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All Music Guide:
An enduring figure who came to prominence in the early days of the English art rock scene, Robert Wyatt has produced a significant body of work, both as the original drummer for art rockers Soft Machine and as a radical political singer/songwriter. Born in Bristol, England, Wyatt came to Soft Machine during the exciting, slightly post-psychedelic Canterbury Scene of the mid-'60s that produced bands like Gong and Pink Floyd. Unlike many of the art rock bands that would come later (Jethro Tull, Yes, King Crimson), Soft Machine eschewed bloated theatrical excess, preferring a standard rock format that interpolated jazz riffing, extended soloing, and some forays into experimental noise. Wyatt, then Soft Machine's drummer, left the band during its initial wave of popularity. His solo career was built less around his abilities as a percussionist and more around his frail tenor voice, capable of breaking hearts with its falsetto range.
It was not long after his first solo release, End of an Ear, that Wyatt fell from an open window during a party, fracturing his back and permanently paralyzing him from the waist down. After months of painful recuperation, Wyatt reemerged with the harrowing Rock Bottom (1974) and the bizarre Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (1975), the former dealing explicitly with his post-accident life, the latter a series of surreal fables. And while the music on these records is trance-like and experimental, Wyatt shockingly recorded a straight version of the Monkees' "I'm a Believer" in 1974 that became a big British hit. Controversy ensued when the BBC's long-running weekly pop music program Top of the Pops refused to allow Wyatt to perform the song in his wheelchair. After a significant protest played out in the music trade papers, Wyatt did perform.
Despite his success, Wyatt remained quiet for much of the rest of the decade, breaking his silence during the punk era with a handful of singles recorded for the great English indie label Rough Trade. Again, going against audience expectations, he recorded a beautiful version of Chic's "At Last I Am Free." This signaled the start of a full-fledged career renaissance that included numerous albums and artists such as Elvis Costello writing songs for him. His albums were lush, at times almost meditative, and Wyatt's voice -- clear, emotionally charged, and always on the verge of breaking -- brought great depth and soul to songs that, if recorded by a lesser artist, would have sounded terse and tired.
Always on the political left, Wyatt's radicalism increased exponentially during Margaret Thatcher's years as prime minister, as he maintained an unwavering support for Communism even as glasnost was nigh. Wyatt has comfortably worked in and out of the music business. He records when he feels like it, paints, writes, devotes time to political work, and continues to show no interest in the machinations of the music industry. He resumed recording with 1997's Shleep, for Thirsty Ear, and resumed his non-music-making activities such as painting, while supervising the remastering and reissue of his '80s catalog. In 2003, Wyatt returned to recording and released Cuckooland, a musically ambitious, loosely conceptual project that saw him collaborating with a large group of players including Annie Whitehead, Brian Eno, Gilad Atzmon, David Gilmour, Tomo Hayakawa, Karen Mantler, Phil Manzanera, and Paul Weller.
In 2007, Wyatt signed with the independent Domino imprint and released Comicopera, again with a large group, but whose core group included Anja Garbarek, Orphy Robinson, Yaron Stavi, Mônica Vasconcelos, Atzmon, Chucho Merchán, Maurizio Camardi, and Alfonso Santimone, with Paul Weller once more guesting; songwriting contributions came from Wyatt's companion, poet Alfie Benge, Garbarek, and Eno. After a three year hiatus from recording, he cut ...For the Ghosts Within, also for Domino -- with the Sigamos String Quartet led by Ros Stephens, and Atzmon. It was released in 2010.
Wikipedia:
Robert Wyatt (born Robert Wyatt-Ellidge, 28 January 1945, Bristol) is an English musician, and founding member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine, with a long and distinguished solo career. He is married to English painter and songwriter Alfreda Benge.
Early life
Wyatt's mother was Honor Wyatt, a journalist with the BBC; his father, George Ellidge, was an industrial psychologist who joined the family only when Wyatt was about six. This extended family also included his half brother, actor Julian Glover, Honor Wyatt's son. Wyatt attended the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, Canterbury and as a teenager lived with his parents in Lydden near Dover, where he was taught the drums by visiting American jazz drummer George Neidorf.
In 1962, Wyatt and Neidorf moved to Majorca where they stayed near the poet Robert Graves. The following year, Wyatt returned to England and joined the Daevid Allen Trio with Daevid Allen and Hugh Hopper. Allen subsequently left for France and Wyatt and Hopper formed The Wilde Flowers with Kevin Ayers, Richard Sinclair and Brian Hopper. Wyatt was initially the drummer in the Wilde Flowers, but following the departure of Ayers, he also became lead singer.
