'Kevin Ayers' (born
16 August 1944 in
Herne Bay,
Kent) is an
English songwriter and major influential force in the early English
psychedelic movement.
John Peel wrote in his autobiography that "Kevin Ayers' talent is so acute you could perform major eye surgery with it."
Ayers was a founding member of the pioneering psychedelic band
Soft Machine in the late 1960s, and was closely associated with the
Canterbury scene.
He has recorded a series of
albums as a solo artist and worked with
Brian Eno,
Syd Barrett,
John Cale,
Elton John,
Robert Wyatt,
Andy Summers,
Mike Oldfield,
Nico,
Ollie Halsall and many others. Long resident in
Deya,
Mallorca he returned to the
United Kingdom in the mid 1990s. He now lives in the south of
France and has completed work on a new album recorded in
New York City,
Tucson, Arizona and
London.
Early life
Ayers is the son of maverick
BBC producer
Rowan Ayers, but following his parents' split and his mother's subsequent marriage to a British Civil Servant, Ayers spent most of his
childhood in
Malaysia. The tropical atmosphere and unpressured lifestyle had an impact, and one of the frustrating and endearing aspects of Ayers' career is that every time he seemed on the point of success, he would take off for some sunny spot where good
wine and food were easily found.
Ayers returned to England at the age of twelve, and in his early
college years took up with the burgeoning
musicians' scene in the Canterbury area. He was quickly drafted into the
Wilde Flowers, a band that featured
Robert Wyatt and
Hugh Hopper as well as future members of
Caravan. Ayers has stated in interviews that the primary reason he was asked to join was that he probably had the longest hair. However, this prompted him to start writing songs and singing.
Soft Machine
The Wilde Flowers morphed into
Soft Machine with the addition of
keyboardist Mike Ratledge and
guitarist Daevid Allen. Ayers switched to
bass (and later both guitar and bass following Allen's departure from the group), and shared vocals with the
drummer Robert Wyatt. The contrast between Ayers' baritone and Wyatt's reedy tenor, plus the freewheeling mix of
rock and
jazz influences, made for a memorable new sound that caught on quickly in the psychedelic 1960s. The band often shared stages (particularly at the
UFO Club) with
Syd Barrett's
Pink Floyd. They released their debut single '
Love Makes Sweet Music' / '
Feelin' Reelin', Squeelin' in February of 1967, making it one of the first recordings from the new British psychedelic movement. Their debut album, ''
The Soft Machine'' was recorded in the USA for ABC/Probe and released in 1968. It is considered a classic of the genre.
Solo career - 1969 - present
After an exhausting and extensive tour of the United States opening for
Jimi Hendrix, a weary Ayers sold his white
Fender Jazz bass to
Noel Redding and retreated to the beaches of
Ibiza in Spain with
Daevid Allen to recuperate. While there, Ayers went on a songwriting binge that resulted in the songs that would make up his first album, ''
Joy of a Toy''. The album was one of the first released on the new
Harvest label, along with Pink Floyd's releases. ''Joy of a Toy'' established Ayers as a unique talent with music that varied from the circus march of the title cut to the pastoral "Girl on a Swing" and the ominous "Oleh Oleh Bandu Bandong", based on a Malaysian folksong. Ayers' old mates from Soft Machine backed him, with the addition on some cuts of Rob Tait, sometime
Gong drummer.
One interesting product of the sessions was the single, "
Religious Experience (Singing a Song in the Morning)", early recordings of which featured Ayers' close friend
Syd Barrett on guitar and backing vocals. The lead guitar that appears on the final mix was often thought to have been played by Barrett, even appearing on various Barrett bootlegs, but Ayers has said that he played the solo, emulating Barrett's style. However the 2004
CD reissue of ''Joy of a Toy'' includes a mix of this song featuring Barrett's guitar as a bonus track.
A second album, ''
Shooting at the Moon'', soon followed. For this, Ayers assembled a band that he called The Whole World, including a young
Mike Oldfield on bass and occasionally lead guitar, and avant-garde composer
David Bedford on keyboards. Again Ayers came up with a batch of engaging songs interspersed with avant-garde instrumentals and a heavy dose of whimsy.
The Whole World was reportedly an erratic band live, and Ayers was not cut out for life on the road touring. The band broke up after a short tour, with no hard feelings, as most of the musicians guested on Ayers' next album, ''
Whatevershebringswesing'', which is regarded as one of his best, featuring the meliflluous eight-minute title track that would became Ayers' signature sound for the 70s.
