Ok, so lately, I've found myself going through and listening to some of the Steve Howe albums I have. Yeah, we all know he doesn't have the best voice for lead vocals, so let's not get sidetracked with the "he can't sing" meme.
So lately I've listened to:
The Steve Howe Album: much better than I remembered it being. This one only has two vocal tracks, and Steve only sings one of them. Otherwise it's a mostly instrumental affair, and as far as I'm concerned, is largely what I want from a Steve Howe solo album, i.e. that focuses on his guitar work. Also, being the guitar geek that I am, the chart explaining which instruments were used on which tracks (a recurring motif with many of his subsequent releases) is very nice.
Turbulence: Actually, this one I haven't listened to recently, as it was already on the computer, but it's probably the Howe solo album I've listened to the most. This is exactly what I want from a Steve Howe solo album, i.e. an entire record of guitar based instrumentals, no damn vocals. I remember someone saying it was like the Howe version of one of those shred-errific metal guitar records that were popular at the time, like the ones that were put out by Shrapnel.
Quantum Guitar: another all instrumental album, from the late 90's. This seemed like a followup to Turbulence, as it's again all instrumental (after the more vocal oriented The Grand Scheme Of Things, which I've been kinda putting off listening to). Good versions of Walk Don't Run and Sleepwalk on this one.
Skyline: this is one is sort of a somewhat new-agey sounding instrumental disc, a sort of a duo album with a keyboardist named Paul Sutin. I kinda liked this, but I have to spend more time with it.
Homebrew 2: I have the first three Homebrew albums (Wiki says there's been six so far). I've got the 2nd one playing right now. There's some good stuff on this and the first one, as they're all demos of various things, many of which ended up on various records in other forms. One thing that's kinda neat is hearing some of the raw musical ideas that he brought to, let's say a Yes record, before they got fashioned into the more complete form that we've heard them in previously. Volume two here has a bunch of things that ended up on Keys To Ascension, I think there's a couple things related to GTR here, etc. Oh, and there's the demo to what we now know as To Be Over.
I'm kinda dreading listening to The Grand Scheme Of Things, and when I find it, Beginnings, as I don't have fond memories of listening to those in the past. Oh well, we'll see what happens when I finally put them on.
I am looking forward to listening to his all acoustic album, Natural Timbre because, well, once again, it's all instrumental, and again, it's basically want to hear from someone like Steve Howe.
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