Talk:Steve Howe/Archive 1

Poorly Written
Ok - 1) Steve Howe 5 thats FIVE time winner of best overall guitarist as per GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE 2) Love the reference to John Petrucci. Page? Blackmore? Nope as great and known as they are...never made it FIVE times through Guitar Player mag. 3) Howe- 40 yr career...the rest?..Nope. 4) You'll notice that players like Iommi..never handled an acoustic or electric like Howe - ie- to be able to play the different styles he does. Also notice Iommi's use of one chord style - BAR Theres an old saying - If they could, they would - but they cant so they dont. To put it bluntly - he's not a rock guitarist, or metal or progressive. He's a "guitarists guitarist." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.105.250.50 (talk) 16:27, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

This is both informal and poorly written someone should clear it up. Also one of the world's leading rock guitarists come on. He's not that famous, and I know whoever wrote it is entitled to their own opinon, but you shouldn't be able to put whatever opinon you want in an article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.231.216.225 (Talk) (talk • contribs)


 * I don't think referring to Steve Howe as "one of the world's leading rock guitarists" is an overstatement - but of course that depends on how you interpret "leading". Such statements can always be refined. Why not take a stab at revising it yourself? PJM 18:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Steve Howe is certainly a famous and influential guitarist in Progressive Rock. It is certainly the opinion of Gibson who made a signature guitar for him and both record sales and chart position when Howe was guitarist with Yes. while with Yes, there were six albums that were in the top 10 albums in both the US and the UK. In addition, numerous other albums and singles charted in the top 40 in both countries. John Williams  (the Classical Guitarist) sought out Howe and took advice (and I think borrowed some electric guitars) when he was creating Sky . His style is distinctive enough to be almost instantly recognisable which certainly elevates him to a unique status. In addition he is certainly a viruoso.
 * Ever heard of John Petrucci of Dream Theatre? He cites Howe as one of his idols. Good enough for me too 8)
 * Candy 13:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the problem is: Is SH a rock guitarist or is he a bit more than this? He never uses typical rock sounds and never uses banal rock riffs. It's true, he's not so famous as Jimmy Page or R Blackmore, but his playing during the 70s was far better and is still much more personal. I don't think he is a rock guitarist in the common way, but I am sure he's got his own style —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.22.146.103 (talk) 12:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * People who were reared on Tony Iommi and Eddie van Halen tend to dismiss Howe as a soulless technician. That's just clueless and ignores the nature of his playing, but it's true he is (like, for instance, Mick Ronson, Prince, The Edge and David Gilmour) a musician who expands the common idiom of rock guitar. He's not primarily rooted in blues and boogie - country, bluegrass and classical guitar meant as much or more to him - and he has a crossover approach to styles that moves far outside rock and blues. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't be able to create sweaty, propulsive boogie and funk when he wants to: there's lots of examples of it in the Yes catalog (and is there any other guitarist on the planet who could have come up with the playing on The Ancient?) By taking that ground, he's had a limited impact on hard rock and FM radio stuff but a major impact on many other musicians and listeners. Strausszek (talk) 05:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Guitars and Equipment
As steve Howe has a driving passion for guitars and guitar collecting and his unique sound/style is also partly driven by his use of effects and instruments (he was certainly the first artist I saw using a pedal steel in Prog Rock) I thought it only appropriate to add a section on this. It needs a bit of fleshing out still. However, I feel that if it ever gets too detailed (ie big) it would be worth spinning off as a seperate page). Candy 13:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * He gives quite a bit of information and insights about his instruments, equipment and his musical journey with the guitar (and other string instruments) in his book, The Steve Howe Guitar Collection (1994). That one would be a good starting point, plus it's a joy to read for any Yes fan. Strausszek (talk) 19:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

(The) Clap
The song is heavily referenced as "Clap". I originally placed "The" in parenthesis because it is commonly (and I believe mistakenly) referred to as "The Clap". It certainly is on the Yes Album. Howe's own page refers to it as "Clap" and in live introductions he calls it "Clap". "The Clap" refers to an advanced syphyllitic condition where the afflicted could not "clap" their thighs together because of gential swelling. ;) I've reverted it back to Clap.

Candy 18:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Just found my very old copy of the sheet music for CLAP. It clearly calls it Clap not (The) Clap so removed (The) from the article. (Incidentally, the music was published by Rondor Music (London) Ltd and Topographic Music Ltd and cost 30p in 1976! Was transcribed by Mick Barker (although not particularly accurately imho)). Candy 18:42, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Steve has sometimes said that he hates this song being called "The Clap" due to these connotations, and he always calls it just "Clap". But it is true that it is listed as "The Clap" in "The Yes Album".  If someone can find a good reference, this may be explained for good in the article and we will avoid the constant adding and removal of the "The".Gorpik (talk) 16:12, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll check with Bill Martin's The Music of Yes, seem to remember he wrote about the issue. Strausszek (talk) 00:33, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Acting career?
I've never heard that he had an acting career in the late '60s at all. Does anyone know if this is true or not?--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 20:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 04:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Education?
As a former Five Towns College Alumus (A.A.S., Accounting/Bus Mgmt, 1984), I have to point out that not all Doctoral degrees are Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy). The Post-Graduate Degree that FTC awards is a D.M.A. (Doctor of Musical Arts). I haven't checked with the staff to verify if they did actually bestow the honorary degree on Steve Howe, although it's quite possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rszekely (talk • contribs) 22:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Corrected publishing date for 'The Steve Howe Guitar Collection'
I corrected the publishing date which had been given as 1993. I have the Balafon edition and this is a first edition published 1994 in the UK. The text and images are copyrighted as of 1994 according to my Balafon edition. If the text and images had been copyrighted in 1993 then this would be stated in the book regardless of the publishing date of 1994.

