BEGINNINGS

This album was released in a time that I was very heavy into Yes and I was very curious to the flood of solo albums from all the Yes members. Steve Howe is one of my guitar heroes so this solo effort should appeal to me. After a first listening session I had very mixed feelings. No problems with the virtuosic guitar work featuring an array at the size of a museum (from the warm sound of the classical guitar to the distinctive sound of the steel- guitar) and I started to dream away with the beautiful cover art and all those guitars. The promotional video indeed was funny showing more and more Steve Howe pictures (with Roger Dean art) so in the end there is a whole orchestra of Steve Howe's playing all those different instruments! But I was not very happy with the (let's say it very nive) mediocre vocals and the poor compositions (too fragmentic), his second solo album is much better and more elaborated.