Kevin Ayers born 16 August 1944

Kevin Ayers (16 August 1944 – 18 February 2013) was an English singer-songwriter who was founder member of Soft Machine and a key figure in British psychedelic rock. He produced some outstanding progressive and experimental pop, especially in the 1970s. 

Ayers was born in Herne Bay, Kent, the son of the journalist, poet and BBC producer Rowan Ayers, who later originated the BBC2 rock music programme The Old Grey Whistle Test. After his parents divorced and his mother married a civil servant, Ayers spent most of his childhood in Malaysia, where, he would later admit, he discovered a fondness for the slow and easy life.  At 12, he returned to Britain and settled in Canterbury. There, he became a fledgling musician and founder of the "Canterbury sound", an often whimsical English take on American psychedelia that merged jazz, folk, pop and nascent progressive rock. 

Soft Machine

Ayers's first band was the Wilde Flowers, whose line-up included various future members of Caravan as well as Robert Wyatt and Hugh Hopper, with whom he would go on to form Soft Machine in 1966. Alongside Pink Floyd, Soft Machine played regularly at the UFO club in London, becoming one of the key underground groups of the time.

In 1968, the group toured the US in support of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, a brush with rock stardom and relentless gigging that left the laid-back Ayers weary and disillusioned. He sold his Fender bass guitar to Hendrix's sideman Noel Redding, and fled to Ibiza with fellow Soft Machine maverick Daevid Allen. 

Jimmy & Kevin

Kevin Ayers's debut solo album, Joy of a Toy, released in 1969, concluded with a song called All This Crazy Gift of Time. "All my blond and twilight dreams," sang Ayers in his signature, slightly wayward baritone, "all those strangled future schemes, all those glasses drained of wine ...” It set the tone for much of what was to follow: Ayers's sonorous voice enunciating songs that ran the gamut from wilfully weird to oddly catchy, the whole not quite transcending the sum of the many varied and musically adventurous parts. To all intents and purposes Ayers was a member of Gong in 1971 when the band first toured the UK. He also played an instrumental role in Steve Hillage appearing in Gong in 1972, while Steve was touring France as a member of Ayers's band. 

                             

Ayers recorded four critically well-received albums for the British progressive rock label Harvest, the third of which, Whatevershebringswesing (1972), featured musical contributions from Robert Wyatt and Mike Oldfield and the orchestral arrangements of David Bedford. It included the dramatically melancholy Song from the Bottom of a Well and the catchy, more-roll-than-rock swagger of Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes, which became, if not quite a hit, a signature song of sorts in his subsequent live shows. 

Ayers signed to Chris Blackwell's Island label. The resulting album, The Confessions of Dr Dream and Other Stories (1974), was more focused by his standards, and marked the beginning of a creative partnership with guitarist Ollie Halsall. The following year, Ayers's appearance at the Rainbow Theatre in London alongside John Cale, Brian Eno and Nico was recorded for a subsequent live album entitled June 1, 1974. 

In the late 1970s, as punk took hold in Britain, Ayers seemed to disappear from view, dogged by addiction and what often seemed like a general lack of interest in his own career. He made the lacklustre Diamond Jack and the Queen of Pain (1983) with a group of musicians he befriended in Spain, and the well-received Falling Up (1988) in Madrid. 

In 1993, Ayers toured America twice, usually performing solo with occasional guests, including Daevid Allen, who was also touring America at the same time. Aside from a few New York shows in 1980 with Ollie Halsall, these tours were Ayers' first live performances in America since 1968. In 1998 and 2000 he returned for two California mini-tours, performing in Los Angeles and San Francisco and backed by local musicians. The 2000 concerts had Ayers double-billed with Gong. Longtime friend John Altman joined the Los Angeles band in 2000. 

For a while, he lived a reclusive life in the south of France, before being tempted back to the studio for an album, The Unfairground (2007), featuring contributions from a new generation of musician-fans that included members of Teenage Fanclub, Neutral Milk Hotel and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. 

"I think you have to have a bit missing upstairs," he once said, "or just be hungry for fame and money, to play the industry game. I'm not very good at it." That, of course, was part of his charm. He was a true bohemian and a fitfully brilliant musical drifter. Ayers died in his sleep on 18 February 2013 in Montolieu, France, aged 68. A piece of paper was found by his bedside. On it was written a note, or perhaps an idea for a song: "You can't shine if you don't burn." He did both in his inimitable – and never less than charming – way. 

(Edited from Sean O’Hagan @ The Independent & Wikipedia)