Please feel free to revert my edits if I am mistaken and an earlier edition exists.

Sluffs (talk) 20:30, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Personal Life
There was a short section on Personal Life in this article that has been recently removed as unreferenced and trivial. While I agree that we should not fill the article with those details, I think a short section is perfectly fine. Besides, two of Howe's sons have played in some of his records, all of them have songs dedicated to them and his wife appears as co-author of one of his songs, so that mention was in this case relevant to the musical career which is rightly the centre of the article. On the other hand, I agree that the section was unreferenced and I cannot locate a good online source right now, so I refrained from reverting the removal. But, if someone has a good source, I think that section should be put back.--Gorpik (talk) 16:54, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Instrument List
I think the instrument list is too long (here and in most Wikipedia musician articles, by the way). Even if he's occasionally played keyboards, this does not qualify Steve as a keyboard player, for instance. If nobody objects, I will thin down that list in the coming days to just guitar and some instruments quite characteristic of him, such as pedal steel (not lap steel), electric sitar and laúd (what he calls vachalia).--Gorpik (talk) 09:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Pictures
If you want to add some pictures of Steve, I have two nice ones that are released cc-by-nc-nd. Here you are the links Steve1 Steve2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.88.76.8 (talk) 16:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

It would be great to have a pic of him from the seventies. I know WP prefers as recent pics as possible, when it's about living persons in band articles, BLPs and so on, but Howe really looks his age in the new century (his playing is still very good). He's never been a major showman, most concert pics I've seen show him concentrating on his playing, but a more youthful pic would still be cool. 83.254.154.164 (talk) 20:29, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There are already several older pictures throughout the article. The current picture in the info box follows Wikipedia standards, we should not go against them.--Gorpik (talk) 12:45, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Stand in for Stone the Crows
I don't know if this is relevant, but considering Howe's prelediction for complex music, his attempt at Blues/Rock is noteworthy. In May 1972, Leslie Harvey (younger brother of "The Sensational" Alex Harvey, and guitarist with Blues-Rock band "Stone the Crows") died when he was electrocuted on-stage at a gig in Swansea. Apparently his mic-stand wasn't properly connected. Stone the Crows was scheduled to play at a festival in summer of that year, and StC approached Peter Green (ex-Fleetwood Mac). He said no, but Steve Howe heard of StC's dilemma, volunteered his services and played the gig. Apparently, considering his normal musical output, he was warmly appreciated by the punters.

IF this is worth including into the article, does it go here, or the Yes article??

Taff Hewitt (talk) 22:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * If there are references for this, I think it is worthy for this article (not for Yes). We might have a new Collaborations section for this and other similar pieces of information.--Gorpik (talk) 12:59, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Training?
Re: "His [Howe's] classical training along with his penchant for ongoing experimentation,...." What classical training? The rest of the article stipulates that Howe was completely self-taught. TheScotch (talk) 08:43, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I've just removed that claim. According to himself, Howe cannot even read music.--Gorpik (talk) 08:59, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 29 August 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Moved &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 16:40, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Steve Howe (musician) → Steve Howe – WP:TWODABS with a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. In addition to a predominance of page views, the musician has greater long-term significance to music history than the baseball player has to sporting history. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:42, 29 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. The guitarist gets |Steve_Howe_(musician)|Steve_Howe_(baseball) 5 x the number of pageviews and has greater long term significance. A dab page is therefore unnecessary and hinders the reader. PC78 (talk) 09:11, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Support, as the stated facts are completely convincing. -- Just N. (talk) 19:02, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: After some further reading and tinkering with the article about the baseball player, I'm not so dismissive of his significance. He is certainly very notable – he was Rookie of the Year in 1980 and saved the clinching game of the World Series in 1981. However, most of his later notability was achieved by abusing cocaine, alcohol, and methamphetamine, and that's not such a big accomplishment (and there's a new crop of rookies and another World Series every year). My basic assessment of the situation has not changed. The musician has had a highly notable career spanning about 55 years so far, and was (and still is) a leading figure in a band that was a major phenomenon of popularity and a pioneering milestone in the history of the progressive rock genre. —BarrelProof (talk) 13:01, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Support, while the baseball player is notable, the musician is clearly the primary here in a TWODABS situation.  Lazz _R  17:35, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Support. The baseball player had a decent tenure with the Dodgers, but was a pretty unremarkable reliever after that. The musician's global and cultural significance definitely eclipses his. Nohomersryan (talk) 03:24, 31 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Actual date for issue of "Love Is"
Since the studio album "Love Is" is now available for purchase, per Steve's website and Amazon, I changed the text to past tense. Can anyone verify the actual date of release? 2020 has been such a bizarre year. 2603:8081:6500:D400:BC44:4EC5:5919:29F0 (talk) 09:34, 29 December 2020 (UTC)