This one took me a while to get a handle on, because YES is one of my favorite bands of all time (for a while there that is all I would listen to) and Roger Dean is my favorite cover artist of all time, which should come as no surprise to you as my work is very heavily influenced by him.
Instead of eventually doing several separate pieces I decided to go with the four main albums by YES all classics by them and they all have classic art by Roger Dean. Although Roger Dean has done some other superb artwork for acts such as ASIA and URIAH HEEP as well.
Spring 1975, walking into Cutlers Record Store at the heart of YALE university in New Haven Connecticut my friend Bob showed me the new arrival they were selling an art book! “Of whom? “ I asked, “Roger Dean, you know the Yes cover guy!” Now this was big news for a number of reasons, I had become accustomed to seeing Dean’s artwork plastered as posters all over the store, I marveled and bought a few (Osibisa I think was the first for you Dean historians), record stores never sold books, at least where I was, not ones that were shaped as a record cover,
and at the time there were no books about record covers! (Yes Dean was the first.)
I bought my copy of Views the title of Deans book and ran home, and then my life changed forever. You see my friends it was this book that had the biggest influence in my life and what gave me a crystal clear vision of what I was going to do for the rest of my life although I had not the faintest idea how to go about it. Now this is something, as it beat out some heavy hitters of influence before it.
Neal Adams and Batman, Barry Smith and Conan, Heavy Metal magazine, Dali, Lord of the Rings, Black Sabbath Deep Purple, Queen, Eerie magazine, ELP etc. and pretty much put the kabash in me studying architecture in college. I went into the graphic design program.
Anyways within six months I did my first logo for my friends high school band, and got a gig in the summer designing rock posters for a New Haven agency promoting local bands, I had zero experience other than my trusty Roger Dean book which became my guide to this field. I was a junior in High School, the rest is history.
Now that I have gotten that out of the way and showed you my bias, let me tell you the rest of the story and why Dean has no equals.
ABOUT THE ARTIST: Roger Dean was born in Ashford, Kent, England, on the 31st of August 1944. His mother had studied fashion design at Canterbury School of Art. His father was an engineer in the British army and he took the option of going abroad, so most of Roger's childhood was spent away from England - in Greece, Cyprus and Hong Kong. The family returned to Britain in 1959 and Roger went to Ashford Grammar School.
Roger graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1968 and continued to live and work in London. He designed seating for Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, produced his first record cover, for a group called Gun, the beginning of an ongoing collaboration between Roger and other musicians.
In 1970 Roger and his brother Martyn took part in the Daily Telegraph "Design For Living" exhibition at Maples. This project gained national recognition through the press for the work of both Roger and Martyn at a time when they had only just graduated from Art College.
In 1971 Roger produced the first Osibisa album cover, and the logo for Virgin records which attracted a lot of attention to his work as an album cover designer and late in that same year he designed his first album cover for "Yes". and this where our tale begins.
FRAGILE: Roger had met the main man of Atlantic records in early 1970, Phil Carson and asked if he could work for him, “ Gee, I only really have two bands right now, one is called Led Zeppelin and the other YES “
Roger inquired about YES although he did not do the first album as was originally intended but eventually their fourth entitled FRAGILE. He was introduced to their manager Brian Lane (who has been a Dean fan since) and was told that this was the most important album to them as it also debuted their new keyboard ringer Rick Wakeman (he also has since been a Dean fan and friend.)
The concept the band had (I think it was Anderson their vocalist) that they depict a piece of porcelain for the cover.
Dean offered a different view a Fragile world that shattered. YES agreed and a 30-year on again off again relationship began. Dean labored heavily on the artwork also designing a booklet featuring a page for every member of the band that was inserted in the album package. The first version of a new YES logo was beginning to also take shape, also at the time Dean was not well versed in typography and the layout exhausted him so he simply handwrote the credits and lyrics, which in time became a Dean trademark, as they were so beautiful.
It is important to note that at the time Dean was not a painter in the traditional sense however he really knew how to draw, and by experimenting with various media (watercolor, inks, enamel spray cans, gouache, crayon and collage) he was eventually able to achieve the photographic quality that he sought after for his images.
However he was not totally pleased with the end result, regardless the album was a huge hit for YES and the art was well received by fans. Sadly the artwork was either stolen or went missing at Atlantic and Dean has been trying to track it down ever since, considering the value of his originals and historic content it is a very sought after piece.
CLOSE TO THE EDGE: Now I’m not 100% on this, but Dean was not an automatic for the bands next album.
However considering the success of Fragile, both Brian Lane and the band in the end made the correct decision in keeping Dean aboard. Steve Howe in particular became a big advocate for his talents. For this cover Dean did a simplistic ambient greenish sky gradation, and let the newly designed YES logo and album title be the star of the show, this was printed on a heavy textured board that gave the actual album when held a very classy presentation (Sadly lost in the numerous CD reprints) like that of a beautiful book. When the gatefold album was opened the full painting was showcased, it was complimented with a handwritten lyric sheet, and some photos of the band in the studio (taken by Dean and a friend of Chris Squire) for the back cover.