Soft Machine and Matching Mole
In 1966, the Wilde Flowers disintegrated, and Wyatt along with Mike Ratledge was invited to join Soft Machine by Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen. Here Wyatt both drummed and shared vocals with Ayers, an unusual combination for a stage rock band.
In 1970, after chaotic touring, three albums and increasing internal conflicts in Soft Machine, Wyatt released his first solo album, The End of an Ear, which combined his vocal and multi-instrumental talents with tape effects.
A year later, Wyatt left Soft Machine and, besides participating in the fusion bigband Centipede and drumming at the JazzFest Berlin's New Violin Summit, a live concert with violinists Jean-Luc Ponty, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, Michał Urbaniak and Nipso Brantner, guitarist Terje Rypdal, keyboardist Wolfgang Dauner and bassist Neville Whitehead, formed his own band Matching Mole (a pun on "machine molle", French for 'Soft Machine'), a largely instrumental outfit that recorded two albums. The band were about to embark on the recording of a third album when, on 1 June 1973, during a party for Gong's Gilli Smyth and June Campbell Cramer (also known as Lady June) at the latter's Maida Vale home, an inebriated Wyatt fell from a fourth floor window. He was paralysed from the waist down and consequently uses a wheelchair. On 4 November that year, Pink Floyd performed two benefit concerts, in one day, at London's Rainbow Theatre, supported by Soft Machine, and compered by John Peel. The concerts raised a reported £10,000 for Wyatt.
Solo career
The injury led Wyatt to abandon the Matching Mole project, and his rock drumming (though he would continue to play drums and percussion in more of a "jazz" fashion, without the use of his feet). He promptly embarked on a solo career, and with musician friends (including Mike Oldfield, Ivor Cutler and Henry Cow guitarist Fred Frith) released his solo album Rock Bottom on July 26, 1974. Two months later Wyatt put out a single, a cover version of "I'm a Believer", which hit number 29 in the UK chart. Both were produced by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. There were strong arguments with the producer of Top of the Pops surrounding Wyatt's performance of "I'm a Believer," on the grounds that his use of a wheelchair 'was not suitable for family viewing', the producer wanting Wyatt to appear on a normal chair. Wyatt won the day and 'lost his rag but not the wheel chair'. A contemporary issue of New Musical Express featured the band (a stand-in acting for Mason), all in wheelchairs, on its cover. Wyatt subsequently sang lead vocals on Mason's first solo album Fictitious Sports in 1981 (with songwriting credits going to Carla Bley).
His follow-up single, a reggae ballad remake of Chris Andrews's hit "Yesterday Man", again produced by Mason, was nearly released by Virgin, but at the last minute it was shelved, "the boss at Virgin claiming that single was 'lugubrious', robbing Wyatt of a possible follow-up hit."
Wyatt's next solo album, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, produced by Wyatt apart from one track produced by Mason, was more jazz-led, with free jazz influences. Guest musicians included Brian Eno on guitar, synthesizer and "direct inject anti-jazz ray gun".
Throughout the rest of the 1970s Wyatt guested with various acts, including Henry Cow (documented on their Henry Cow Concerts album), Hatfield and the North, Carla Bley, Eno, Michael Mantler, and Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, contributing lead vocals to lead track "Frontera", from Manzanera's 1975 solo debut Diamond Head. His solo work during the early 1980s was increasingly politicised, and Wyatt became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1983, his interpretation of Elvis Costello's Falklands War-inspired song "Shipbuilding", the last in a series of political cover-versions (collected as Nothing Can Stop Us), reached number 35 in the UK singles chart and number 2 in John Peel's Festive Fifty for tracks from that year.
In the late 1980s, after collaborations with other acts such as News from Babel as well as Japanese recording artist Ryuichi Sakamoto, he and his wife Alfreda Benge spent a sabbatical in Spain, before returning in 1991 with a comeback album Dondestan. His 1997 album Shleep was also praised.
In 1999 he collaborated with the Italian singer Cristina Donà on her second album Nido. In the summer of 2000 her first EP Goccia was released and Wyatt made an appearance in the video of the title track.
Wyatt contributed "Masters of the Field", as well as "The Highest Gander", "La Forêt Rouge" and "Hors Champ" to the soundtrack of the 2001 film Winged Migration. He can be seen in the DVD's Special Features section, and is praised by the film's composer Bruno Coulais as being a big influence in his younger days.
