“This is tightrope-walking without a net… it feels a bit like having him play a solo up close and personal, and who – other than certain former members of Yes, perhaps – wouldn’t want that?” Steve Howe’s Motif Volume 2

Steve Howe - Motif Volume 2.

It takes inspiration and real compositional flair to make a solo guitar piece fly, but Steve Howe has done it time and time again. From The Yes Album’s live gem Clap to Surface Tension from his 1979 solo record, The Steve Howe Album, and beyond, the versatile musician with the sizeable instrument collection frequently came up trumps.

Howe revisits both the aforementioned tunes – plus such similarly cherished pieces as Mood For A Day and All’s A Chord – on the home-recorded Motif Volume 2. This collection comes 15 years after the conceptually similar Motif Volume 1, and once again Howe spreads his bases between deft, Chet Atkins/Merle Travis-style fingerpicking, classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk and more.