BRIDGET ST JOHN REMEMBERS KEVIN AYERS

Bridget St John, who'd been a friend and sometime collaborator of Kevin's since the late 1960s. So with me filling in for Allan on newsletter duty today, it strikes me as a good opportunity to run in full the transcript of my interview with Bridget. Here it is.

How did you first meet Kevin?

I’m pretty certain that the first time I met him was in late 68 or 69 at a CND rally at Chalk Farm Roundhouse. I think it was probably 69. Everyone – a lot of people were there. But I remember very clearly hanging with him and I think his lady at the time and a lot of other people. I think Robert was there, Robert Wyatt.

What were your first impressions of him?
A lovely, beautiful human being. I’d say that was my first and last impression of him. I think he was very strong and very sure of what he wanted, and I suppose I’m talking creatively because that was most of my connection with him was through music. But he was gentle but sure of what he wanted from whatever he was doing. In my case, either me singing with him on his songs or him producing the single that he produced with me. He was very clear and not waffley at all.

Read on... 

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE AT GONZO

Hyde Park Free Concert 1970 CD - £9.99

What More Can I Say CD - £9.99

LINK: PROGROCK’S GREATEST UNEASY LOVESONG: KEVIN AYERS’ ‘THE LADY RACHEL’ LIVE IN 1975

Now she’s safe from the darkness
She’s safe from its clutch
Now nothing can harm her
At least not very much

When the great Kevin Ayers died on February 18th, I checked YouTube to see if there was a vintage live clip of him performing my favorite song of his, “The Lady Rachel” from 1969’s progrock milestone Joy of a Toy. There wasn’t, but a few weeks later, a kind soul posted this humdinger of a performance from Belgium in 1975.

Ayers, with a band including Zoot Money and Ollie Hassell, does an astonishing twelve-minute long “Lady Rachel” here. If you’re a Kevin Ayers fan, you’ll plotz. The quality is great, too.

The thing that I wondered about is the audience murmuring among themselves at the song’s start. Who the hell would have talked during Kevin Ayers in his prime? Idiots!

When Joy of a Toy was remastered with extra tracks in 2003, it included an outtake from the sessions titled “Religious Experience” [take 9] (aka “Singing a Song in the Morning”) with Syd Barrett on guitar.
 

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/progrocks_greatest_uneasy_lovesong_kevin_ayers_the_lady_rachel_live_in_1975

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM GONZO
What More Can I Say
CD - £9.99

Hyde Park Free Concert 1970 CD - £9.99

Robert Wyatt pays tribute to Kevin Ayers

DURATION: 13:29

Robert Wyatt joins Stuart Maconie to pay tribute to Kevin Ayers. Friends since they were teenagers, Robert and Kevin were founding members of The Soft Machine.

Read on...

Daevid Allen's University of Errors w/Kevin Ayers - Feelin' Reelin' Squealin'

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE AT GONZO

Kevin Ayers

Kevin Ayers and The Whole World

Daevid Allen

Daevid Allen and Friends

Daevid Allen and Mother Gong

Daevid Allen And Russell Hibbs

Daevid Allen Magick

AN ACADEMIC ASTRONOMER ON SOFT MACHINE AND MORE

Kevin Ayers died yesterday. If you search out http://www.kevin-ayers.com/ the page you arrive at says “this domain has expired”.  A grim accidental joke. There is a rather good obituary in the Guardian. It seems that by his bed a note was found that said “you can’t shine if you don’t burn”. Ohhhh…. shivers. So … Kevin … why why why are you sleeping ??

When a lad, Soft Machine was my favourite band. The whole journey from psychedelia to jazz fusion to burn out was only a few years, but thats when my neurons were connecting like crazy. Pretentious? Yes. Still fascinating? Yes. So… Kevin Ayers is dead, we know not why. Hugh Hopper died of Leukaemia in 2009. Daevid Allen is somewhere lost on Planet Gong. Robert Wyatt is a National Treasure. But but but … where is Mike Ratledge??? How can someone with such cool sunglasses have been lost to modern culture? There have been rumours that he writes tunes for commercials. Can this really be true?

Read on...

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE AT GONZO

Live at Henie Onstad Art Centre 1971 3CD - £19.99

Vol 1 CD - £7.99

Rubber Riff CD - £7.99

Breda Reactor CD - £9.99

Somewhere In Soho  CD - £7.99

Turns On Vol 2  CD - £7.99

REMEMBERING KEVIN AYERS: Possibly his last interview

'I can't write songs unless I'm in love' … Kevin Ayers. Photograph: Marc Broussely/Redferns

There are poppy fields above the city of Carcassonne in south-western France, and quiet houses with windows so tightly shuttered they appear to be in a permanent state of repose. The higher you get up the mountain, the closer the air becomes; there's a place where the road forks into two – a little scrap of fenced-off land in the middle planted with fruit trees and a hammock strung up in the shade. It is here, on an afternoon like this, that if you're lucky, you might catch a glimpse of Kevin Ayers.

