this most important rock band. As with most of his books, this one is a deep dive of a read, you can spend hours just looking at the pictures, while reading the text. The man’s research is second-to-none and his love of music (and to be sure we usually get Popoff ‘popping off’ lovingly about metal bands) is infectious.

Yes: A Visual Biography is a stunning example of what rock journalism should be, but so often, unfortunately, is not. For fans of Yes, the casual listener and even somebody who knows nothing about this band, this is a book so worth reading.