Original Yes Guitarist Peter Banks Passes At The Age Of 65

From the British newspaper the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9928318/Peter-Banks.html

Peter Banks

Peter Banks, who has died aged 65, was the original guitarist with the British “progressive” rock band Yes, playing on their first two albums before leaving the group following a disagreement over their musical direction; the radio DJ Danny Baker once described him as “the architect of progressive music”.

Peter Banks Photo: PETER SANDERS/REX FEATURES

6:18PM GMT 13 Mar 2013

Yes, formed by bass guitarist Chris Squire and singer Jon Anderson in 1968, was among the bands which attempted to break the boundaries of rock music conventions by exploring different time signatures and quasi-symphonic arrangements.

Banks, who had played with Squire in a previous group, played guitar on their eponymous debut LP, released in 1969, and the follow-up Time and a Word (1970). But Anderson’s desire to use a live orchestra on most of the songs on the second album is said to have been opposed by Banks, who felt that as a result he would have little input. He was asked to leave shortly after the recording was complete, and was replaced by Steve Howe. His last appearance with the band was at the Luton College of Technology in April 1970.

Born Peter William Brockbanks in Barnet, Hertfordshire, on July 15 1947, he learned acoustic guitar as a boy and later took up the banjo. He first encountered Chris Squire when they were together in a group called The Syn.

Following his two years with Yes, Banks played briefly with Blodwyn Pig and performed as a session musician on an album by Chris Harwood. He then formed the group Flash, who released the albums Flash, Out of our Hands (both 1972) and In the Can (1973).

After marrying Sydney Foxx, a singer, he recorded three albums with her and other musicians in the late 1970s. He also pursued a solo career, making several albums, among them Two Sides of Peter Banks (1973), which featured Phil Collins; Instinct (1993), a collection of instrumental tracks; Self-Contained (1995); and Reduction (1997).

In 2004 he formed the free-form three-piece group Harmony in Diversity . He was also engaged in a jazz-fusion project called “Self-Contained” with the Spanish keyboard player Gonzalo Carrera.
Peter Banks was found dead at his London home after failing to turn up to a recording studio, and is thought to have died of heart failure. He was working on a live Flash album, Flash — In Public.
His marriage to Sydney Foxx was dissolved in 1977, and he married secondly, in 1999, Cecilia Quino, a Peruvian Yes fan whom he had first encountered on the internet.
Peter Banks, born July 15 1947, died March 8 2013