Dean was still struggling with his technique (he had not bought a airbrush yet and was using car enamel spray cans) working on such a small canvas only a little bigger than the album size it was very frustrating to control.
Nonetheless the image was astonishing really tying in with the albums music.
Like most of Dean’s paintings you the viewer is the explorer visiting his painting, roads and caverns are set up in such a way that leads your eyes in a voyage to the main subject matter, in this case the main lake/island with waterfalls on seemingly all sides. The inspiration came from photos he had seen of Victoria falls in Africa.
The music inspired by the book Sidhartha went on to become a landmark album for YES and the prog rock movement. and the artwork pretty much cemented Dean’s reputation as an astonishing cover designer.
To this date it is most YES fans favorite image, and his most well known piece, ironically Dean has said its the one painting he would love to do over again as he was frustrated with the technique at the time.
It was also at this time that he introduced the classic YES logo that is being used to this day, the original sketches and finished art (only a few inches in actual size) are now in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert museum in London.
I have gone to several Dean exhibits and have catalogues of his exhibits; I have not seen the original painting or seen it listed so I am pretty sure it was sold to one of his architectural clients/collectors.
TALES OF TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS: This is probably one of Dean’s most recognized images and a fan favorite, he recently did a special limited edition print of the artwork priced at a brisk $4000.00 a piece. However he personally never felt it was one of his best pieces preferring CLOSE TO THE EDGE or RELAYER’s cover art instead.
Although today he paints with acrylics on board or canvas at sizes 4 x 6 feet this watercolor, ink and some minor airbrush piece was approximately the size of the record cover 12x24 inches. The album was controversial for YES as it was a double album, four separate sides each a symphonic prog rock piece based on the book Autobiography of a Yogi. It was lambasted by the critics at the time and cost them the departure of Rick Wakeman who hated the album however in time like the artwork it has become a classic in YES fans hearts. Anderson felt that it was a very important album spiritually for YES and was delighted with Deans artwork.
That year Dean flew with YES to Japan, the band had brought with them a hashish cake that they shared bringing on numbed silence for the first five hours, Jon Anderson (lead vocals) then got into a conversation about the concept with Dean based on the book VIEW OVER ATLANTIS by John Mitchel where he argues that everything in history is linked by a heritage tying in to the lost civilization of Atlantis.
Dean set about collecting visual references for the artwork, as he felt that the cover should be a code of patterns that shows a link to past and future YES covers. The images included the standing stones in Avebury, Mayan temple in Chichen Itza, Land’s End in Cornwall and markings of the Nazca plains in Peru. The constellations in the sky were the band member’s astrological signs. The band was so pleased with the art that Dean was commissioned to design the stage design for the tour (his first) and many of the images where projected onstage.
RELAYER: For Dean this was a very important piece of art at that time for a variety of reasons. When he did this he had heard some of the music (a rarity for him) and there wasn’t a title, actually it was after Anderson had seen the artwork that he named the album. He had worked very heard for the last four years designing dozens of covers, building a stage set for YES with his brother Martyn, and working on his architectural book of ideas/cover art his heart as before was still in his architectural ideas, RELAYER was going to be the last painting featured in the book
An exclamation mark to that chapter of his life and at the time possibly his last album cover!
Luckily for us he reconsidered and went on to astonish us to this day.
The painting like TALES was approximately the size of the album, its more a drawing or illustration than a painting. The background is in watercolor and the foreground in inks and pencil giving the art an incredible 3d effect. The craftsmanship by Dean is incredible it took him something like 300 hours to complete. One story I heard is that he fell asleep one afternoon at his at the time basement studio. It was raining and the window was slightly open so water splashed on the artwork that you can see in the background, he tried to cover it up but it can still be seen when you inspect the art.
The futuristic knights barely visible in the background setting off to accomplish a great task, the painting is almost a monochrome yet very powerful. He also designed an incredible stage design for the bands tour that I had the pleasure of seeing (my first YES concert and I was hooked forever) including the bands merchandising.
In my opinion his finest record cover, it is also his favorite and his favorite YES album musically.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW: Dean’s career has continued to flourish he went on to be for a time a successful book publisher, building houses and theme parks with his unique vision, logos and artwork for video games and most importantly a very highly collected Rock artist for baby boomers.
His prints and drawings fetching anywhere from $2,500 to $25,000 and on a last visit to an art gallery exhibit the original RELAYER art was priced at a mere one million eight hundred thousand dollars. He is currently working on an animated feature film based on his artwork with music by YES. You can keep up with him at his website here
YES is still very active 35 years later and after numerous personnel changes. There is rumor that they will tour again in 2008. Their website can be found here.
As for me I am going on a drive up the New England coast Close to the Edge on my car cd player and nostalgic memories of the summer of 1976.
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