DIFFERENT EVERY TIME – The Authorised Biography of Robert Wyatt – by Marcus O’Dair (Serpent’s Tail, 2014)
I look for two things in a biography. Firstly, I like to learn something new and/or surprising about the subject; secondly, I want what I already know (or think I know) to be presented in a way that shares my enthusiasm. Marcus O’Dair‘s marvellous book scores top marks on both counts.
Based on extensive interviews with Robert Wyatt and most of the key people he’s worked with over the years, it is meticulously researched but never stuffy or overly academic.
The author (who is also a lecturer, broadcaster and musician) gives well-informed opinions but never seeks to force his point of view on the reader.
Robert’s story comes two parts – divided by the accident in 1973 that confined him to a wheelchair at the age of 28. Continue reading →
LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE a short story by John Barth (1968)
I read this story to plug a gap in my literary knowledge and as background research as part of my re-reading of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. The style and experimentation certainly helps put Wallace’s magnum opus into context.
When you read of Barth’s Ambrose it hard not to think of DFW’s “communicatively challenged” Hal Incandenza : “Ambrose was at that awkward age. his voice came out all high-pitched as a child’s if he let himself get carried away: to be on the safe side, therefore, he moved and spoke with deliberate calm and adult gravity”.
Above all it is the self referential, ‘metafiction’ of Barth’s story that is most striking and entertaining. Wallace didn’t use this postmodern device so much in IJ but you find the influence in his shorter fiction, notably the closing story in his Girl With Curious Hair collection called Westward The Course Of Empire Takes Its Way. Continue reading →
The Annie Whitehead-led project SoupSongs began life in 1999. I caught up with them at a recent concert at Teatro Bonci, Cesena,Italy. This travelling group pay tribute to the still very much alive Robert Wyatt by performing a selection of his songs This is done with the full approval of Wyatt, who rarely performs in public. The band of English jazz musicians were augmented by two guest singers Sarah-Jane Morris and Italy’s own Cristina Donà.
Jennifer Maidman
The band is made up of Annie Whitehead on trombone, Jennifer Maidman on guitar and vocals, Brian Hopper on sax, Dudley Philips on double and electric bass, Steve Lodder on piano and keyboards, and Liam Genocky on drums. [see comments for corrections + additions to this lineup!!] Robert Wyatt is a unique artist whose music always manages to be uplifting even when he is writing about heavy topics like revolutionary politics, existential doubt and struggles with depression. He pulls this off largely because of a vocal style that is warm-hearted and conversational in tone; in other words, he sings pretty much as he speaks.
Annie Whitehead
The excellent musicians of the SoupSongs group have no problem reproducing the instrumental arrangements of his tunes, a fact illustrated by the bold move to begin with a free interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood Hits The Road, one of Wyatt’s more abstract pieces from the remarkable Rock Bottom album. However, the band face an insurmountable challenge of rendering Wyatt’s distinctive vocal style using female voices. It is revealing that Jennifer Maidman captures the spirit of the originals best because hers is a voice that has a similarly fragile, untrained quality. The highlight of the show is her fine rendition of Free Will And Testament, an amazing song that reflects, Hamlet-like, on the nature of being and nothingness. In contrast, Sarah-Jane Morris’ jazzy vocalizing transforms the material into brash show tunes. Her stage presence is similarly exaggerated – wearing an elaborate crinoline dress she flounces and swirls orgasmically around the stage in a highly irritating manner. The less showy, Cristina Donà is more on the mark with a decent performances of Sea Song and, better still, a version of her own song, Goccia (which in the recorded version featured Wyatt on backing vocals). For all their apparent simplicity, these covers made me appreciate just how complex and clever Wyatt’s songs are. Although they are often abstract and experimental in tone, they always seem to have more of an affinity with commercial pop than the esoteric jazz-fusion/ prog rock of The Soft Machine, the band he was part of before embarking on a solo career. Nevertheless, Wyatt always keeps the mainstream at a safe distance. His brilliant versions of Elvis Costello’s Shipbuilding and The Monkees’ I’m A Believer (written by Neil Diamond) seemed to be simply because he liked the songs rather than to gain commercial success. This latter is, however, noteworthy as it earned him a slot on Top Of The Pops in 1974:
Part of an irregular series of bite-sized posts about 7″ singles I own – shameless nostalgia from the days of vinyl. (Search ‘Backtracking’ to collect the set!)
ROBERT WYATT – Shipbuilding b/w Memories Of You (Rough Trade, 1982)
“Somebody said that someone got filled in For saying that people get killed in The result of this shipbuilding.”
This is the best looking single in my collection with its handsome gatefold colour sleeve that opens to a colour reproduction of a detail from Stanley Spencer’s painting from the 1940s – ‘Shipbuilding On The Clyde : Riveters’.
Apparently it was released with four different editions; mine shows a worker with a brazier on the cover, others show workers with ropes , with tarpaulins or hammering.
The words are by Elvis Costello, the music by Clive Langer and the inimitable voice is by Robert Wyatt’s which draws out the beautifully judged mix of the vernacular and the poetic.
Shipbuilding is rated number 9 in the New Statesman’s Top 20 Political Songs and that magazine stiffly describes the song as a “Complex examination of the futility of war combined with empathy for soldiers in the Falklands conflict”. Continue reading →
Robert Wyatt is a national treasure and can always be relied upon to provide a lateral perspective on life and music. When interviewed on Radio Scotland a few years back this was his reply to the question – What Is music For?
“We are basically water animals – aquatic animals struggling on land. When we see land mammals like whales we feel connected to the rest of the world via the atmosphere which is mainly water. Music provides an aquatic atmosphere – it fills a room the way water fills an aquarium and you’re sort of touching everything else with music. So music is a way of touching people”
I look for two things in a biography. Firstly, I like to learn something new and/or surprising about the subject; secondly, I want what I already know (or think I know) to be presented in a way that shares my enthusiasm. Marcus O’Dair‘s marvellous book scores top marks on both counts.
I read this story to plug a gap in my literary knowledge and as background research as part of my re-reading of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. The style and experimentation certainly helps put Wallace’s magnum opus into context.
