January 13: Owner of a Lonely Heart

Trevor Rabin, guitarist with the progressive rock band Yes and a film composer with more than forty scores to his credit, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on this date in 1954. Although a musician from a young age and the son of a family of musicians (whom he describes as “extremely anti-apartheid”), he was self-taught on guitar, which he picked up at 12. A successful South African studio musician and performing artist (who had a hit anti-apartheid song, “Wake Up! State of Fear”), he moved to Los Angeles in 1981, joined Yes in 1983, and transformed the band’s sound, helping to produce their biggest hit, “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” on which he was the key writer (see the official video below). Rabin has also produce five solo albums, including Jacaranda, on which he played all the instruments, released in 2012, twenty-three years after his last solo work.

“Owner of a lonely heart
Owner of a lonely heart
Much better than a
Owner of a broken heart
Owner of a lonely heart” —Trevor Rabin et al.