It was a great honor for the montreuxmusic team to welcome Steve Howe as a surprise guest replacing Mike Moran who was unable to travel to Montreux due to a serious back problem. (see Mike Moran section for detail)

Guitarist Steve Howe is best known for his work with the progressive rock band YES with whom he performed from 1970 until 1981. He has also been a member of The Syndicats, Bodast, Tomorrow, ASIA and GTR and has released 19 solo albums as of  beginning 2008 !!

Memorial Day participants were delighted to meet him and share some moments with this great musician. They had the opportunity to listen to some songs he performed live with his classic guitar and to learn about his musical experiences and his relationship with Queen and Freddie.

In fact, in 1991, Steve contributed a flamenco inspired guitar solo to the epic QUEEN title track song Innuendo. Actually this song began as a jam session in the Mountain Studios in Montreux amongst Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon in spring 1989. Freddie Mercury was upstairs and heard them playing the beat, and turned it into a song, creating the melody and starting off the lyrics. From then on, all four worked on polishing the track and Roger Taylor took over the lyrics (which were written as a tribute to Led Zeppelin and their song "Kashmir"). The middle section, written by Freddie, was included later and it featured a synth-orchestra programmed by producer David Richards and a flamenco interlude played Steve Howe, who had come to visit them and was asked to play what Brian May himself admitted he couldn't.

Back in Spring 1981, Steve Howe and friends John Wetton, bass/vocal, drummer Carl Palmer, keyboardist Geoff Downes, formed ASIA. Asia's debut album exploded onto the music scene in March 1982 with several Top 10 singles and sales exceeding 7 million copies. This "supergroup" was the logical successor to their collective bands of the 70s - Yes, King Crimson, ELP, and The Buggles. The first Asia album was produced by Mike Stone at Marcus Studios and Virgin Townhouse in London. Mike Stone, who had worked on hits for band Journey and QUEEN, knew the band had an amazing musical ability.

Steve Howe formed, in 1985, the group GTR with ex-Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett. Their only album called GTR went gold, but Hackett's interest in pursuing solo interests spelled the end of the group. In 2003, Steve performed with YES at the Montreux Jazz Festival featuring the classic lineup.Yes had announced a 2008 world tour, in honour of the band's 40th Anniversary, entitled "Close to the Edge and Back". However, the tour was canceled due to Jon Anderson's health problems.

After the Montreux Freddie week-end, Steve flew to Canada to perform 8 gigs there. Some concerts solo and some with the new Steve Howe Trio. They started September 27th in Montreal then Quebec City, Toronto, Kingston etc. The tour will end October 8th in Ottawa.

montreuxmusic Team