Jimmy Page to release Yes collaboration?…

With the recent sad loss of Yes founder member and bass player Chris Squire recently there is potentially some good news for Yes fans as well as those of Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin. As Jimmy Page finishes re-releasing the Zeppelin back catalogue on vinyl and CD it seems he may soon be turning his attention to a collaboration with Yes members Chris Squire and Alan White from 1980.

XYZ as they were called (meaning ex Yes/Zeppelin) also featured ex Greenslade vocalist and keyboard player Dave Lawson. Whilst Squire wrote most of the material Page invited Robert Plant to rehearsals in a bid to help move them both on from the recent death of John Bonham.

At the time, Plant found the music too complicated for his taste but would later admit he quite liked some of it.

Contractual issues alongside a disagreement on whose current manager they should use proved too much for Page to commit and so the project came to an end. What it did eventually do, however was prompt Squire and White to form Cinema with guitarist Trevor Rabin and ex Yes keyboard player Tony Kaye. This then led to a reunion with Jon Anderson and a new brand of Yes for the 1980s, their most successful period since the early 70s.

It has been said that some of the material written by XYZ made its way onto the hugely successful Yes album 90125 in 1983, the album which included the worldwide hit Owner of a Lonely Heart.

Fast forward to 2015 and Page, in a recent interview said that he was looking to contact Squire and White shortly before Squire’s death. Perhaps we might see the release in the form of a tribute to the bass player? I hope it does see the light, Page and Plant were both full of praise for the musicians and what was written.

Time will tell…