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“We hit play, and the opening chords of Yes’ Rhythm Of Love sounded exactly like the beginning of the first song on my album. I thought we’d stuck in the wrong tape!” Jason Becker loves Trevor Rabin’s work
Jason Becker has praised former Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin, recalling how Rabin’s playing immediately impressed him as a teenager. Becker said the opening of Yes’s Rhythm Of Love closely resembled his own instrumental Altitudes, but rather than causing frustration it led him and fellow guitarist Marty Friedman to admire Rabin’s inventive playing, songwriting and tone.
Becker encountered Yes’s 90125 and Big Generator while travelling to record solo albums with Friedman at the age of 17. Six years after he spoke to Prog about Rabin’s influence, Rabin appeared on Becker’s 2018 album Triumphant Hearts; Becker’s live career had been curtailed by motor neurone disease in 1989.
In short
- Becker became an instant Trevor Rabin fan after hearing Yes.
- Rhythm Of Love resembled Becker’s Altitudes.
- Rabin later appeared on Becker’s Triumphant Hearts.
Explained simply
Yes are a British rock band whose line-up and sound have changed over several decades. Trevor Rabin, a South African guitarist and songwriter, joined the band in the early 1980s and played on the albums 90125 and Big Generator, which brought Yes to a wider pop audience.
Jason Becker is an American guitarist known for instrumental rock, while Marty Friedman is a fellow guitarist with whom he recorded as a teenager. Becker later developed motor neurone disease, which curtailed his ability to perform, but he continued making music and released the album Triumphant Hearts in 2018, featuring Rabin.