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At its conclusion, Hackett's interest in pursuing solo projects led to his departure.
In 1987, Howe commissioned Robert Berry as Hackett's replacement, and ideas of a new band name included Steve Howe and Friends and Nero and the Trend.
After several demos were recorded, the group disbanded.
In 1988, the guitar compilation album "Guitar Speak" on I.R.S.
Records was released which features Howe's track "Sharp on Attack".
The label organised a UK tour named Night of the Guitars with Howe in the line-up, performing "Clap", "Wurm", and the all-cast encore.
Howe also contributed to "Transportation" (1988), the first solo album by Billy Currie.
Later that year, Jon Anderson invited Howe to take part in a new album he wished to perform with Rick Wakeman and Bill Bruford as a new group, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe.
In 1990, the four joined forces with the 1983–88 line-up of Yes—Chris Squire, Alan White, Trevor Rabin, and Tony Kaye—to contribute songs for the Yes album "Union" (1991).
At the end of its supporting tour in 1992, Howe played the guitar and co-produced "Symphonic Music of Yes" (1993), an album of orchestral arrangements of Yes tracks.
In 1991, he is featured on "Polar Shift: A Benefit for Antarctica", a benefit jazz and ambient album to the Cousteau Society.
In 1992, Howe left Yes after Bruford, Wakeman and himself were not invited to participate to record the next Yes album, "Talk" (1994).
During the "Union" tour Howe released his third solo album, "Turbulence", in 1991 on Relativity Records.
In a departure from his earlier two albums, Howe focused on rock instrumentals that feature Currie, Bruford, and drummer Nigel Glockler.
The tracks were recorded some time before, but Howe had some difficulty in finding a record label who would release the album as the majority wanted it to include hit single.
Howe recorded a cover of "Classical Gas" with Bruford, but the track was dropped as Howe thought it did not attain the same standard as the rest of the album, which he described as "very real and original, as opposed to commercial".
Howe also contributed a flamenco guitar solo to the 1991 UK number one single "Innuendo" by Queen, something he felt proud to have played on.
In 1992, Downes reformed Asia which marked the return of Howe on their album "Aqua" (1992) playing on six of the album's 13 tracks, as well as playing on the subsequent tour as a special guest.
Howe's fourth solo album, "The Grand Scheme of Things", was released in August 1993 on Relativity.
Howe described the album as "quite colourful but quite personal ...
There's a lot of floaty sort of ideas—spiritual".
It is his first album to feature his sons Dylan and Virgil on drums and keyboards and piano, respectively.
Dylan was planned to only play on a few tracks, but Howe decided to play on the entire album.
Upon release, it reached No.
15 on the "Billboard" Top New Age Albums chart.
Following the album's release, Howe began his first solo tour in 1993 which included dates in the UK and the US, and spawned his first live album, "Not Necessarily Acoustic" (1994).
A second tour took place in late 1994 which was documented on his second live release, "Pulling Strings" (1998).
Howe rejoined Yes for a third time in 1995 for the recording of "Keys to Ascension" and "Keys to Ascension 2", the two double albums containing both live and studio tracks.
Since "Keys to Ascension", Howe has appeared on all the albums recorded by Yes.
Thereafter, over the following five years, the group released "Open Your Eyes" in 1997, "The Ladder" in 1999 and "Magnification" in 2001, before going on a four-year hiatus between 2004 and 2008.
Following their hiatus, Yes released "Fly from Here" in 2011 and "Heaven & Earth" in 2014.
On 24 May 1996, Howe received an honorary doctorate in Musical Arts (DMA) from Five Towns College in Dix Hills, New York.
Also in 1996 he played with Asia on a song called Ginger meant for "Arena", but was left off the album and was released on "Archiva Vol.
1" later that year.
He also added his guitar to two of the songs from "Aura", released in 2001.
Howe's solo album "Quantum Guitar" features his son Dylan on drums.
In July 1999, Howe released his Bob Dylan covers album "Portraits of Bob Dylan" that features a variety of lead vocalists.
This was followed by "Homebrew 2" (2000) as a sequel to his first.
When Eagle Records suggested that Howe produce an acoustic guitar album, Howe accepted and recorded "Natural Timbre" (2001) which also contains arrangements of three Yes tracks.
He considered it a breakthrough in regard to his solo output due to the time required to write and arrange strong solos.
In 2003 Howe released "Elements," featuring his sons Dylan and Virgil as part of Howe's album "Remedy".
In 2006, Howe rejoined Asia when the original line-up reunited for a 25th anniversary tour.
They released "Phoenix" (2008), "Omega" (2010), and "XXX" (2012).
In January 2013, Howe announced his decision to leave the band and concentrate on Yes and solo endeavours.
Howe was replaced by Sam Coulson.