Ayers has been living in voluntary exile in France for longer than he can remember; something about England never sat right with him. Forty years ago, when Soft Machine released their first album and toured the world with Jimi Hendrix, Ayers – lead vocalist and bass player, then 24 – gave up and fled to Ibiza. There, he later said, he "lived on nothing – fruit from the trees and the fish that I caught every day". His first solo album, Joy of a Toy, was a piece of psychedelic whimsy with songs such as Eleanor's Cake (Which Ate Her) and The Lady Rachel, while the demos for his first single Singing a Song in the Morning, originally featured Syd Barrett – although by the time it came to the final cut, the ex-Floyd frontman was too far into his mental meltdown to remember the chords. The Whole World, a band featuring a young Mike Oldfield on bass, was assembled for a second LP, Shooting At the Moon, and Ayers was back in the limelight, hailed as a new David Bowie. He cancelled the promotional tour after a few dates, though, and aborted the group just as it was taking off.

Read on...

REMEMBERING KEVIN AYERS: Rock's Back Pages

AYERS AND GRACES: Remembering Kevin Ayers with pieces by Simon Frith (Let It Rock, 1974) and Jonh Ingham (Sounds, 1964). Plus Ayers revisits the Soft Machine and Robert Wyatt with Simon Reynolds (Guardian, 2007)...

Complete Kevin Ayers on RBP

THOM THE WORLD POET REMEMBERS KEVIN AYERS

"YOU CAN'T SHINE IF YOU DON'T BURN!"

(Kevin Ayers-gone Feb 18,2013

John Peel called him the most important underacknowledged musical innovator in contemporary Britain

WILDE FLOWERS morphed into SOFT MACHINE(Thank you,William Burroughs!),

playing@the UFO Club with Syd Barrett's PINK FLOYD.Played the PROMS!

Toured America in 68 with JIMI HENDRIX(who gave him a Gibson guitar)

Played with BRIAN ENO,MIKE OLDFIELD,JOHN CALE,ROBERT WYATT.NICO,ZOOT MONEY,

and many luminaries of the "Canterbury scene"(CARAVAN,EGG,GONG etc)

and i am sure i saw him @Gong's 25th in London,if not the UNCON(Amsterdam)

17 solo records later,a friend to heroin and early LSD-but a better musical innovator,

he attracted the attention of SONIC YOUTH and TEENAGE FANCLUB.

Frequenter of Deia,Majorca,went recluse ,ended up in Montolieu("Village of Books")

I knew a young Ayers follower who sought to arrange solo tours for Kevin

But Kevin knew too much about rock star ripoffs.He would not play the game.He would not play

His last UNFAIRGROUND gained "critical acclaim".He withdrew(again)

Leaving a little of his light for us to play -a SOFT MACHINE of missed fame

Solo.He became solo.His songs found homes among us still-and will...

KEVIN AYERS: Wherefore art thou Kevin?

There are so many people who made records in 1970 or 1971 whose subsequent careers have been a crashing disappointment. Rod Stewart and Elton John, for example, although it must be said that Sir Elton has redeemed himself to a certain extent with his last few releases.

Here, I should once again make the point that any comments I make about the dodginess or otherwise of people's careers is my own opinion and now't to do with any of those jolly nice fellows and fellowesses at Gonzo Multimedia.

Their subsequent careers were a crashing disappointment because most of the records they produced after their first amazing burst of enthusiasm and creativity just weren’t terribly good. However, other people’s subsequent careers were a crashing disappointment because although the records they made were stunning, they just didn’t make very many of them, either because they died relatively young, or because – for whatever reason – they just decided to withdraw from the limelight.

A case in point, and probably as far as I am concerned, the biggest case in point is Kevin Ayers. Originally the singer with Soft Machine, he made a series of solo albums so unutterably brilliant that he only put one foot wrong. That was when he stopped making them. Over the decades his records became more and more infrequent, although they were still brilliant. His most recent CD, 2007's The Unfairground featuring such notable guests as Teenage Fanclub and Robert Wyatt was bloody magnificent. But it’s been five years, and not a peep from the man.

I understand from many sources that he is a very private man and just doesn’t like to be bothered, which is fair enough, but I and all the other fans of his unparalleled song writing, sorely miss him. When I found out that there were a couple of Kevin’s albums on sale through Gonzo I decided to plug them on the website. Check out his artist page:

http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/artists/6795/Kevin%20Ayers
http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/artists/6786/Kevin%20Ayers%20and%20The%20Whole%20World
and in the meantime feast your ears on this:

David Bedford Feature in Latest Edition of Classic Rock Presents Prog!

There is a fantastic article in the latest edition of Classic Rock Presents Prog.

It is issue 19 and features Pink Floyd on the cover as illustrated above.



David talks about his current activities and also working with the likes of Kevin Ayers,Roy Harper and also Mike Oldfield. He of course discusses his own solo career and mentions his latest release which is a live recording of The Odyssey from a performance recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in January 1977 which features Deep Purple's Jon Lord,Soft Machine's Mike Ratledge and Mike Oldfield amongst many others.



The live version of The Odyssey can be purchased directly from the Gonzo website here:



http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/product_details/15358