Influence on other artists
The Tears for Fears song "I Believe" from their 1985 album Songs from the Big Chair was originally written by bandmember Roland Orzabal for Wyatt, but in the end the band decided to record the song themselves and dedicated it to him. As a further tribute to Wyatt, on the B-side of the single, Orzabal performs a cover version of "Sea Song", from the Rock Bottom album. This recording can also be found on the Tears For Fears compilation album Saturnine Martial & Lunatic as well as later remastered versions of Songs from the Big Chair.
"Sea Song" was also covered by Rachel Unthank and the Winterset on their 2007 album The Bairns, and The Guardian's David Peschek said of the cover: "That’s the best version of that I’ve ever heard". In November 2011, The Unthanks released a live album, The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons, and Wyatt is quoted on the cover of the album as saying "I love the idea. It makes me happy just thinking about it."
Recent years
In June 2001 Wyatt was curator of the Meltdown festival, and sang "Comfortably Numb" with David Gilmour at the festival. It was recorded on Gilmour's DVD David Gilmour in Concert.
In January 2003 BBC Four broadcast Free Will and Testament, a programme featuring performance footage of Wyatt with musicians Larry Stabbins, Jennifer Maidman, Liam Genockey, Annie Whitehead and Janette Mason, and interviews with John Peel, Brian Eno, Annie Whitehead, Alfie and Wyatt himself. Later in 2003, the Mercury Music Prize nominated album Cuckooland was released.
In 2004 Wyatt collaborated with Björk on the song "Submarine" which was released on her fifth album Medúlla.
He lives in Louth, Lincolnshire and he has equipment in his bedroom where he records himself and his albums. We brought a G4 and Pro Tools and recorded it in one afternoon. He's such an extraordinary singer. Before he left, he insisted to give us a scale of his voice, where he sings all the tones – and he has the most amazing range, like 5 or 6 octaves. What's really interesting about his range is that each octave is of a totally different character. We actually ended up using that later for "Oceania", we used what he calls the 'Wyattron'. — Björk, Xfm, 25 August 2004
In 2006 Wyatt played with David Gilmour on Gilmour's new release On an Island, singing and playing cornet and percussion on "Then I Close My Eyes". Wyatt performed as a guest at Gilmour's series of Royal Albert Hall concerts, playing his cornet solo for this song. This is documented on the Remember That Night DVD and Blu-ray, released in 2007. Wyatt also read passages from the novels of Haruki Murakami for Max Richter's album Songs from Before.
In 2006 Wyatt collaborated with Steve Nieve and Muriel Teodori on the opera Welcome to the Voice. Wyatt interprets the character 'the Friend', both singing and playing pocket trumpet. Welcome to the Voice is an opera in one unique scene, on the street in front of an opera house. Wyatt's contribution to the recording was recorded at Phil Manzanera's home studio in North London. Welcome to the Voice was released in May 2007 on Deutsche Grammophon, and the recording features Robert Wyatt, Barbara Bonney, Sting, Amanda Roocroft, Elvis Costello, Nathalie Manfrino, Brodsky Quartet, Sara Fulgoni, Ned Rothenberg, Antoine Quessada, Marc Ribot, Steve Nieve and Muriel Teodori.
In March 2007 it was announced that Wyatt was working on a new solo album entitled Comicopera. It was released in October 2007 on the Domino Records label, a large independent label housing such big indie stars as Arctic Monkeys, Pavement, Neutral Milk Hotel and Elliott Smith.
In 2008 Domino re-released Wyatt's Drury Lane, Rock Bottom, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, Nothing Can Stop Us, Old Rottenhat, Dondestan, Shleep, EPs and Cuckooland on CD and vinyl.
In May 2009 Wyatt appeared on the album Around Robert Wyatt by the French Orchestre National de Jazz.
Wyatt was one of the guest editors of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, working on the 1 January 2010 programme. Among other things he advocated greater prominence for amateur choirs, and admitted to a preference for them over professional choirs "because there's a greater sense of commitment and meaning in their singing."
In December 2010 Wyatt was asked by The Guardian to choose his top ten favourite pop songs for its audio Advent calendar.
"Wyatting"
The verb "Wyatting" appeared in some blogs and music magazines to describe the practice of playing weird tracks on a pub jukebox to annoy the other pub goers. Wyatt was quoted in The Guardian as saying "I think it's really funny" and "I'm very honoured at the idea of becoming a verb." However, when asked if he would ever try it himself, he said "Oh no. I don't really like disconcerting people. Although often when I try to be normal I disconcert anyway."
