Atlantic City Weekly

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Jon Anderson has one of the most recognizable and memorable voices in rock 'n' roll. His soaring falsetto, whether with his band Yes or in one of his many side projects, has always made for a captivating musical presence. For the first time since 1982, Anderson is touring as a solo act, and fans in Atlantic City will have a rare opportunity to see the performer singing a more intimate set at Trump Marina. Whether wailing away over epic rock jams, spacing out to New Age soundscapes or going rootsy with Celtic traditional music, Jon Anderson has made consistent and significant contributions over four decades of music.

Entitled the Work in Progress Tour, this outing takes Anderson on a worldwide solo tour and is every bit a one-man show. A variety of the instruments will be hooked up to an electronic system that will cue animations, films, lights and other images. There is a method to this madness however, as the visual elements reflect Anderson's appreciation of Chakra color healing, an ancient Indian healing system based on vision. He will be performing hits from all eras of his career - as a solo artist, with Yes, and with such collaborators as Vangelis and Kitaro. He will be sure also to sample heavily from his ongoing work The Big If, samples of which appear on the Apple web site (apple.com/creative/musicaudio/jonanderson).

Anderson has been typically elusive about the direction of the project or when it will be ready: "I've been working on this piece of music for a year now," he says. "I'm very excited about it. I did an album years and years ago called Olias of Sunhillow where I performed all the music, and I'm getting back to that place again. It has a lot to do with the mysticism that surrounds us. We're going to go through a period now, because of the Lord of the Rings movie coming out. There will be a lot of interest in the mysticism of life and things like that. So, by the time I'm finished, it will be the right time."

Jon Anderson was born on Oct. 25, 1944, in the small farming village of Accrington in the rural Lancashire district of England. By the time he was 20 he had recorded his first single with his brother's British beat group, The Warriors. Over the next few years Anderson bounced from band to band living the rock 'n' roll life in swinging London. Some of the groups were blues-based and some were straight pop, but Anderson yearned for a more creative outlet for his musical imagination. He met his musical match in bassist Chris Squire in the late '60s, and after a few years working together they decided to form their own group. Recruiting keyboardist Tony Kaye, guitarist Peter Banks and drummer Bill Bruford, they were known as Mabel Greer's Toyshop, but soon they all decided to change the name to Yes for maximum brevity and intensity.

After two albums where the band was clearly working out its musical issues and getting over being a pop band, 1970's The Yes Album saw the band pulling away from the heavy rock and hippie indulgence that surrounded them. The Yes sound focused on technical skill, free-form improvisation and, of course, Anderson's inimitable vocal style. It met with critical success and moderate popularity, but Yes had not yet coalesced completely.

Several lineup changes followed, with Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman joining the band as members worked on side projects. In the first few years of the band's existence, Anderson himself appeared on albums by King Crimson and Johnny Harris.

It wasn't until 1972's Fragile that the band really began to come into its own, and the hit single "Roundabout" made the group a force to be reckoned within rock 'n' roll. The band's musical style was arresting, bold and somehow seemed to sum up the post-hippie era well. Many would imitate, but none would duplicate what Yes had created.

By the mid-'70s, after success with albums Close to the Edge, the 120-minute live opus Yessongs, Tales From Topographic Oceans and Relayer, all members of Yes took time off from one another to work on solo projects and side groups. The movement that came to be known as progressive rock was in full swing, and while Anderson and his bandmates took immense chances with their music, crafting extremely long pieces and writing intense, abstract lyrics, fans were buying the albums by the millions despite little radio play. Anderson himself said, "I think if [music] is played enough people definitely get into it. The biggest problem with our music is that we don't have a forum to play it because people don't want to play our music on regular radio." While this remains a troubling annoyance to Anderson and Yes, it has never stood in the way of their success.

Anderson, for his part, recorded Olias of Sunhillow in 1976, a startlingly complex concept album where the singer wrote and played everything himself. Yet despite the esoteric direction Anderson and his comrades in rock pursued, they always maintained a connection with their pop audience.

Through the late '70s Anderson continued to work on his own projects, help out his friends, and get together with Yes for the occasional album. In some ways it is amazing that a band so immensely successful would be so willing to let members take time off or join other groups. Perhaps that speaks to the general atmosphere of creative freedom that allowed the band to succeed in the first place.

Anderson found some of his most creative freedom when he hooked up with Greek electronic multi-instrumentalist Vangelis (renowned for his spooky soundtrack to the movie Blade Runner). The two collaborated on an album titled Short Stories, that was immensely successful and cutting edge.

Around 1980 the band split up officially, yet just three years later they returned with 90125 and the smash hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart." Anderson followed up the success with another solo album, Three Ships. Despite the popularity of 90125, Yes was plagued by internal disputes, and due to one such argument four of the core members formed Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe in the late '80s and toured extensively behind a self-titled album. As tensions cooled, the foursome joined original Yes member Chris Squire for another Yes album appropriately titled Union.

The early '90s saw Yes remaining largely dormant, yet Anderson was as busy as ever. He worked on friends' projects and recorded two new solo albums, using the creative space to express his faith in Eastern philosophy and healing while pursuing cutting-edge musical techniques and compositions. He also got a chance to indulge his decades-long obsession with Latin American music with his album Deseo, as well as to work with traditional Irish and British folk music on his album The Promise Ring. Yet the strength and significance of Yes was not lost, and when it was announced that the original lineup was reforming, Anderson was compelled to be part of it. He continues to work and record with the band, selling out tours the world over.

This year Anderson is taking a break from his longtime band to connect with fans of his music all by himself. Expect an eclectic mix of New Age spirituality and rock 'n' roll enthusiasm, but mostly expect Anderson's voice, which hasn't lost an iota of intensity over four decades of song, to illuminate and inspire.