The Yes Album

Yes had two commercially unsuccessful albums behind them and Atlantic was considering dropping the band when Steve Howe replaced Peter Banks. They went to Devon to write, first to a cottage at Churchill and then to Langley Farm at Romansleigh, which Howe liked enough to buy in the end. The songs were recorded that autumn at Advision with Eddie Offord. It was the first Yes album made wholly of the band's own material, with Anderson, Howe and Squire singing in three-part harmony throughout.

Money was tight. Manager Roy Flynn left during the Langley Farm rehearsals, still owning 5 per cent of the band's publishing in perpetuity, and the band retitled a short Bruford instrumental on Fragile "Five Per Cent for Nothing" in protest. On 23 November 1970 they were in a head-on collision at Basingstoke on the way home from Plymouth. Kaye's foot was fractured and he posed for the cover with it in plaster.

Starship Trooper was assembled in the studio from separate pieces by Anderson, Squire and Howe. I've Seen All Good People pairs "Your Move" with "All Good People". Howe's solo acoustic piece "Clap" is a live recording from the Lyceum Theatre in London on 17 July 1970, written to mark the birth of his son Dylan.

The album reached number four in Britain and number 40 in the United States, and later went Platinum with the RIAA. During a postal strike in Britain, Richard Branson's Oxford Street shop compiled its own chart, and manager Brian Lane bought enough copies there to make it that shop's bestseller. J. D. Considine wrote in the 2008 New Rolling Stone Album Guide that Howe's guitar playing was what finally allowed Yes to find their true identity. Kaye left during rehearsals for the next album in mid-1971.