1974 was a watershed year for Ayers. In addition to releasing his most compelling music in this year, he was helped provide other artists with access to a wider stage, most notably Lady June (June Campbell Cramer). The recording, titled ''
Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy,'' made in a front room of Cramer's home in Vale Court, Maida Vale, brought Lady June's spoken word poetry together with the music and voice of Ayers, and also had contributions by Brian Eno and Pip Pyle. It was originally released on Ayers' own Banana Productions label (via Virgin/Caroline).
''
The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories'' marked Ayers’ move to the more commercial Island record label and is considered by many to be the most cohesive example of Ayersian philosophy. The production was expensive with Ayers quoting the recording costs in a 1974 NME interview as exceeding £32,000 (a vast figure at the time). On this LP
Mike Oldfield returned to the fold and guitarist
Ollie Halsall from progressive rock band
Patto began a twenty-year partnership with Ayers.
On the
1 June 1974, Ayers headlined a heavily publicised concert at the Rainbow Theatre, London, accompanied by
John Cale,
Nico,
Brian Eno and
Mike Oldfield. Tensions were somewhat fraught at the event since the night before
John Cale had caught Ayers sleeping with his wife, prompting Cale to write the bile-soaked paean 'Guts' that would appear on his 1975 album
Slow Dazzle. The performance was released by Island Records just a few weeks later on a live LP entitled ''
June 1, 1974''.
In 1976 Ayers returned to his original label Harvest and released ''
Yes We Have No Mañanas (So Get Your Mañanas Today)''. The album was a more commercial affair and secured Ayers a new American contract with ABC Records. The LP featured contributions from
B.J. Cole and
Zoot Money. That same year Harvest released a collection entitled ''Odd Ditties,'' that assembled a colourful and lively group of songs that Ayers had consigned to single B-Sides or left unreleased.
The late 70’s and 80’s saw Ayers as a self-imposed exile in warmer climes, a fugitive from changing musical fashions and a hostage to chemical addictions. 1983’s ''
Diamond Jack and the Queen of Pain'' was, perhaps, a low-point for Ayers. He was quoted in a 1992 BBC radio 1 interview as saying he had "virtually no recollection of making those records". The road back was marked with 1988’s prophetically titled ''
Falling Up'', that received his first unanimously positive press notices in years.
Despite the critical acclaim ''Falling Up'' received, Ayers by this point had almost completely withdrawn from any public stage, a state further compounded by the sudden death, by a drugs overdose, of his musical partner
Ollie Halsall. An acoustic album ''
Still Life with Guitar'' recorded with
Fairground Attraction surfaced in France on the
FNAC label and was subsequently released throughout Europe. Some collaborations with Ayers fanatics Ultramarine and a concert tour with Liverpool's Wizards of Twiddly completed his output in the 90's. The recording of a key date in London with the Wizards was released on the Market Square label in 2000 under the title ''Turn The lights Down!''.
In the late 90's Ayers was living the life of a
recluse in the South of France. At a local art gallery he met American artist Tim Shepard who had studio space in the area, and the two became friends. Ayers started to show up with a guitar and by 2005, passed some new recordings onto Shepard, most taped on a cassette recorder at his kitchen table. The songs were by turns "poignant, insightful and honest" and Shepard "deeply moved" by what he heard encouraged Ayers to record them properly for a possible new album.
Hooking up with London’s
LO-MAX Records, Shepard found equal enthusiasm for the demos and after making some tentative enquiries, discovered a hotbed of interest for Ayers' work amongst the current generation of musicians. New York’s
Ladybug Transistor set up rehearsals for a possible recording organised by bandleader Gary Olson, and Kevin flew out to New York. When the rehearsals gelled, the entourage which had now swelled to include horn and string players flew out to
Tucson,
Arizona where the first sessions were recorded in a dusty hanger known as Wavelab Studios.
With the tapes from the first sessions, Shepard set about getting Ayers to complete the album in the UK, where by now word had spread and a host of musicians started gravitating to planet Ayers. Shepard recounted meeting
Teenage Fanclub at a
Go-Betweens party and hearing their passion for Ayers’ music and wrote a letter to singer, guitarist
Norman Blake.
Mojo magazine (July 2007) reported that, within a couple of weeks Ayers was in a Glasgow studio with
Teenage Fanclub and a host of their like minded colleagues who had all assembled to work with their hero.
Bill Wells from the Bill Wells Trio rubbed shoulders with
Euros Childs from
Gorkys Zygotic Mynci.
