Alan White (1949-2022) RIP

May 26, 2022 Andy Rawll

Photo Credit: Gottlieb Bros

Very sad news from the land of prog.

Alan White, master percussionist and the rhythmic root of the symphonic, psychedelic, sonic maelstrom of ‘Yes’ for 50 years, has beaten his final retreat.

An official statement from the band stated: “It is with deep sadness that YES announce Alan White, their much-loved drummer and friend of 50 years, has passed away peacefully at home, aged 72, after a short illness…and having recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of his marriage to his loving wife Gigi.”

The news has shocked and stunned friends, family and all of those that admired his talent as a musician and his contribution to the enduring legacy of the music of YES.

Indeed, Alan had been looking forward to the forthcoming UK Tour, to celebrate his 50th Anniversary with YES and their iconic ‘Close To The Edge’ album, where Alan’s journey with YES began in July 1972.

Alan was born in 1949 in County Durham and served his musical apprenticeship in and around the local musical mecca of Newcastle, playing Beatles’ covers in the ‘Down Beats’.

Alan reminisced about his early career, when we spoke in 2020:

“…that’s right. We then changed our name to the Blue Chips and we then won a competition that was judged by Ringo and few different judges and then we got a recording contract….it’s amazing how that period of time relates to what I did later in life”. He then joined forces with fellow Tynesider, Alan Price, who was enjoying solo success, following ‘The Animals’ “Yes, I played with Alan Price for about a year and a half in 67/68, slogging up and down the English countryside playing cabaret clubs and universities”

Upon leaving the Alan Price Set, he played in the short-lived ‘Happy Magazine’, under the tutelage of his former band leader, before striking out with Magazine organist, Kenny Craddock, in ‘Griffin’, where he first came to the attention of John Lennon.

“I believe it was with Griffin, but I don’t know when or where. I only know that he saw me in club somewhere. Apparently he came in, saw me, left and then I got the call a couple of days later”. That was when Lennon was assembling the ‘Plastic Ono Band’ for a benefit show in Toronto

“There was absolutely no rehearsal time. We went straight on stage and had a rough idea of what we were going to play, as far as standard songs go. But it was basically, heads-down and see you after the show. That’s why on the record John says “well we’ve never played before” and that was absolutely true. That was quite a baptism of fire, from playing smaller venues in England to playing to tens of thousands at that Toronto show, with people like Eric Clapton in the band. The thing was, it was so overwhelming, I didn’t think anything of it. I thought I guess that’s just what happens in the music business, you get a call one day and the next thing your on stage with Eric Clapton and then you’re in the studio with John Lennon. I guess he took a liking to me.”

When talking about this contribution to ‘Imagine’, replacing John’s former bandmate as drummer, Alan commented:

“I didn’t really take over from Ringo, it was just the way that John wanted to do that album. He had some songs, like ‘Imagine’ and he just called me and asked to come down to try playing on them and seeing if It worked…which it did, in the end. I think that’s a great album. It’s an album that’s really stood the test of time. It’s not just the song ‘Imagine’, ‘Jealous Guy’ also stands out, not least because of the line-up, which included Nicky Hopkins (Rolling Stones), Mike Pinder (Moody Blues), Ted Turner (Wishbone Ash) and Klaus Voormann and other people that would come in at different times and be on different tracks.”

Alan also revealed his unwitting role in the arrangement of the iconic title track:

“The original demo that we did in the studio, the first couple of takes had the whole band playing form the beginning. I said to John “you do it so well, with the piano and yourself, why don’t you just start it without the band and he looked at Phil Spector and he said “why don’t we try that?” and we did and that’s what they kept.”

Alan was considered to be one of the greatest rock drummers of all time and joined YES in 1972 for the Close to the Edge Tour. Following his performance with the Plastic Ono Band at the Toronto Rock Festival, Alan worked with Lennon on the Imagine album and with George Harrison on All Things Must Pass. He also worked with several other musicians, over the years, including Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Joe Cocker, Gary Wright, Doris Troy and Billy Preston to name but a few. Alan White was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of YES in 2017.

