Focus In The 1970s

by Stephen Lambe

Published 14 May 2021
For a few short years in the 1970s, the unique music of Focus entertained the world. Build around the prodigious instrumental talents of Dutch masters Jan Akkerman (guitar) and Thijs Van Leer (keyboards and flute), the band produced three classic hit albums in quick succession, and scored two worldwide hits with 'Sylvia' and 'Hocus Pocus'. The latter piece is as ubiquitous as tunes from the 70s get, distinctive for Akkerman's famous riff and Van Leer's once-heard-never forgotten yodeling. Musical and personal tensions between the two lead to a split in 1976, the band limping on until 1978. However, the 1970s also saw seven solo albums each from these two hugely talented musicians, with Akkerman moving into jazzier territory while Van Leer had huge success with his Introspection series of light, classical flute-based albums.
Stephen Lambe's enlightening book guides the reader through the band's early history year by year, dealing with all eight Focus albums song by song, while also giving the same treatment to Akkerman and Van Leer's lesser know solo work between 1970 and 1979. It makes for both an important potted history of the band and an insight into the tensions which lead to such a creative - if short lived - peak, but also acts as an essential guide to the astonishing music the two men made while at the peak of their powers.

Yes In The 1980s

by Stephen Lambe and David Watkinson

Published 29 November 2021
When Yes ran into problems recording their tenth album in Paris at the end of 1979, it was almost the end. Yet in the 80s, the band rallied, firstly as part of an unlikely collaboration with new wave duo The Buggles, then with 90125, the most successful album of their career, which spawned a number one hit in the USA with 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart'. The band failed to capitalise on this success, however, lingering too long over its successor Big Generator and by the end of the decade, Yes had effectively split into two versions of the same group.

With most authors concentrating on the group's 1970s career, Yes in the 1980s looks in forensic detail at this relatively underexamined era of the band's history, featuring rarely seen photos researched by author David Watkinson. The book follows the careers of all nine significant members of the group during a turbulent decade which saw huge highs but also many lows. Not only does it consider the three albums the band itself made across the decade, but also the solo careers and other groups - including Asia, XYZ, The Buggles, Jon and Vangelis and GTR - formed by those musicians as the decade wound towards a reunion of sorts in the early 1990s