In 2007, Howe founded the Steve Howe Trio, a jazz band completed by his son Dylan on drums and Ross Stanley on Hammond organ.
The Steve Howe Trio has released two albums: a studio album, "The Haunted Melody" in 2008 and a live album, "Travelling" in 2010.
In March 2015, a two-disc, 33-track collection of Howe's solo material was released as "Anthology".
Howe supported its release with a solo tour of the UK in April 2015.
Howe teamed up with his son Virgil for new album "Nexus", released on 17 November 2017.
The album was released by Steve Howe after the death of Virgil Howe in early September 2017; Virgil's death resulted in Yes suspending their ongoing Yestival tour i.e.
cancelling the seven remaining dates.
Howe was voted "Best Overall Guitarist" in "Guitar Player" magazine five years in a row (1977–1981) and in 1981 was the first rock guitar player inducted into the "Guitar Player" Hall of Fame.
The only other two guitarists to win the "Best Overall Guitarist" category for the "Gallery of Greats" are Steve Morse and Eric Johnson.
Gibson Guitar Corporation, the maker of Howe's second electric guitar (which he was still playing forty years later), said that Howe "elevated rock guitar into an art form" and "helped define a new style of music known as art rock."
In a tribute to Howe and his personal favourite ES-175 guitar, Gibson produced a Steve Howe Signature ES-175 in 2002.
Howe received a Prog God award at the 2018 Progressive Music Awards in September.
Howe married his wife Janet in 1968.
They have four children: Dylan, Virgil, Georgia and Stephanie.
Dylan was a member of The Blockheads, is part of the Steve Howe Trio with his father, and toured alongside him as Yes' second drummer in 2017.
Virgil was a member of the rock/R&B band Little Barrie, and died on 12 September 2017.
In 1972, Howe became a vegetarian and avoids taking unnecessary pharmaceutical drugs.
He ate his last meat meal during a North American tour with Yes in 1971.
Howe spoke about his experience with Transcendental Meditation: "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.
Sources
Ernest Vincent Wright
Ernest Vincent Wright (1872October 7, 1939) was an American author known for his book "Gadsby", a 50,000-word novel which, except for the introduction and a note at the end, did not use the letter "e".
The biographical details of his life are unclear.
A 2002 article in the "Village Voice" by Ed Park said he might have been English by birth but was more probably American.
The article said he might have served in the navy and that he has been incorrectly called a graduate of MIT.
The article says that he attended a vocational high school attached to MIT in 1888 but there is no record that he graduated.
Park said rumors that Wright died within hours of "Gadsby" being published are untrue.
In October 1930 Wright approached the "Evening Independent" newspaper and proposed it sponsor a blue lipogram writing competition, with $250 for the winner.
In the letter, he boasted of the quality of "Gadsby".
The newspaper declined his offer.
A 2007 post on the "Bookride" blog about rare books says Wright spent five and a half months writing "Gadsby" on a typewriter with the "e" key tied down.
According to the unsigned entry at Bookride, a warehouse holding copies of Gadsby burned shortly after the book was printed, destroying "most copies of the ill-fated novel."
The blog post says the book was never reviewed "and only kept alive by the efforts of a few avant-garde French intellos and assorted connoisseurs of the odd, weird and zany."
The book's scarcity and oddness has seen copies priced at $4,000 by book dealers.
Wright completed a draft of "Gadsby" in 1936, during a nearly six-month stint at the National Military Home in California.
He failed to find a publisher and used a self-publishing press to bring out the book.
Wright previously authored three other books: "The Wonderful Fairies of the Sun" (1896), "The Fairies That Run the World and How They Do It" (1903), and "Thoughts and Reveries of an American Bluejacket" (1918).
His humorous poem, "When Father Carves the Duck", can be found in some anthologies.
Earl Shaffer
Earl V. Shaffer (November 8, 1918 – May 5, 2002), was an American outdoorsman and author known from 1948 as The Crazy One (and eventually as The Original Crazy One) for attempting what became the first publicized claimed hiking trip in a single season over the entire length of the Appalachian Trail (AT).
He also worked as a carpenter, a soldier specializing in radar and radio installation, and an antique dealer.
Shaffer was born in rural York, Pennsylvania, which lies approximately twenty miles from the AT, and which he always made his home.
In the late 1930s he hiked with a neighbor and close friend, Walter Winemiller, and they made plans to hike the whole of the AT together, after the war that they anticipated the US would eventually enter.
Shaffer enlisted in the army in 1941, was well along in his training at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, and did arduous and risky service as a forward-area radioman in the South Pacific into 1945.
His friend Winemiller served in the Pacific Theater as well, and died in the Iwo Jima landings.
Shaffer said he did the trail to "walk the war out of my system".
In 1948, he began the journey from Mt.