Yes was the answer to Squire’s search for a career

When a scruffy young lad was thrown out of school for not cutting his hair he picked up a bass and ran away to become a long-haired rock star

Yes bassist Chris Squire plays the Mojo stage on Day Five (Monday) of the Byron Bay Bluesfest music festival, held at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, northern New South Wales.

In 1964 a young lad was called into the principal’s office at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys School in Elstree, Hertfordshire. The prestigious institution was known for academic excellence, sending students to Oxford and Cambridge but this boy, Chris Squire, was not destined for academia.

Told his hair was too long, he was suspended and given money to get a haircut. He went home and never came back. Instead he got into music and became famous as the long-haired bassist in English progressive rock band Yes.

Squire, who died on the weekend, was one of rock’s greatest bassmen. Nicknamed The Fish, he gave us virtuosic bass lines that used the entire range of the instrument, at times underpinning or interweaving with sinuous, meandering melodies while at others driving and punctuating harder edged, insistent rock tunes.

He was no slouch as a vocalist either, providing harmonies to the ethereal voice of lead singer Jon Anderson. Squite was born in 1948 in London. Despite his father being a working-class cab driver, Squire later referred to his upbringing as “middle class”.

He certainly did middle class things, such as going to a good English public school and singing in a church choir, a good grounding in music and vocal harmonies. In high school he picked up playing the bass.

hris Squire plays bass during a Yes concert, circa 1979.

After dropping out of school, due to his unruly hair, he got a job at a guitar shop and gigged with local bands The Selfs and psychedelic rockers The Syn. He lived the rock lifestyle and enjoyed taking LSD until one day he woke up in St Stephens Hospital in Fulham not knowing who he was. He never touched the drug again. although later had a problem with cocaine.

While recovering, he spent time practising his bass, absorbing influences and emerged with his own unique style.

When The Syn broke up in 1967 Squire and bandmate guitarist Peter Banks joined the strangely named Mabel Greer’s Toyshop.

The band were not setting the world on fire and so when Squire met singer Anderson in 1968 he was ready for a new direction.

They found they had similar tastes in and ideas about music and later formed their own band with Banks, keyboardist Tony Kaye and drummer Bill Bruford. Their vocal harmonies and musicianship set the band apart. They opened for Cream at Cream’s farewell concert, getting them exposure and acclaim.

After a promising first album, titled Yes in 1969, their second album Time And A Word, which used orchestra to fill out arrangements, broke into the UK pop charts at No. 45. In 1970 Banks left to be replaced by Steve Howe, whose guitar work would give them their first gold record The Yes Album.

Chris Squire (right) with frontman Jon Anderson performing at New York's Madison Square Garden.

It included the two-part song All Good People/Your Move, which made the top 40 as a single in the US.

Kaye left in 1971 and Rick Wakeman took over the keyboards. Classically trained Wakeman had played with Cat Stevens and David Bowie and added an orchestral dimension to the music. The album Fragile gave them a No.13 chart hit, Roundabout.

The ambitious concept album Tales Trom Topographic Oceans, released in 1973, was successful but arguments over its creative direction caused friction within the band. Both Wakeman and Bruford later left, replaced by Patrick Moraz and Alan White.

Squire continued with the band but toward the end of the 80s they were seen as irrelevant with the emergence of punk. Anderson’s departure saw Squire recruit Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn from The Buggles to join the group. They produced the 1980 album Drama and then disbanded in 1981.

After briefly working on a project with Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page that went nowhere, Squire formed the band Cinema with White, Kaye and guitarist-singer Trevor Rabin. They were later joined by Anderson with whom they made the Yes comeback album 90125 in 1983.

It was be the band’s biggest selling album and produced their best known hit Owner of A Lonely Heart (which peaked at No.8 on the US charts).

The band would drift apart and reform several times but Squire was there for every album and most of their tours, including their first tour of Australia in 30 years in 2003. He also reunited with Syn in 2004. He continued touring up until earlier this year when it was announced he was taking a break to fight leukaemia

He was married three times, his second wife was soapie actress Melissa Morgan from The Young And The Restless. He is survived by his third wife Scotland and his children Carmen, Chandrika, Camille, Cameron, and Xilan.

Originally published as Yes was the answer to Squire’s search for a career