Francis Reader from the
Trash Can Sinatras added his voice and provided a safe house for Kevin to return to each night.
Friends and peers from the past also visited the sessions.
Robert Wyatt provided his eerie Wyattron in the poignant ‘Cold Shoulder’,
Phil Manzanera contributed to the brooding ‘Brainstorm’,
Hugh Hopper from
Soft Machine played bass on the title track and
Bridget St. John, a British Folk singer beloved of
John Peel who signed her to his
Dandelion Records, duetted with Ayers on ‘Baby Come Home’, the first time they had sung together since 1970 on ''Shooting at the Moon''. ''
The Unfairground'' is scheduled for release in September 2007.
Kevin Ayers Album Discography
Kevin Ayers Single Discography
Compilations & Live Recordings
★ ''Odd Ditties'' (Harvest 1976) (a collection of rarities and unreleased tracks)
★ ''The Kevin Ayers Collection'' (SFM 1983)
★ ''Banana Productions: The Best of Kevin Ayers'' (EMI 1989)
★ ''BBC Live in Concert'' (Windsong 1992)
★ ''Document Series Presents Kevin Ayers'' (Connoisseur Collection 1992)
★ ''1969-80'' (Alex 1995)
★ ''First Show in the Appearance Business: The BBC Sessions 1973-1976'' (Strange Fruit 1996)
★ ''The Garden of Love'' with Mike Oldfield and Robert Wyatt (Voiceprint 1997)
★ ''Singing the Bruise: The BBC Sessions, 1970-1972 [live]'' (Strange Fruit 1998)
★ ''Too Old to Die Young: BBC Live 1972-1976'' (Hux 1998)
★ ''Banana Follies'' (Hux 1998)
★ ''Turn the Lights Down'' (live) with the Wizards of Twiddly (Market Square 2000)
★ ''The Best of Kevin Ayers'' (EMI 2000)
★ ''Didn't Feel Lonely Till I Thought of You: The Island Records Years'' (Edsel 2004)
★ ''Alive In California'' (Box-O-Plenty Records, November 2004)
★ ''BBC Sessions 1970-1976'' (Hux 2005)
★ ''Some Kevin Ayers'' (white label promo 2007)
External links
★
Kevin Ayers (his own site)
★
1998 Kevin Ayers interview at
Perfect Sound Forever (online music magazine)
★
"Why are we sleeping" (fansite)
★
Kevin's daughter Galen's band 'SISKIN' website
★
The Wire's ''100 Records That Set the World on Fire (When No One Was Listening)''
★
Pitchfork news story
★
NME news story
★
The Sunday Times feature
★
Daily Telegraph feature
References & Sources
★ ''Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psychedelics in the 1960s'' (University Of Chicago Press 2002) ISBN-10: 0226075621
★ ''Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock'' (Hal Leonard 2003) ISBN-10: 0634055488
★ ''Gong: The Return of the Banana'' by Steve Peacock (Sounds Oct 16, 1971)
★ ''Is This Man A Dipso?'' by Nick Kent (NME Aug 31, 1974)
★ ''Let's Drink some Wine and Have a Good Time'' by Kenneth Ansell (ZigZag 46, 1974)
★ ''Ayers and Graces'' by Nick Kent (NME Dec 7, 1974)
★ ''Despair and Temperence in Maida Vale'' by Mike Flood Page (Sounds Jan 25, 1975)
★ ''The Confessions of Doctor Amphibious and the Malaysian Headwash'' by Max Bell (NME May 24, 1975)
★ ''Golden Ayers'' by Jonh Ingham (Sounds Mar 6, 1976)
★ ''Ready to Die'' by Jonh Ingham (Sounds Jul 3, 1976)
★ ''You Need a Bit Missing Upstairs to Play This Game'' by Jonathan Glancey (The Guardian July 4, 2003)
★ ''Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous'' by Graham Bennett (SAF Publishing 2005)
★ ''Whatevershebringswesing'' sleevenotes by Martin Wakeling (EMI Sept 2006)
★ ''Joy of a Toy'' sleevenotes by Martin Wakeling (EMI Sept 2006)
★ ''The Rare Record Price Guide'' (Diamond Publishing Group Ltd Oct 2006) ISBN-10: 0953260151
★ ''Kevin Ayers: Mojo Working'' by James McNair (Mojo July 2007)
★ ''The Unsung Hero of Psychedelia'' by Lisa Verrico (The Sunday Times Sep 2, 2007)
★ ''The Father of the Underground'' by Garth Cartwright (Daily Telegraph Aug 30 2007)
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