Of his time with Airforce (alongside Griiffin cohort Kenny Craddock) he said:

“Yes, that was quite an experience. It was a really good band when everyone was on the same page. It was pretty amazing experience. I’ve fond musical memories of playing with Ginger, but socially it was a bit more challenging. His band had four drummers. There was Ginger, Phil Seamen, who was the guy that taught Ginger how to play and was a session guy on the London scene, and a guy called Remi Kabaka who played African drums and me, so I had to try to fit-in. I played about four or five songs with Ginger and for the rest of the set I played tubular bells, log drums, piano and all kinds of stuff. I was jack of all trades.”

Stints with Terry Reid, Steve Winwood and Joe Cocker followed, until the fateful day that London flat-mate Eddie Offord invited Alan along to Advision Studios to witness an affirmative session that he was engineering. Replacing a Crimson-bound Bill Bruford, in a repeat of his Plastic Ono baptism of fire, Alan had a mere three days to learn the band's repertoire before the Close to the Edge Tour began in Dallas, Texas on 30 July 1972. During his 50 year tenure, White played over 3,000 live shows with YES through the many variations of the band, including the Horn-Downes collaboration ‘Drama’, the Trevor Rabin era that spawned ‘90125’, ‘Big Generator’ and ‘Talk’, plus the post-Millennium highlights of 2001’s ‘Magnification’, 2011’s ‘Fly From Here’ and last year’s ‘The Quest’.

His playing style provided not only the bedrock for over fifty Yes album releases (studio and live), it also provided the catalyst for seminal 80’s electro-pop track ‘Beat Box’ by The Art of Noise, when engineer Gary Langan produced a drum-loop, based on an Alan White drum out-take from the ‘Drama’ sessions upon which he’d also worked. The track evolved further into ‘Close (to the Edit)’, whose title punningly pays tribute to YES.

Indeed, during the post-’Drama’ pre-Rabin period, the Yes rhythm section found themselves at a loose end, as Alan relates: “It was a very funny period, Chris and myself were at dinner and he looked at me and said “I guess that you and me are Yes now – what are we gonna do? That’s when we got a call from Jimmy Page and we went down to work with him for around a month and a half. Chris and myself wrote most of the music, so once management got involved, it went out of the window, but in could have been good”

At different times Jimmy has said that he might resurrect the music of the band nicknamed XYZ (ex-Yes and Led Zeppelin) and, despite 30 years having passed, Alan remained optimistic.

“I live in Seattle now and I went to a local event hosted by Paul Allen a few years ago to commemorate Jimmy’s life. Paul came up to me to introduce Jimmy and he said “Of course I know Alan, I’ve still got those tapes you know. We should finish them off” I said “sure, just give me a call, you’ve got my number and I’ll fly over. Of course, I never heard from him”

In fact, some of the music has seen the light of day, with the XYZ track ‘Can you see’ evolving into ‘Can you imagine’ on Yes’s ‘Magnification’ album and another riff developing into ‘Mind Drive’ on ‘Keys to Ascension’. It remains to be seen whether Jimmy will finally revisit that long-neglected archive.

Alan and family settled in the Pacific Northwest, near Seattle for some time and most ironically in a city called Newcastle. In recognition of his contribution to the community and his musical talent, not only was he was granted a key to the city and had 12th September appointed as ‘Alan White Day’, he was honored at the Seattle Seahawks American Football stadium with a full-scale marching-band tribute.

A number of health setbacks, since 2016, had restricted Alan’s time on stage with YES on recent tours with Jay Schellen filling in and Alan joining the band, to great applause, towards the end of each set.

White died at his home in Newcastle, USA on 26 May 2022, aged 72, following a brief illness. It had been announced three days earlier that he would be absent from the Close to the Edge 50th anniversary tour due to health issues

YES are dedicating their forthcoming 50th Anniversary Close to the Edge UK Tour in June 2022 to White.