HOWE
Stephen

• 1. Early life
• 2. Personal life

Stephen James Howe  is an English musician, songwriter and producer, best known as the guitarist in the progressive rock band Yes across three stints since 1970. Born in Holloway, North London, Howe developed an interest in the guitar and began to learn the instrument himself at age 12. He embarked on a music career in 1964, first playing in several London-based blues, covers, and psychedelic rock bands for six years, including the Syndicats, Tomorrow, and Bodast.

Upon joining Yes in 1970, Howe helped to change the band's musical direction, leading to more commercial and critical success. His blend of acoustic and electric guitar helped shape the sound of the band. Many of their best-known songs were co-written by Howe, who remained with the band until they briefly disbanded in 1981. Howe returned to the group in 1990 for two years and has remained a full-time member since 1995. After Alan White's death in 2022, he is the longest-serving member of the band currently active.

Howe achieved further success in the 1980s and beyond as a member of the rock bands Asia, GTR, and Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe. He has also had a prolific solo career, releasing 20 solo albums that achieved varied levels of success, and collaborating with artists such as Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Martin Taylor, and Queen. He continues to perform with Yes, as a member of his jazz group, the Steve Howe Trio, and as a solo act. In April 2017, Howe was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Yes.

Early life

Howe was born on 8 April 1947 in the north London area of Holloway. He grew up in a middle-class family apartment with three older siblings, brothers Phillip and John, and sister Stella, the son of Cyril Howe, head chef at The Palmerston, a Bishopsgate restaurant, and his wife Ada. Among Howe's earliest memories is marching around the home to brass band music that he played on the home stereo. He cites several influences from his parents' record collection including Les Paul and Tennessee Ernie Ford, and also listened to classical guitar and jazz, citing Barney Kessel as a primary influence. Howe also credited Wes Montgomery and Chet Atkins, whom he first heard in 1959, as a major inspiration. Howe said he took from Atkins, "the idea that one guitarist could play any kind of guitar style." Howe was also influenced by Bob Dylan, remarking: "I think he brought out the rebel in me, and that rebel wasn't somebody who wanted to break things, but the rebel in me wanted to do my thing ... a rebellion against anything other than being me ... he became like a cult hero". Howe attended Holloway School, and later Barnsbury Boys' School in Islington, which he left in 1962, aged 15, after failing all his O-levels.

Howe wished to own a guitar at age 10, but his parents did not buy him one until they selected one with him in 1959 at a shop in Kings Cross, London at age 12 for a Christmas present. The model was an F-hole acoustic. Howe would stand by a window at home and mime his playing to passersby while music was playing indoors, until he began to teach himself without formal lessons or learning to read musical notation. The only book he read, he claimed, was Dance Band Chords for the Guitar (1946) by Eric Kershaw. After a period of practice which involved listening to records by Bill Haley & The Comets, Howe teamed with school friends and played his first gig at The Swan, a pub in Tottenham, playing a cover of "Frightened City" by The Shadows. He recalled the event as a disaster; the band did not rehearse or tune up, and Howe avoided stage performances for a while as a result. He added: "We were underage. I was painfully shy. I stood on the side of the stage, played my songs, never looked up". After he left primary school, he wished to become a guitarist and took up several part-time jobs until he wished to become a full-time musician around 18. At age 14, Howe and his friend from Tottenham started a group that played in youth clubs, eventually landing gigs in pubs and ballrooms. At one point, the band secured a short residency at HM Prison Pentonville for two nights a week.

Around 1961, Howe bought a solid body Guyatone, his first electric guitar, which was followed with a Gibson ES-175D in 1964, one of the guitars that he later became most identified with. He spoke about playing the guitar on stage: "No one was playing archtop, hollowbody guitars in a rock band. People laughed at me and thought I was really snooty. To me, it was an object of art, it wasn't just a guitar." During Yes's first visit to New York City in 1971, he slept with the guitar as his hotel was situated in a dodgy area and took it to bed "just for safety, I needed to know it was there". Before he became a full-time musician Howe took up work at a piano factory, followed by a job in a music shop. He left the shop when he began to pick up regular gigs.

Personal life

Howe's first wife, Pat Stebbings, gave birth to his son Dylan in 1969. They divorced within two years and Howe received custody. Dylan was a member of The Blockheads, is part of the Steve Howe Trio with his father, and toured alongside him as Yes's second drummer in 2017.

Howe married his wife Janet in 1975. They have three children: Virgil, Georgia and Stephanie. Virgil was a member of the rock/R&B band Little Barrie, and died on 11 September 2017.

In 1972, Howe became a vegetarian; since then, he and his wife have embraced the macrobiotic diet. He also avoids taking unnecessary pharmaceutical drugs, preferring alternative medicine and homeopathy. He ate his last meat meal during a North American tour with Yes in 1971;

Howe has also found Transcendental Meditation a positive experience: "I had been experimenting with different approaches to meditation for some time and then in 1983 I picked transcendental meditation as the one for me. I'm still doing it. I really like it and so do a lot of other people. It's not demanding. It's not about a religion. ... It's had a major, positive effect on me. I know that for sure." Howe completes the practice daily.

As a result of some accidents and near-accidents, particularly the one that injured then-keyboardist Tony Kaye badly enough to require the cast he is wearing on the cover of The Yes Album, in his early days with Yes, when the band traveled to dates around England in a small Rover, Howe has always preferred to travel by personal automobile, either driving himself or, more recently, with an "attentive" personal driver. In 1977 he bought a Bristol 411 Series 5, which he describes as "extremely high-quality ... a truly thrilling car to drive", although it had to be started with careful attention to the choke. Bristol stored it for him when he was out of the country on tour, and in 1992 he sold it back to them, with 55,000 miles (89,000 km) on it, at a profit. Since then Howe and his wife have driven, or been driven in, exclusively Mercedes-Benz products.