That time Steve Howe told me that Chet Atkins was his number one guitarist out of all the great players

By Steve Newton

I interviewed Yes guitarist Steve Howe for the second time in July of 2001, when the band was on a North American tour that saw it performing with various symphony orchestras in various cities.

Two months earlier Howe had also released his solo album, Natural Timbre, which included a few instrumental versions of old Yes songs.

At one point I asked him if it was hard for him to choose which Yes tunes to cover, and he mentioned that covering “Disillusion”–the Chris Squire-penned middle section from 1971’s “Starship Trooper”–allowed him to play his “Chet Atkins part.”

That guitar legend had passed away one month earlier, so I asked Howe if he’d ever met him.

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